Subaru Outback towing Jet Ski

Sevs753

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'13 Subaru BRZ, '04 GMC Yukon
The title pretty much says it all. This Fall, I'm thinking about selling my Suzuki Grand Vitara ('01) and buying a '00-'03 Subaru Outback. My main question is if it would be able to safely tow a a single jetski. The technical specs say it can tow 2k lbs but that doesn't help me much. Would I be able to tow the Jet Ski safely without causing a huge strain on the car or would a jet ski be too much for it?
Other facts worth mentioning: The Subaru will have a manual gearbox and the only other things to tow would be equipment needed for the jetski and 2 or 3 teenagers (including myself, the driver)
 
How big is the Jet Ski? Which engine will the Subaru have?
 
The jet ski is a 96 Polaris SLT 780. It's a 3 seater. other than that, i don't know much else.
the subaru will probably have the 2.5L H4 engine.
 
Google says the Jet Ski weighs 274kg. Add a trailer and some other stuff and you should still be below half your 2000 pounds.
 
they all seem to agree that the thing will gulp fuel like mad when towing.

Adding 25% more fuel for a heavier, significantly less aerodynamic vehicle is quite an obvious result - every car will consume more when towing. Big cars will of course suffer less in terms of percentage increase in consumption, because the weight and drag impact is less compared to the weight and drag of the car itself. Tow a trailer with a P50 and it will use all its fuel for the trailer, tow a trailer with a Range Rover and a lot of the fuel will be used for the car.


Somehow I think you're going for an overkill solution here if you switch to a larger engine than 123kW just because you want to tow a small trailer occasionally.
Did you tow that Jet Ski with your Grand Vitara? Did that do alright, and what is that rated at? Random googling tells me 680kg, but I don't know if that's for your exact car. If that really is the figure for your car then the tiny-engined Subaru will have a significantly higher rating than your Grand Vitara (+33%).
 
ok, thanks for the replies. The spec sheet saying 2000lbs didn't mean much to me because i don't have much experience towing and that's been using my parents truck. Since its a Jet Ski, i wouldn't think fuel consumption would be as bad as they're saying in those links but even then, your going to get worse fuel economy on pretty much any vehicle. Besides, its not even a 10mile round trip to the lake I'd be taking it to.

edit: i haven't towed anything with the Grand Vitara yet. The Grand Vitara is just a really terrible car that i want to get rid of but i still want to be able to tow the jet ski which is why i'm looking at an Outback.
 
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For a 10 mile round trip you do not need to worry about
* fuel consumption
* highway speed
* long-distance wear
* anything
 
10 miles? For 10 miles you can tow anything with any car. I once had to pull an ELBE-Strom Generator with one of these tiny Suzuki vans. Was neither fun nor good for the clutch, but it did work.
 
My family has owned 2 Subaru Outbacks that have been used for towing various boats, and our experiences have been... mixed. Some of this is not the car's fault, but still wasn't a good thing.

First one was a '98 2.0L (or closest, this is from my memory and I was 6 at the time) 5 speed manual, which we towed two boats with. First one (3 metre boat, not too many fancy bits so it would have been fairly light) was a breeze, it could handle it (I daresay this would be the most relevant example for you). Second boat was a 4.75m Quintrex Bayhunter Caprice, with as 75 hp Yamaha, canopy, the works. We blew the clutch up on that one, so we sold it and got our second (and current) Outback

This one is an '02 H6 3.0L Luxury with a 4 speed auto (they didn't do manuals in this one due to "a lack of space for the manual gearbox"). This will tow almost anything with no troubles, artially due to the auto-box (but mostly due to the engine that just seems to be made for it). Downsides? It guzzles fuel as if it was going out of fashion (something like 11L per 100km or similar) and you can't turn AWD off (ala Suzuki SX4- this helps add to the fuel problem). We are currently in the process of selling ours now as it is too big for us (rarely have 4 people in it and we don't need as big a car to tow our new smaller boat) and small niggles (eg CV boots/joints or whatever they are called) are costing us a ton in repairs.

Now, the main reason why the clutch on our first Scooby was because of a factor not many peopletake into account (it was one we sure as hell didn't!)- the "conditions" (for want of a better term) that the towing will occur in. Moving our boat into and out of its carport is a nightmare- it's a cramped little concrete slab on the side of our house, and you have to reverse it up a not too steep (but still significant) grass hill to get it in there. Now this may have partially been my dad's skill level (but I doubt it, he's pretty damn good), but the clutch just couldn't handle that sort of reversing and parking- the constant clutch in/out and holding at friction point to make sure we didn't crash the boat into the side of our house/the fence just killed it. Even an empty trailer would cause us to start to smell the burning. So if getting the jet ski in/out of where it is stored is problematic and harsh on the car/clutch in any way, a manual may not be the best option. But that's just my experience, and usual towing of a load within the limits of the car won't do that to a manual IMO.

Subarus from that era are nice cars though, we were really sad to let go of our 98 one and we still see it being driven around by the current owner today (and feel a pang of sorrow!)
 
My uncle used to tow a bloody massive powerboat with a 1.6 litre Suzuki Grand Vitara 3-door. Granted, it wasn't ideal, but it worked. It was never towed long distances, probably just like you will be doing. So a 2.5 litre Subaru will be fine.
 
Actually, i think 11 liters/100km while towing a 500 kilo boat is quite a usual fuel consumption, even a bit on the good side.
 
Actually, i think 11 liters/100km while towing a 500 kilo boat is quite a usual fuel consumption, even a bit on the good side.

The 11 litres figure I quoted for my scooby is under normal driving (ie a combined figure), towing nearly doubles it for some reason.
 
To put your fuel-economy woes aside, our '02 Tahoe with a 5.3L V8 gets about 8MPG / 30L/100km while towing the FGMCC (12k 28' tandem axle trailer).
 
It would easily tow a jetski; remember there is gross weight and tongue weight. A jet ski with trailer might weigh in around 1700 pounds, but the tongue weight will be closer to 800.

I would recommend the 3.0R model, myself. If you want the validity of my statement, I work for a Subaru dealership.
 
It would easily tow a jetski; remember there is gross weight and tongue weight. A jet ski with trailer might weigh in around 1700 pounds, but the tongue weight will be closer to 800.

Uhm... really? Then I recommend getting a tank, because an Outback will struggle with 800 pounds of tongue weight :lmao: even with a 3.0 engine...
 
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