RV trailer towing safety advice
 

Newbie here to this forum and to towing a trailer. I bought my 2015 q7 3.0 T Quattro with factory tow hitch to specifically to tow a RV trailer. I am now realizing that it doesn’t have the factory tow package. I had a 7 pin receiver installed for trailer brakes and have been looking at brake controllers. I want to purchase an RPod ( 20 ft, dry weight 2785, payload weight 1051, hitch weight 336). When I’ve visited rpod forums people advised me not to tow with this vehicle. I’m asking for your opinions. What do you think? Also, can I get a tow package added to this car? I am not a car girl and reading threads on this forum I can understand only about 20% of what you are saying. What about just adding coolant to the transmission?

Ms. Mom, welcome aboard! I must say your idea of adding coolant to the transmission is thinking outside the box! I like it. (Please don't implement that strategy.)

Doesn't the Q7 have significant tow capacity?

Add'l towing info, Q7: https://www.audiworld.com/forums/q7-...ckage-2939753/

The Q7 has a 660 tongue weight and 6600 max tow limit. The R pod is a small and would be no sweat for the Q7. People tow car trailers with cars at 6k all the time with these in europe. In America its "you need a truck!" for everything.
Regarding brake controller, I am going with dreadlocks advice and purchasing the Redarc Elite Pro. Mainly because you can tuck the mainbody out of the way, it uses an acceleromater to detect any sway, will correct automaticaly, and the gain knob can be placed remotely in a nice discree tlocation.

Um, I guess you can’t do that? But I’ve read about special coolant form tow vehicles?

The R-Pod is way fine to pull behind a Q7. A Q7 with out factory tow is rated at 5500lbs but still 660lb tongue weight. It won't even stress it.

For an inexpensive brake controller, I just installed a Reese Brakeman IV, it was $30 when I bought it and needed the factory harness and a Reese harness. I think I have about $60 in it. It plugged in to my '07 3.6 and worked with out any special wiring. I installed it to the right side of the steering wheel below the ignition switch. It's out of the way but still visible and you can use the manual gain with out issue. The '13 TDI has a Hopkins Insight, which has a small remote display and a small-ish gain controller. Display is on the left of the steering wheel, mounted near the coolant gauge and the gain control is to the right of the steering wheel.

I believe one of our fellow Q7 owners tried one of those and they had issues with it working correctly. I believe it caused a panic situation while on the highway, as it does NOT use a true brake signal, it uses the light signal. The issue arose when the driver switched on the 4-way flashers and the trailer brakes engaged with the flashing lights. I had the Reese installed in about 10 minutes after I assembled the harness.

Well, let's start from the top: your Q7 doesn't have the tow package and you had the 7 pin connector added. What about the actual receiver hitch? I'm assuming that was added as well. The actual non-towing related things that the tow package adds (i.e. larger radiator and fan) are fairly minor and you're looking to tow a small trailer, so I wouldn't sweat it. You should have a brake controller (as mentioned) and most around here like the Redarc as Greg5OH mentioned (I have it, it's terrific). There are plenty of cheaper options, but a wired controller is certainly best. Who did the 7 pin install? How did they wire it up?