Then you'd have no problem pulling a 7000 lbs trailer from your place in Arizona to say Los Angeles? Would you do it with 3 kids in the back? The vehicle has a tow limit, I can't understand why this is always a topic. If you want to tow heavy trailers buy a truck!!!

 

If I had huge muscles, and a gym membership, a full time job and a 2 hour commute a day I could benchpress 300 lbs... I've got it all except the muscles and the gym membership. I wonder how much I could benchpress if I got those?

save your money on a hemi and buy a used truck, I think my '98 nissan with a I-4 in it had a higher towing capacity than my '09 unlimited does...

 

Devils advocate: Certain items go into figuring the weight limit you can tow, you have gone in and upgraded all of them, so you have bigger better brakes, motor, suspension, tires, transmission, axles. At this point, you don't have the same stock Jeep the original weight was determined from. Yes the original vehicle has a tow limit, but this isn't the original anymore. Any time you mod out your Jeep, you are enhancing the limitations of the Jeep, you lift it, you put bigger tires, brakes, motor, bumpers, rock rails, skids etc so that you can go farther, go bigger, go over more extreme terrain than the stock model was originally equipped for.

Since the enhancements are there, could you go to the DOT office and get it certified, or do you go to the insurance company, or somewhere else?

I'm not saying this is possible to do, and have not clue what the insurance company would say or do, just a thought I had rattling around my head.

 

Except that lots of people on this board do hemi swaps.. Are you saying it's all a waste of money?

 

they do the hemi swaps cause people are power hungry and they dont like the weak 3.8 that they gave us.
these people want to pass people on the highway and climb hills in 5th gear


if you want to pull a 7000lb trailer with a 4500lb jeep see what happens, you will probably do a wheelie as soon as you hitch it up.




but more importatly, if you even tried to mod the jeep to pull that kind of weight it would have cost you less to buy a new truck that could pull it right from the factory.

jeeps were designed for light duty people movers

 

Vehicle wheelbase has to be factored in also. The 4 door still has a relatively short wheelbase. It's not all about muscle to pull and power to stop. If you catch a gust of wind that blows the camper, is the Jeep going to have enough stability to straighten it out? I towed a 9000 lb camper behind my Ram Hemi, right at the limit, not over it, and I was scared out of my mind. It would get to swaying and the whole truck would move side to side. Can't imagine going OVER my limit and then getting on the freeway with it. Long story short, don't go that route.

 

I just finished pulling a 3400 pound camper across the country and back. Would I love a hemi? Sure! It would have let me get up to speed much faster, and made it easier to maintain speed on hills. But I still wouldn't go a pound over 3500 or a mph over 65. Even after upgrading the suspension, shocks, brakes, adding a brake controller, and all that... the JK is just not designed for pulling huge loads. It doesn't have the leaf springs. It doesn't have the wheelbase. It doesn't have the heft. Just based off the behavior of my 3400 pound trailer, a 7000 pound trailer would throw you around like a ragdoll the first time you hit a bump at highway speeds.

 

Ok. 7k lbs is a bit extreme but certainly was a good conversation starter. In all seriousness though, there must be someone in this forum who added a bunch of towing friendly mods and figured out how much more the JK can pull.

 

Nobody knows why the European JK's are rated to tow (I think) 7,000 lbs. Even with the 3.8L engine.

Bottom line in the U.S., we have a 3,500 lb. rating at the most.
Nothing you can do will increase that, from a liability perspective.

 

Axles, suspension, braking system, steering capabilities and other internal controls are constructed in accordance with that GVWR. Because cars, trucks, and jeeps are specially made with set towing capacities, you can't alter the rating without re-engineering the vehicle. Exceeding your towing capacity is a dangerous because it reduces your braking and steering control.

In all actuality adding a Hemi, adjusting your suspension, and larger tires will lower your towing capacity since it adds weight to your jeep. Though it may make climbing those mountain passages a lot easier.