Cayenne Towing Imagine 17 MKE

[dkayak]

We're towing our Imagine 17 MKE with a 2017 Cayenne and a Fastway e2 round bar WDH. On our last trip we made 3 passes over the Cat scale to see how our weights worked out fully loaded. This photo shows the 3 scale results in blue and the calculated values in the green cells, along with trailer/TV capacities.



Tongue weight is our limiting factor, as expected. The Touareg-Q7-Cayenne platform allows 617 or 770 lb, varying by model and year for no clear reason. They're all rated to tow 7700 lb. I spent an evening browsing 60 pages of threads on it on the Airstream Forum. My take is 617 lb is the European standard 8% maximum, and 770 lb is a 10% value often assigned to accommodate the US goal of 10% minimum. It's such a mess that VW will even send you a new sticker upon request to "upgrade" your receiver from 617 to 770 lb. Anyway, I'd resolved to live within the 617 lb limit with occasional excursions closer to 770 lb, as needed.

The scale results suggest this won't be necessary as we're only at 560 lb. Now we'll probably shift some gear out of the TV and into the pass through to put that weight on the tongue rather than directly over the rear axle. We've had no issues with sway, even in 18 mph winds gusting to 25 mph or so. It pulls well, easily accelerates up 6% grades, and braking feels strong too. We're only pulling 70% of the Cayenne's rated towing capacity.

But I do have some questions on weight distribution. Looking at the table above, you'll see the hitch redistributed only about 80 lb to the front axle. Somehow I'd expected to see a greater weight shift. However, we're about 330 lb under both the front and rear axle weight limits. The rear fender is about 3/4" lower than unhitched and the front is largely unchanged (measurement was tough due to an uneven concrete floor near a drain). After installing the bars, the rear lifts enough to reduce the sag by more than 50%, which is what Fastway says is the goal. Here's a photo.



Maybe this is as good as it gets? Or should we consider an Andersen or other premium WDH? The Andersen has the advantage of being lighter and probably puts the ball a bit closer to the bumper.