Will a Civic pull a fourwheeler?

Right now I have 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4x4 that I got to pull my Polaris
Sportsman four wheeler to different sites and it does a great job at this,
but the problem is I'm going back to college to soon will be doing a lot of
driving every day to classes, about an hours commute each way. The problem
is the Jeep is not great at getting good gas mileage for all the driving I
will be doing and have been test driving many small cars. I really like the
2001 and above Civics and have found many for sale so was wondering if I
trade my Jeep in on a good used one could I put a tow hitch on the Civic and
still pull my small trailer with the four wheeler on it every once in while.
I think the weight of the trailer and Sportsman would be under 1000 pounds.
Can't really afford to keep two vehicles at the same time. Thanks for any
advice on the pulling of the Civics.

 

These guys (www.hitchesonline.com) list Class I hitches only for various
Civics. That should be good for 2000 lb trailer weight and 200 lb tongue
weight. I'm sure you realize that the trailer will be much more noticeable
with the Civic than the Jeep. You may not be comfortable, even if it is
within the permitted limits. Do you have any four-wheeler friends with
comparable cars?
Dan

(This account is not used for email.)

 

Trailer towing capacities tend to be spec'ed more conservatively in the
US than elsewhere. The European 5-door Civic Hatch back (not the same as
any US variety but similar in shape to the 3 door Si hatch back) with
the 1.4 liter engine has a curb weight of 1120 kg and is rated to tow
1200 kg with a manual transmission. The current US 4-door Civic DX
(lightest of the 4-door varieties) has a 1.7 liter engine and a curb
weight of 1112 kg.

I have no comparison of brake systems etc., but it would seem likely
that the US Civic could handle a 1000 lb trailer with relative ease.

 

I can tell you about a problem that I had many years ago while towing a U
Haul trailer behind my 6 cyld. Chevy Nova. The trailer was packed with
lots of stuff--including a large motorcycle and furniture. When I went the
speed limit--I could feel and see the trailer moving from side to side--I
think this is called jack knifing. When I backed off on the speed--the
jack knifing would stop. I almost had several accidents. After about 300
miles, I noticed that both of the back tires had lost almost all the
threads. After my trip came to an end, I had to buy two new back tires.
Needless to say, it was a bad experience.

 

I call it "the dance of doom." I don't know what the real term is, but it
often results from too much weight forward in the trailer - high "tongue
weight." It makes the front wheels of the towing vehicle light, causing the
pair to oscillate like that. Very scary and quite dangerous, since
significant deceleration makes it worse by shifting more of the trailer
weight onto the tongue. The old unbelted bias-ply tires were especially bad
for that. And of course the ratio of towing vehicle weight to towed weight
gets into the picture. When my (retired) partner was towing our snow cat
trailer (about 12K lbs on the truck scale) behind his F350 company truck, I
saw it starting the dance of doom at 55 mph going down a hill. Now it is
towed behind a 38K lb line truck and is no problem.

Mike

 

It should pull it without a problem.