Towing and trailer hitch questions?

Hey, I haven't been to active on here as of late but I have a question for all of you. I have an '03 P5 with 105,000 mi manual tran. Since moving into our house and having a yard and having a baby and getting a motorcycle, I have been thinking about picking up a small trailer and putting a hitch on the P5. I'd like to be able to take the yard waste to the dump at the same time I have my daughter in the car and not make my car smell from the 4-6 cans of grass clippings loaded into the back area. I'd also like to be able to take the motorcycle on some longer trips out west but the thought of riding across the great plains makes my butt sore just thinking about it.

I'm looking at the Harbor freight folding trailer which weighs about 250lbs and my bike is about 450lbs wet. Has anyone pulled anything similar with their P5? I know I can get a hitch from several places online. I have the Racing beat cat back exhaust on my car so is that going to be a clearance issue with installing the hitch?

And yes I know that the manual says to NEVER tow with the car. But a lot of cars that aren't suppose to tow, tow thing all the time. Just wanted to see if anyone has done anything similar as to what I want to do and their thought about how it went.

Just puts more stress on a bad engine. As long as it's not constant shouldn't be an issue.

Ride92. Did you try that tow hitch yet? I want to do the same to my p5.

According to the owner's manual, the Gross Vehicle Weight Rating of a Protege5 with a manual transmission is 3,644 lbs. Subtracting the car's 2,716 Curb Weight leaves a maximum payload capacity of 928 lbs. Under normal conditions, (i.e., not pulling a trailer) the car's engine, transmission, clutch, suspension, steering and brakes are all designed to operate safely when the car is at Gross Vehicle Weight.

Your trailer and bike add up to 700 lbs, plus the weight of an average driver (228 lbs or less) will keep you within Gross Vehicle Weight. Add a wife, 2.4 kids and a dog, and you're way over the car's maximum.

Also, these are small cars, and the trailer's mass tugging at the end of the hitch will have a drastic effect on chassis dynamics, particularly when braking, and especially when braking in a turn. Add wet pavement or some loose gravel, and things can get tricky real fast. A trailer equipped with brakes would mitigate this to some extent, but the Harbor Freight trailer doesn't have them.

Basically, if you do this, you'll need to leave the family at home, and drive very, very carefully.

tweety2300 said:

Just puts more stress on a bad engine. As long as it's not constant shouldn't be an issue.

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I happen to like my engine. I don't think the P5 has a bad engine at all

I have a small hitch on my Protege5 and i also have a Racing beat exhaust no clearance issues.

I wouldn't tow your bike, but that light trailer and some yard clippings shouldn't hurt. Just make sure it doesn't weigh more than having a car full of fluids and people (and their bodily fluids).

Ride92 said:

I happen to like my engine. I don't think the P5 has a bad engine at all

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Tell that to my bone stock one that chucked a rod at 175k and burned a qt of oil ever 700 miles. Ford discontinued it in the 90s for a reason.

Or the speed protgs that throw rods on the whopping 7 psi they're on stock

Fsde is a bad engine. The durtec in the newer mazdas isn't much better but at least they make a little bit of power

I drove from Indiana to Seattle Washington with the hatch full of IKEA furniture, top storage and a bike on the back with hitch. It made it up and down the mountains like a champ - not easy like butter, but it did it. You can see the kind of load it had by comparing the back wheels with the front.

The hatch included IKEA furniture: a bed frame, coffee table, computer desk, some cabinet things, full size computer and monitors, my clothes/blankets, other random tidbits and more - it was cram packed.

This is the hitch I got:
http://search.cartserver.com/search...ywords=2002&keywords_2=MAZDA+PROTEGE-5&GO=GO!

Depending on the size of your moto, I'd get something like this:
http://www.harborfreight.com/400-lb-receiver-mount-motorcycle-carrier-99721.html