![[image] Both cars fit the same amount of people](https://feddit.de/pictrs/image/e42dc262-7043-4d72-b919-e2e83f8729d9.jpeg){kind=link}
Honestly this is absurd. These death machines shouldn’t be legal in europe. That thing doesn’t even fit in the parking space, even though the parking lot has the biggest spaces in the whole city. The Golf Polo is so small in comparison, it could even hide in front of the engine hood of the truck.
EDIT: It’s a Polo and not a Golf, I don’t know my cars, sorry for that!
SUVs and pulling shit is kinda funny you see: Automatic transmissions have shit torque out of the box, they’d overheat pulling simple trailers so they need additional cooling so they need additional space so Yanks buy oversized cars (whether or not they actually pull anything).
Anyhow if America learned to drive manual transmission like the rest of the world they could pull trailers with Golfs, like the rest of the world.
Heck that SUV there looks larger than a Unimog and I can guarantee you it is nowhere even close to Unimog capabilities. Those things are honorary tractors.
My SUV’s towing capacity: 3500lbs
The car version of my SUV (built on the same platform, with the same engine and transmission and actually 4" longer), towing capacity: 2000lbs
Why? Suspension, not transmission.
The Golf you’re talking about has no official towing capacity in North America because North America is actually more strict about towing safety than Europe. I’ve towed with my Jetta though and anything past 1k lbs was a stretch.
A Unimog doesn’t hit highway speeds, they’re road legal farm vehicles.
Transmission oil coolers don’t require much space either and they’re required if you’re towing heavy loads with a manual transmission too, so packaging doesn’t change.
Before sharing your opinion as if it were a fact you should make sure you actually know what you’re talking about.
A Golf has a capacity of 1.5 to 2 tons. That’s more than your SUV. And no American safety standards aren’t higher than Europe’s. It’s just taken as a given that you drive differently when you’re towing something and not merging onto the Autobahn at 120km/h. That’s because we have driver ed and, in fact, you need an extra license to pull anything of any size.
I would never pull more than 1000 pounds with a golf. Irresponsible, unsafe, and unhealthy for the car itself.
Europe:
Golf towing capacity 1600kg
My SUV’s towing capacity 2400kg
And having towed with a manual Jetta I can confirm that only a moron would tow more than 500kg with a Golf and think they’re safe, and the Jetta is longer than the Golf so it’s actually more stable.
And yes, towing standards are more strict in North America (SAE J2807) vs Europe (determined by the manufacturer)
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That’s not a SUV my man, that’s a full size pickup truck with a bed topper. And automatic transmissions can absolutely pull a heavy load without a problem if they are designed for it. Plenty of Americans own manuals, I’ve had many over the years and enjoy them both, but just having a manual transmission is not what makes a car capable of pulling a load. Your never going to pull a serious load in a golf, regardless of the transmission; maybe a little yard trailer or haul a motorcycle, but not a horse, a car, or anything actually considerable for that matter, you would fold the frame up and would never be able to stop it. That’s a ram 2500 btw, it will haul 10,000-15,000 lbs depending on how it’s configured. A unimog is more like a street legal tractor, love em, but it’s in a whole other class than this. Completely different use case, not really comparable. A new unimog probably cost 3x this truck as well.
That’s quite a bit more than a Golf’s 2t, the maximum you can get over here without it being a truck (and requiring a truck license) is 3.5t. 5t is medium lorry category… not pulling, that is, but hauling stuff themselves. If you order a load of bricks or such you generally don’t pick them up, they get delivered by whoever’s selling them with a lorry with a suitable crane.
And no a Unimog is not a street legal tractor, pretty much all tractors are street legal (as long as it’s harvesting season farmers get all kinds of road legality exemptions as long as they drive at snail speeds great-grandpa’s trailer that he pulled with horses is still legal). It’s an Autobahn-legal tractor and appliance carrier. Also drives on rail if equipped for it. And it’s Autobahn-legal by a wide margin, the minimum is 60km/h and they usually do 80 (in line with what lorries are allowed, everything over 3.5t total weight), you can get them with up to 110km/h.
I know exactly what a unimog is, I have drove one. And you are just talking semantics about the legality, here they are considered street legal, as they get a plate assigned. You can drive a tractor on the road but only for the purpose of transport to other fields on Maintence. They do not require a a tag, only a triangle. A basic license here covers all pickup trucks for private use, you only need a CDL for a really big trailer when you are working for hire, or a commercial truck over a certain size. It is kinda crazy to me how people can have 42 foot RVs here pulling a 40 foot double stacked enclosed trailer though with just a basic license though haha
🥱 https://youtube.com/watch?v=DOj5xpZ1H9E
Lol. Most tractors (tractor trailers) are automatic now. To say it needs to be manual otherwise it’s bad at hauling is quite possibly the most ignorant shit I’ve read around here in awhile.
Automatic transmissions are perfectly fine for hauling as long as it’s designed for it.
Genuinely curious, are they automatic or automated?
Tractors tend to have erm Lastschaltgetriebe dunno the English term. Transmissions that can shift under load, without dropping torque. With regards to what I said what’s important is whether they have a fluid coupling as that’s where torque losses and heat generation occur, and they generally don’t, they have dual clutches instead. You also see continuously variable transmissions, as well as plain old manual ones if you simply don’t need fancy.
Computer-automated clutches, sure, but that makes them computer-actuated manuals, not automatic as in something that can select gears in a purely mechanical fashion.
Coming back to Unimogs: Also, in principle tractor transmissions. Number of clutches can get involved because power takeoff points. From a driver’s experience they either shift completely automatically, or you select gears but the computer does the clutching, or, and this is something you don’t really see in tractors, you can also operate the clutch manually because it’s very useful in certain offroad situations. Mechanically, though, as said, they’re manual transmissions, hydraulically actuated, controlled by computer.
Absolute nonsense, the torque converter multiplies torque at low speed, so an automatic with the same gear ratios as a manual will have far more pulling power than a manual.
And a trans cooler is standard on pretty much any automatic vehicle.