Gx 460 Towing

[jb hammer]

I've been told that your vehicle should have twice the towing capacity for the trailer you intend to tow. Otherwise, it's hard on your transmission and brakes, and you're holding up traffic on the mountain passes. I'm wondering what is a reasonable load for a 2012 GX 460. Thanks for any insights.

[1990LS400]

Completely untrue. I've towed with almost every vehicle I've owned since the 1960's and had a commercial license and towed really big stuff in the 1970's. I've often towed up to the maximum vehicle towing limit and once far exceeded the limit when towing a large boat 50 miles at low speeds.

If the information I found is correct, the towing capacity of your GX is 6,500 pounds. You should be able to tow that much. There even seems to be a subculture who discuss techniques for safely exceeding vehicle towing capacities. There are a variety of online forums dedicated to towing.

Whether you really want to tow a trailer that big in the mountains is another story. You would certainly be fine on main highways though mountains but it can get "interesting" towing a longer trailer around hairpin curves on twisty mountain without scraping rocks and trees and without using up the the lane oncoming traffic is in.

I sometimes tell people to watch "The Long, Long Trailer" movie before they tow a travel trailer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long,_Long_Trailer I saw the film in my grandfather's Roxy Theatre in a small Missouri town back in the 50's.