[Robert.Mauro]

We towed a 4,395 pound GVWR Heartland Edge travel trailer with the Ascent today. It didn't have the slightest of problems.

Yes, of course it felt like we were towing something, but the Ascent handled it well, even with 20mph winds and very much higher gusts. The Ascent easily maintained control, and we loved the Tekonsha Prodigy P3 brake controller.

This is the same trailer that ate the transmission on a Ford Explorer that had the towing kit.

We have a bunch of video we'll post later on my Subaru Ambassador page.

 

[Subiesailor]

Interesting

 

[Robert.Mauro]

People joked about Subaru's trailer sway demo, but, we experienced their Trailer Sway Assist system in action today, and it works.

Anyways, here's the specs on the trailer.

 

[TheRays]

Sweet! I can’t wait to see the video. I’ve been torn between a particular 19’ boat I’ve been looking at versus the 21’ model. The 19’ is about 3800 lbs trailer and fuel included. The 21’ version is about 4200 lbs. This gives me hope that I can still go with the longer boat.

 

[jimbooth]

We towed a 4,395 pound GVWR Heartland Edge travel trailer with the Ascent today. It didn't have the slightest of problems.

What kind of terrain were you towing in? Was part of your trip highway? What speed did you go? Do you leave it in D or do you manually keep it in a lower (fake) gear?

Lots of questions but our Sienna requires we drop it to 4 instead of D and keep speed around 55. It does 2600rpm at 60 and feels pretty comfortable there.

 

[pro10is]

We towed a 4,395 pound GVWR Heartland Edge travel trailer with the Ascent today. It didn't have the slightest of problems.

Yes, of course it felt like we were towing something, but the Ascent handled it well, even with 20mph winds and very much higher gusts. The Ascent easily maintained control, and we loved the Tekonsha Prodigy P3 brake controller.

This is the same trailer that ate the transmission on a Ford Explorer that had the towing kit.

We have a bunch of video we'll post later on my Subaru Ambassador page.

This is valuable info. The primary reason I chose the Ascent was to pull a travel trailer which I intend to purchase in a year or so. The GVWR should be around 4,000 pounds so it's important to me to know for certain that the Ascent can handle it for long distances.

 

[MAGNUMB]

Sweet! I can’t wait to see the video. I’ve been torn between a particular 19’ boat I’ve been looking at versus the 21’ model. The 19’ is about 3800 lbs trailer and fuel included. The 21’ version is about 4200 lbs. This gives me hope that I can still go with the longer boat.

Fishing boats are relatively easy to tow compared to camper that are not as aerodynamic. I tow a 21' boat and it handles it just fine in the flat lands and bet it could tow a 7,000lbs boat as long as things stay flat. I just wouldn't trust the trans to handle that weight for tens of thousands of miles.

 

[Robert.Mauro]

What kind of terrain were you towing in? Was part of your trip highway? What speed did you go? Do you leave it in D or do you manually keep it in a lower (fake) gear?

Lots of questions but our Sienna requires we drop it to 4 instead of D and keep speed around 55. It does 2600rpm at 60 and feels pretty comfortable there.

I plan on doing a detailed post as soon as I ingest and edit all the video. The inside camera shows the speedometer and tachometer (when my hand or hands aren't in the way).

But, to answer some of what you asked, we never once had to use manual "shift" mode. It's Long Island, so, the terrain is mostly long hills changing in elevation by 200-300 feet (our lowest was about 60 feet, to a high of 330 feet). Some of it was in a very hilly neighborhood that had 20-50 foot elevation changes in just a couple hundred feet (see elevation map attached below) - we did Wyandanch in both directions and accelerated up the hills from the stop signs at the bottom. So, no mountains - alas, there's none to test on here.

In about 65 miles, we did half highway and half stop and go side roads of varying speeds (25-55mph). The Ascent was easily able to do a perfect 65 on the highway using ACC in adaptive mode.

 

[Robert.Mauro]

This is valuable info. The primary reason I chose the Ascent was to pull a travel trailer which I intend to purchase in a year or so. The GVWR should be around 4,000 pounds so it's important to me to know for certain that the Ascent can handle it for long distances.

Well, we only did 65 miles... but, the car sat in its perfect temp range of 192-197.8, usually settling on 194.0.

 

[MAGNUMB]

Well, we only did 65 miles... but, the car sat in its perfect temp range of 192-197.8, usually settling on 194.0.

Is that oil temp or coolant?

 

[Robert.Mauro]

Ugh good question...

Is that oil temp or coolant?

Good question. It should have been oil temp, but I need to double check what I had Torque set to, because now that you mention it, I am not sure if I got distracted with the other dials when I was thinking about changing it (coolant is the default temp gauge in Torque). In retrospect, I may have messed up and left the coolant display while I was trying to find a transmission one. I'll check when I reconnect to the car.

 

[Robert.Mauro]

It's been a looooong day at work, and I've got a very early meeting tomorrow. I won't be getting to the videos today after all. The most impressive ones are from the inside cam (I ran with 3 cams), but they're on my Sony Handycam, which has a proprietary AVC3 audio codec, and splits the video into a gazillion (35 actually) 2gb files, so, I need to use their proprietary software to import it as one video, and then export it with an audio codec everything else understands.

I bought the thing ages ago, and I can't speak highly enough for what it can do, besides being waterproof and nicely drop resistant, and great for 1080p with a real optical zoom and a decent digital zoom, and a video stabilizer mode that takes all the fun out of off-road videos (it's the weirdest thing when it locks on the horizon, and the horizon never moves, while the hood bounces up and down, even though the camera isn't moving in relationship to the hood). So, annoying Sony codecs and software aside, the little beast of a camera has done a great job for many years, when I'm doing fun outdoors and off-road stuff where we're not strapping a Red or Ursa Mini to a vehicle.

