[Mike]

Installed the hitch myself, about 3 hours. Pulled wave runners no problem through mud. Rained for 3 days, trucks were getting stuck. Not the Ascent. Only issue I ran into was I couldn't back up far enough with stock ball. Exhaust was under water by the time boats were deep enough to off load.

 

[MAGNUMB]

Installed the hitch myself, about 3 hours. Pulled wave runners no problem through mud. Rained for 3 days, trucks were getting stuck. Not the Ascent. Only issue I ran into was I couldn't back up far enough with stock ball. Exhaust was under water by the time boats were deep enough to off load.

Nice setup! Is that the base model?

 

[Mike]

Nice setup! Is that the base model?

Thanks, it's the Canadian Touring Model with Captain's Chairs. I believe the Premium Model in the US.

 

[Kevin Williams]

I usally get 15mpg when towing either my pop-up camper or my mustang on a trailer. But both of those are much shorter than a travel trailer, so not pushing as much air out of the way.

I'm definitely happy with mine and tow up and down the mountains regularly, even with 3,500 to 4,500 lbs loaded.

My GMC 2500 would get 9-11mpg when towing, so I'm ahead of the game there.

 

[Raimondo D'Ambrosio]

This question is for folks that have towed trailers/boats with the Ascent. What has our experience been in terms of performance? Does it handle mountains and climbs well? How about passing? Performance on dirt roads? I am concerned the 4 cylinder turbo might struggle. We have a camper that might weight 2500-3500 lbs fully loaded.

I used my Subaru Ascent to tow a 3250lb RPOD trailer up and down hills. I found that the car had plenty of power to tow the trailer and all the cargo and passengers, but the limitation was the weight on the hitch. When I first hooked up the trailer with the car fully loaded the posterior wheels sagged visibly because there was too much weight on the back axel. To fix that I had to unload the white water tank of the RPOD (which is toward the hitch and therefore weights heavily on it), and move some luggage from the car to the back to the RPOD, behind its axel. After this rebalancing, the back axel was happy, no wheel sagging, and we had no issues other than strong winds pushing us like a sail. We really did not feel safe going faster than 50mph, and sometimes we slower down even further because of the wind.
I hope it helps.

 

[Robert.Mauro]

The rear axle is supposed to drop when there's load on it. If you balance the trailer so that the rear axle does not "sag", then you're removing too much tongue weight. You must go by weights and percents to properly load a trailer. Stay under 500 pounds tongue weight and the cargo limit of the Ascent, and stay at 8-11% tongue weight (as a percent of trailer's current weight/GTW), preferably towards 11%.

If you load up the rear of the trailer too much, you will experience sway.