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That's a lot of weight for an A3.
Can't imagine the tranny liking it much without a cooler installed.
The trailer may be 2500 lbs dry but what is GVW when all loaded up?
Propane, black and grey water, and all your stuff.
Then you and the family and stuff in the car?
And at that weight, it'll hardly be sipping fuel
I'd be a bit nervous pulling that kind of weight with a uni body vehicle.
I was nervous pulling a dual axle Uhaul car trailer when I picked up the 911.
I have a V6 4Runner and was at the 5k lb limit. It has a tranny cooler and it still got pretty warm.
All good points, I would only add that the kids are all grown up and wouldn't coming and no need to drive around with water in the trailer.
When adding all these , is it ever taken into consideration the added weight of the car and the trailer? This would come to something like 5700lbs, is this mentioned anywhere, this means the engine and the brakes must move and stop all this mass. Is this the GVW, it's never mentioned anywhere
of note.
I just went to uHaul's website to "mock" rent a trailer.
They're pretty good at matching rental trailers to cars.
Audi A3's don't even appear on their site so they won't even rent to an A3 owner.
Not surprised actualy, thats why I posted here, the information about this is so scarce.
I just went through my user manual and warranty card and no mention of any restriction, on the contrary the manual does allow it and goes through a whole section about how to tow and maintain the vehicule when doing so. Type 1 and type 2 trailers are allowed.
230 lb tongue weight? Are you seriously going to do this?
Sorry, but I've done my share of towing and this IMO is just plain asking for trouble in many ways.
Why, your basing your comment on what, according to the manufacturer I'm well within the specifications of this vehicule, I've had much more weight in the back (two adults) and trunk full of luggage and stuff and it was fine, probably around 600lbs, now I understand that the leverage is way different in the back but imagine having the weight of one large person standing on the tongue, I don't think it's excessif, the car would be mostly empty when towing.
This is a good discussion though, how about using stabilizing bars? Would that help to spread the weight?
im not going to lie, I have towed some heavy shiiit with my tdi.. but I do it within a safe manner and when I am pulling I always do atleast 10mph below the posted limits and give plenty of room to stop..i also try to use trailers with electric brakes as I have a brake controller on my car...
If I was to guess on why they don't want us towing here in the USA, I would have to say its the smaller brake systems that USA cars have compared to EURO cars.... the very first time I towed more then 1k with my car on level ground at 55mph caused my brakes to fade and boiled my brake fluid... I have since installed Porsche Cayenne OEM brakes and when I go to stop with 2k loads.. it stops on a dime..
I just realised that I was only looking for information on the Audi but there tons more info on the Golf. Back to my research.
hey all - this is my first post on the message boards. just wanted to share how much i love my new golf tdi and how awesome a tow vehicle it is for my airstream.
i know it's not a typical tow vehicle for an RV in north america, but without any mods (other than a custom fabricated hitch of course), i get great mileage, zero overheating (i've driven it through the rockies and across the continent) and it's peppiness is only slightly less with a trailer that's the almost the same weight (obviously the airstream has good brakes). i can see why the golf tdi has won awards in the UK for "best tow vehicle".
i do obviously get a lot of weird looks and comments about it
I agree that you are within the specs of the vehicle as published in the manual. The issue is no one produces a Class II hitch for your vehicle and the Class I is only rated for GTW of 2000 and TW of 200 which does not meet your needs at GTW of 2500 and TW of 230 for the trailer you speak of. A swaybar will not help re the use of a Class I in this application.
Only option would be a custom fab a Class II but also agree you would have to be very careful with weight distribution as well re all the extra "gear" for camping.
230lbs on the hitch will likely make the front end come up quite a bit, reducing steering and braking.
Load distribution and swaybars may help, but you may have to get someone to do a custom hitch. Load distribution is supposed to help keep both trailer and tow vehicle level
I've seen a Corolla towing a tent trailer before. Not recommended, but if that's what you got....
Not surprised actualy, thats why I posted here, the information about this is so scarce. 