Anyways, tangent aside... short version is, I've got a photo shoot in Tarrytown tomorrow after work, and probably won't get to ingesting and editing the video until Wednesday or Thursday.

Sorry.

 

[BengalsFan]

This is good information, thank you for being so detailed in your responses.

Looking forward to the video footage... when you have those spare moments to get it posted.

 

[Soca]

It's been a looooong day at work, and I've got a very early meeting tomorrow. I won't be getting to the videos today after all. The most impressive ones are from the inside cam (I ran with 3 cams), but they're on my Sony Handycam, which has a proprietary AVC3 audio codec, and splits the video into a gazillion (35 actually) 2gb files, so, I need to use their proprietary software to import it as one video, and then export it with an audio codec everything else understands.

I bought the thing ages ago, and I can't speak highly enough for what it can do, besides being waterproof and nicely drop resistant, and great for 1080p with a real optical zoom and a decent digital zoom, and a video stabilizer mode that takes all the fun out of off-road videos (it's the weirdest thing when it locks on the horizon, and the horizon never moves, while the hood bounces up and down, even though the camera isn't moving in relationship to the hood). So, annoying Sony codecs and software aside, the little beast of a camera has done a great job...

Sorry. /forum/images/smilies/frown.gif

Why does Sony insist on making things so complicated!

I just updated the firmware of my 1 month old A7R3 and it took 40 mins to figure out. On my Canon it takes 5 to download and transfer to a card.

 

[Robert.Mauro]

Finally ingested and editing

Well, I'm finally working on editing the towing videos, but, the Sony PM Home software decided to update the camera and wipe it of all local files (the "in vehicle" cam), but I have an hour and a half of video from it from the memory card, as well as an hour from each of the two outside cams. I'm rendering the edit previews now, but that's a lot of quadHD footage and HD footage, so, it's slowly chugging along. What I lost was the final leg of the trip, which included a faster "attack" of those hills that you will see at the start of the journey in the beginning of the final video.

Anyway, once the editing preview generation is done, I can align the videos, drop out the boring parts and render a final video that shows you all three cams at once.

 

[Robert.Mauro]

First video!!!

Here's the first five minutes of us testing the 2019 Subaru Ascent towing a fully loaded 2011 Heartland Edge (4,395 pounds). Full water tank, almost full grey water tank, camping gear, sleeping gear, pots and pans, dishes, TV and more.

The Ascent had no problems, even on the very hilly road at the beginning, or making highway speeds on Route 454/347. One of the things that was an utter joy was the steering. It made controlling the Ascent and Edge a dream.

Later, I will render out the parts accelerating up the up ramp and entering the highway, so you have an idea of just how easily it got to speed and maintained it.

 

[lazydaze$$]

Here's the first five minutes of us testing the 2019 Subaru Ascent towing a fully loaded 2011 Heartland Edge (4,395 pounds). Full water tank, almost full grey water tank, camping gear, sleeping gear, pots and pans, dishes, TV and more.

The Ascent had no problems, even on the very hilly road at the beginning, or making highway speeds on Route 454/347. One of the things that was an utter joy was the steering. It made controlling the Ascent and Edge a dream.

Thanks for video presentation...all looks very smooth.....noticed you did not use rearview mirror camera, but used the front Subaru installed camera...any comments?

 

[Robert.Mauro]

Here's the first five minutes of us testing the 2019 Subaru Ascent towing a fully loaded 2011 Heartland Edge (4,395 pounds). Full water tank, almost full grey water tank, camping gear, sleeping gear, pots and pans, dishes, TV and more.

The Ascent had no problems, even on the very hilly road at the beginning, or making highway speeds on Route 454/347. One of the things that was an utter joy was the steering. It made controlling the Ascent and Edge a dream.

Thanks for video presentation...all looks very smooth.....noticed you did not use rearview mirror camera, but used the front Subaru installed camera...any comments?

I didn't use it at all. The Edge is around 9.5 feet tall. All I could see was it and the bike rack mounted to it in the rear view. :sad:

The side towing mirrors worked well though.

Eddie and I were talking about how cool it would be if there was a camera feed from the trailer to the mirror though. We're going to do just that from the trailer to the infotainment system in his F150 at some point, when we find time.

 

[Charliew]

Thanks for sharing your experience. Do you know the tongue weight of your trailer? It must be approaching 500lb? Would you consider using weight distribution?

 

[Robert.Mauro]

Thanks for sharing your experience. Do you know the tongue weight of your trailer? It must be approaching 500lb? Would you consider using weight distribution?

Tongue weight was probably 380ish, maybe 400 pounds.

I absolutely would not consider a weight distributing hitch. We learned why Subaru say to never use one.

The trailer sway control of the Ascent is utterly amazing. We had some strong gusts around 30-40mph, and the Ascent would "squat" the appropriate wheel to prevent sway (individual wheel braking). It was utterly AMAZING. We've felt more sway and yanking with the weight distributing hitch on the F150. It was a neat and unique feeling for us. The trailer would be pushed one way, and instantly, the Ascent would squat an opposing corner, and the car and trailer would continue straight as an arrow as if nothing happened. If we weren't paying attention for it, we wouldn't have likely noticed that the wind tugged the trailer and would be left wondering why a corner squatted.

I would not want to mess with that by putting weight where Subaru's system does not want it or by making the vehicles one rigid unit.

And keep in mind, it managed that with a 4,395 pound tow load.