2014 Towing advice
 

I am planning on using my 2014 Q7 with the factory supplied hitch rated at 6,625 In per label on hitch and in the owner's manua to tie a 2900 In car on a U Haul 2200 Ib trailer.

The total drive time is about 12 hours, but will be only doing 6 hours a day.

Questions:

. Should I have any concerns towing aprox 5100 pounds?
. I had a recent checkup that included all fluids, and the brakes have less than 4000 miles on them. What else should I worry about?
. Any other pointers or advice?

Many thanks in advance
Sam
2014 Q7 Premium Plus

Is it a TDI? When we drive cross country with a 5x8 U-Haul we burned a bunch of AdBlue and had to refill at 5700 miles since last oil change vs 10k miles normally.

Make sure you have the electrical connector installed in the back already. It should look like this:

http://www.etrailer.com/Custom-Fit-V...leid=201563765

If you've got a gasser I'd say you'll be just fine at that weight and limited cd of an auto trailer.

Grey

It is a gasser...

Thanks Gary.

Make sure you have an electrical connector on the back next to the hitch. It looks like this:

http://www.etrailer.com/Custom-Fit-V...leid=201563765

Grey

yep, I just looked it up today... will pick one up.

My other concern is that I will be driving across Pennsylvania with some steep climbs. I wonder if the ~290 pounds of torque will do the trick?

5100# requires trailer brakes, you'll need to install a brake controller and make your own harness to hook it up.. since its a uHaul I would suggest at least testing it with a multimeter before going to pickup the trailer.

Last uhaul I pulled (steel car trailer) had hydro surge brakes. No controller required (but I have one for my Haulmark). They should double check. Back when I installed my brake controller, I posted up how to do it on here, FWIW.

No offense (and OT a bit), but that little trailer would have had to have tandem 5k axles and 16" wheels/tires to safely tow that much on the highway. I do heavy trucks daily (19.5k to 158k lb GVWR), I've read the lit from axle, wheel and tire manufacturers about speed limits and GAWR's of their components. None of them would have condoned a small enclosed utility trailer (likely rated at 5k or 7k depending on tire size/load range, wheel rating and axle rating), and you could have easily blown a tire even with max inflation pressures due to heat build. I know what your weight ticket said, and you can easily skew those readings depending on how you pull onto (or off) the scale and not realize it. I've seen it before many times when people scale our customers trucks.

But that said, I'd have no issue with pulling 5100lbs across the country with any 4.2 or 3.0 Q7, all three have Aisin transmissions and would be rated to either 6600 or 5500 lbs depending if it has factory tow or not. I'd run the 3.6 if it had factory tow to pick up the extra cooling capacity or if it had an aftermarket trans cooler to keep the ZF running cooler when things got hilly.

I recommend the OEM. You can find on Ebay from an Audi Dealer in Florida with free shipping.