ddruker

S4play. Chains are there to help stop you from killing someone if something goes wrong and your trailer comes off the ball...

nickydinardo

ddruker - Did the Dealership do the 'reinforcing' for you?.....and thanks a lot for the reply and information. I really appreciate it my friend.

ddruker

God no - got it done at a local trailer shop - the dealerships and all the way through to MB USA are completely clueless about towing. I think about 0.002% of Mercedes owners in the US tow. And all of them are probably here. Search the forum for hitch reinforcement and you will see a bunch of posts about the various things the folks who tow have done to our trucks...

nickydinardo

Talking about Tongue Weight. The GL is rated at 600#. Is it simple enough to say that I need to stay at or below a Trailer that is 6000# GVWR? Thinking that if 10% of the Trailer weight should be on the tongue for safe towing.

DennisG01

Not necessarily. There is no way to know for sure without weighing it. There is no "hard and fast" rule that tongue weight should be 10%. Plus, you're putting your faith in the person that set the trailer up to be a certain percentage... which again, doesn't have to be a specific % - depending on the type of trailer, there are allowable ranges.

If you're concerned, take the trailer to a certified scale (try looking for a local CAT scale) and measure it. You can also do this at home, by using a bathroom scale, but you'll need to use some leverage/math and not place the tongue directly on the scale since most scales don't go that high. Remember you need to weigh TONGUE weight, not the weight at the jack stand/wheel.

deeperblue

Should be no problem at all, if you use a good sway control. My first towing is using my GL450 to town a trailer about 2 feet longer than yours, and weight similar as yours. No problem at all.

blkgl450x164

Damn

deeperblue

That's a GL550, which has a lot more HP and torque than GL450. Plus, the trailer it tows is not too long, probably shorter than a travel trailer with 26' box size (so receiver ball to rear bumper would be around 30' long).


With GL550's HP and torque, I am pretty sure that owner would feel it it is very easy to pull the trailer as shown in the picture.

DennisG01

Length of the trailer won't have anything to do with this, though. Actually, longer trailers are generally more stable since the wheelbase is longer. EAsier to back-up, too. What really matters is the overall weight of the trailer (including cargo) and the tongue weight.

Regardless of how powerful the engine is, it's still mounted in the same chassis as the other versions of GL's and the same precautions still hold true. Of more importance than pulling power is stability, braking, "sturdiness" of the hitch mounting points and beefiness of the hitch and the "frame" (for lack of a better word) of the vehicle.

deeperblue

Agree that no matter how powerful the engine is, you can't exceed the GVWR and tongue weight rating. However, when everything is in spec weight wise, a more powerful engine will make the towing easier, especially when you need to go long uphill - much easier to maintain speed with a powerful engine, and sometime with a less powerful engine, you will have to run below the speed limit when going uphill because the engine is simply not powerful enough to maintain the speed.

deeperblue

I would like to know, anyone tow heavy trailer with GL450? I mean, a trailer (when loaded) between 6500 - 7000lbs? What's the experience like?

Really want to know this because I am shopping for a travel trailer now.

Thanks!

DennisG01

Completely agree with that. When it comes to towing, I don't think there is such a thing as "too much" power! The only reason I added what I did is because sometimes people reading through forums will only think about "more power" and neglect to think of the safety side of things. Not necessarily you - but others could read that and think all they need to worry about is power. Those are the kind of people that I make sure are BEHIND me when they're towing!

DennisG01

I don't have a 450, so I can't speak from the power standpoint, but I do a lot of towing (primarily boats) and often tow in the 6K+ range with this vehicle, up to the low 7K range. I tow much heavier boats, too - but I use larger trucks for that. From a stability standpoint, I must say that I am VERY impressed with the Merc. I just recently had a boat (probably somewhere between 6K and 6,500lbs) on back and decided to do some VERY quick maneuvers with it. I was on back roads with no one else in the car or other cars around. I was travelling between 40 and 50MPH and did multiple swerving type moves - the kind you would do in an emergency situation like if a deer ran out in front of you. I started slow and progressed faster/harder. Well, I have to say that I was absolutely blown away at how stable the car is during that. I was doing it hard enough that the antilock system would kick in and it really kept the car smooth and secure. Even before the antilock kicked in, it was still quite impressive.

