Towing On All Four Wheels

Toyota, for instance, makes several vehicles that would seem ideal for flat towing. For hearty off-road adventurers there are the FJ Cruiser and Land Cruiser. But while they're fine on their own on rough terrain, the company's four-wheel-drive trucks don't make the grade when it comes to flat towing.

"It all has to do with transmission lubrication," says Dave Lee, a senior engineer and towing specialist at the University of Toyota, which is the automaker's technical training facility.

No Toyota, Lexus or Scion vehicle with an automatic transmission is suitable for dinghy towing, Lee says. And the company's manual transmission vehicles aren't all designed the same. Some require continuous operation of a pump inside the transmission to keep the moving parts lubricated, and those can't be towed four-down.

With automatic transmissions and pump-dependent manuals, the output shaft isn't being lubricated unless the vehicle's engine is running, and severe transmission damage can occur if they are towed with the driven wheels rolling along the highway, turning the driveshaft or, in the case of front-wheel-drive cars, the half-shafts.

Typically, a vehicle can be pulled dinghy style if it has rear-wheel drive and a manual transmission, or four-wheel drive and a manual transfer case that can be placed in neutral, says Chrysler Group spokesman Nick Cappa. Chrysler's Jeeps and Ram pickups are popular dinghy vehicles.

The best way to make sure a vehicle is suited to flat towing is to check the owner's manual. Virtually every automaker states clearly in every model's manual whether it can be towed on all four wheels or whether it must be hauled on a flatbed truck or trailer or pulled "two-down" with the driven wheels off the ground.

Aftermarket Add-Ons
If your vehicle isn't suitable for flat towing, there are devices, including driveshaft decouplers and transmission lubrication pumps that can be added to some automatic transmission vehicles to handle the job.

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