this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2024
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Which is why automatics have torque converters and manuals have clutches. It's almost like we've come full circle or something!
Millions and millions of vehicles are driving on the world's roads right now, happily tooling along under the sound mechanical and physical principles known as "reality," completely heedless of your apparent inability to understand it.
Yes and a manual can slip the clutch, it's built for that. A torque converter can't slip the lock, it's not build for that, it has to stay open. And that generates a fuckton of heat.
And? Come on, you're almost there. Just two more neurons to put together:
That's why the transmission cooler is there.
Wrap up: Your original claim that Americans "can't" tow due to predominantly driving automatic transmission cars, in addition to being an uncreative and tired thinly veiled attempt at insulting Americans, is not only wrong but also prima facie absurd.
And is the cooler in cars big enough to have noticeable towing capacity, or do you need a bigger one that only really fits a truck? How much additional radiator area do you need per additional ton of towing capacity (overcoming momentum, not tongue weight that can easily be zero just get a four-wheeled trailer)? For manuals, that's zero additional radiator area. For automatics, I'll leave the maths to you.
Yes, it is. Do you realize that manufacturers publish a maximum towing capacity as part of their specifications for every vehicle? This is publicly available information, right there on the internet. It's not a secret. The required surface area for the cooler is designed right in by the manufacturer for the transmission to work for the vehicle's application. This not a case of something "extra" being added. It's just how cars with automatic transmissions are built to begin with.
The published towing capacity for most vehicles that are available in both automatic and stick are exactly the same. Would you care to guess why that is? You could have figured it out for yourself if you would bother to actually do some extremely minimal internet research instead of continuing to shoot your mouth off on whatever this ill-informed little crusade of yours is.
Your initial claim is false. End of discussion. Just stop. You're making a fool of yourself.
And have you compared EU spec manuals vs. American model versions? When it comes to specs there's another big difference which I didn't mention: Tongue weight. Which isn't towing capacity and EU spec trailers have drastically lower tongue weight for their rated carrying capacity: Because we actually pull loads with light vehicles. As already said, put four wheels on a trailer and the tongue weight is practically zero. Our trailers also come with brakes.
What, so now you're trying to split hairs over the regulatory differences between the US and Europe to attempt to distract from the fact that you still haven't addressed making the following demonstrably false statements?
For the benefit of anyone else reading this, the difference in rated tow capacities between US spec and Euro spec vehicles is, as you have almost correctly observed, down to regulations and the trailer designs and not the tow vehicles themselves. There is no difference between the cars or their transmissions mechanically (nor the laws of physics -- anywhere on the planet, I guarantee it). European regulations have two critical differences between the US, to wit:
This is because it is dangerous to tow a low tongue weight trailer at high speed. America has no such speed or tongue weight restriction, and we also have interstates with 85 MPH speed limits. Thus our target tongue weight is roughly 15% of the total load, largely in order to keep the trailer under control at speed and prevent it from snaking all over the place and rolling itself and the vehicle. All other things being equal this ultimately winds up in the tongue weight being the limiting factor for most unibody vehicles. If your tongue weight is limited at e.g. 200 pounds, which it is for my bog standard Subaru Crosstrek, solving for the estimated tow capacity assuming 15% of it is 200 lbs would be roughly 1333 lbs. What's the US spec rated tow capacity of a Crosstrek? Oh wow, it's 1500 pounds. Imagine that. (For both the manual and automatic/CVT versions, by the way.)
FYI, we also have trailer brakes over here, and many states require them to be used on loads exceeding 3000 pounds. Below that, the trucks most people use have adequate mass and braking capacity to handle towing trailer loads in and of themselves. It turns out, the actual reason Americans tow with trucks is because Americans tow with trucks, and our towing regulations and trailers are designed around the expectation of towing with trucks. It's a just a cultural thing. No need to try to make it complicated nor make up fictitious bullshit about automatic transmissions.
But none of this has anything to do with your original assertions re: automatic vs. manual transmissions. I'm not arguing any other points with you.
As a matter of fact, I'm not arguing any more points with you at all. You have no idea how cars work. Go away.
I'm saying that to pull heavy loads they need active cooling. And they do. They also have cooling when not designed for heavy pulling, but they don't need as much cooling because all the mechanics you literally agree with me over: More cooling is needed under heavier loads. This isn't some far-out concept it's physics, it's what happens when you put oil in essentially a blender, it gets hot.
Then, and this seems to get ignored by you: Americans aren't pulling heavy loads with cars. Why? Do you have an alternative explanation?
1270 kg over here (with trailer brakes, 12% incline). That's nearly twice. Tongue weight: 80kg. That's less.
And that's a Japanese SUV. You can get VW Golfs with 1.8t towing capacity, that's a compact car. Also pure combustion ones, the Crosstrek is a hybrid it's easy to get low-end torque with one of those and transmission is a whole another topic.
That's why trailer brakes exist and don't pretend 140km/h are fast... though with a trailer you're generally limited to 80 or 100 here, depending on make and whatnot. Maybe you should introduce speed limits, regulations for brakes on trailers, etc. Maybe you would if your small cars could even tow that much, physically. You should also start to use the left lane for overtaking only and get rid of those ludicrous amounts of stop signs and build your cities so that people can move in them, not just cars, but I'm digressing.
1200 kg isn't a heavy load.
For a lorry, no. For a private vehicle, yes. Standard driving licenses only allow for up to 3.5t combined permissible weight (that is, vehicle and trailer plus maximum load), 750kg of those for trailer and load. If you want to drive a combination of vehicle and trailer individually up to 3.5t (so total 7t) you need a trailer license, anything above that you need a lorry license with all bells and whistles such as regular medical checkups.
Or, differently put: A standard VW Golf can pull almost thrice as much as most drivers are allowed to pull.
A small load for a private vehicle would be a small empty caravan, or a light trailer with some bikes. A Smart Fourtwo can pull 550kg which will definitely look silly but is otherwise perfectly reasonable, that's enough for both applications.
What a sad country.
Also, towing heavy, actually heavy, not 1200 kg, went away in cars about 1990. Emissions regulations, really. 1985 olds, Chrysler, could safely yank around a 4500 kilogram horse trailer. That all went away, now it's cars that could maybe 1000 lbs amd trucks that can pull 5 to 15000 kg loads. Btw, the old auto tow transmissions like the hydromatic 400, didn't have a lock up at all. Jaguar used to buy them.from Chevy for use in the old XJS v12s .