I should mention though, that a key part of this equation is having a properly setup trailer with the right distribution of weight on the axles and the tongue.

deeperblue

Thank you for your reply, however, I am a bit confused. You first said "you don't have a 450, so you can't speak from the power standpoint", then you said "you do a lot of towing ... with this vehicle".

What does "this vehicle" means in your answer?

Towing boat requires less power because travel trailer will have a lot more wind resistance. But maybe when towing uphill the trailer's weight is the dominant factor? I am not sure about this.

I have a GL450 (2012 model, V8 but not the biturbo version).
Last year I rented a 26' trailer (box length), full length is about 29.5', dry weight 5000lb (so loaded weight is probably around 5700-6000lb when we were towing it on our camping trip).

Some people (not this forum, people from some other RV forum) warned me about a short SUV towing a long trailer will likely be very unstable, they suggested I don't exceed 20-21' in box length (full length not exceeding 24'). Because it was a rented trailer and I didn't have my own hitch, the rental dealer just put on some regular WD and sway control hitch (nothing fancy like ProPride or Hensley Arrow). The whole towing experience (about 2K miles round trip, from Washington state to Banff) was really good: not even once did I even feel sway because of wind or other big rig passing by.

I am considering buy a trailer myself, but my preferred size will result in a weight around 6500+ lb (when camping), so I want to know if GL450 can tow 6500lb without much difficulty. Going long uphill at 45-50 miles a hour is fine, that's good enough for me but I guess a GL350 or GL550 should have no trouble maintaining speed at 60-65 mile/hour even under such condition.

DennisG01

"This vehicle"... the one in my signature, a 320. Different engine, so can't help you with the power part of your question. But the rest of the vehicle is the same, so just wanted to add some real life experience of towing on the heavy side (well, "heavy" in relation to what the vehicle is rated for, anyways) and stability.

Boat trailer vs RV trailer... I've thought about this many times and really haven't come to a conclusion (and the few times that I've towed a box trailer, I haven't noticed anything obviously different). For one, the vehicle breaks most of the wind so I "think" that the frontal area of the trailer in question may not matter as much as we might think. Secondly, the rest of the travel trailer is probably MORE aerodynamic than the boat, especially given all the irregular shapes (both top and bottom) of the boat (bow rails, windshield, hull strakes) and also the stern of the boat is extremely unaerodynamic as it's about as far away from a teardrop shape as you can get with the swim platform and engine. Although a travel trailer certainly isn't a "tear drop" back there, either!

Either way, at the speeds we're towing at, I don't think it's making much of a real/tangible difference. The difference is likely negligible.

SamArledge

Mark,

My Ford F250 is too rough and tough for my bad spine. I still race the GTS3 325i. I want to start towing with my 2014 MB GL450 with air suspension. My 25' enclosed trailer with car and gear is about 7,500#. I can add electrical brake controller, not sure who can install the controller. I need help with either mirror extenders or triple camera setup.

You car is beautiful. Come race in Florida!

Thank you for your help,

Sam Arledge
813-763-6821

SamArledge

I want to park the truck and tow my 25' enclosed car hauler with my GL450. I would like to use a triple camera setup. left, right and rear of trailer view with a single monitor sitting on the dash with a button to switch cameras. Any input?
Thanks, Sam in Florida

DennisG01

I think it's easily done if you hard wire the cameras. You can then use a A/V switch to select which camera you want to view. Run the three wires to the A/V switch, then the output to your display. I would imagine there's a way to do this with wireless cameras, but I have never dabbled in that.

3 might be overkill, though. I can definitely see the advantage of having one - I almost put one on my boat (28' Sea Ray Sundancer/cruiser... about 35' of trailer all together) trailer, but ended up selling it before I did. But the two that you would have looking out the sides - you should be able to easily see that with proper side-view mirrors.

MadroneMTN

Are you guys towing with the air suspension in the "raised" position? I read in the manual it says to tow in comfort or auto, but it doesn't say raised or not.
This is for a 2010 GL550

BlownV8

I would not tow in the raised position unless you were going very slow and possibly off road.

DennisG01

From a physics standpoint, raising the vehicle and giving it a higher CG doesn't make sense for towing (at speed on a highway)

Jhernash8584

Was a duplicate, how do you delete? I can't find it.

Jhernash8584

Beautiful car man! I can't tell if it's the same color as mine or not but I just enjoy this bodystyle in the darker color.

BenzBallin

is the 3,000 + towing on everything or tongur,e weight ?