Matthew - I agree with you that in towing heavy objects with any
vehicle, one has NO choice but to use good judgement!  BUT, our Vanagons
are actually much better vehicles than most for towing objects, within
reason, SIMPLY because we have, proportionally, much more weight on our
rear tires!

The WORST experience I ever had trying to tow a vehicle was back in '67,
borrowing my brother's "van pickup" (a new Dodge pickup truck that
looked like a van) and, using a tow bar attached to the front bumper of
this MINT '51 Ford "business coupe" (came from the factory with no rear
seat - made for salesmen) and attempting to tow it from Naples, FL to
Jacksonville, FL!  Fine on the highway, BUT with the really light rear
end, I managed to end up in a ditch after the '51 Ford decided it
inertial system wanted to drag the rear end of that truck & me across a
highway in the middle of a turn!

SECOND worst experience was, two years ago, heading down to Tampa, in my
'76 GMC pickup to retrieve #2 daughter's Volvo 760 and tow it back to
Atlanta where Brother Gene was to rebuild the engine.  Pressed for time,
on a Sunday, to head back and I could not get the last bolt from the
U-joint, I made the incredibly STUPID decision to load the Volvo
BACKWARDS on the dolly I rented!  Not too bad on the low-speed roads to
I-75, BUT once up to 65mph on I-75, an INCREDIBLE oscillation began,
trying to slow down with the brakes only AGGREVATED the oscillations,
ONLY acceleration stopped these oscillations!  Convinced me that one
does NOT want a vehicle with a light rear end attached to a trailered
item with a light front end towing on the road!!!

I used to haul a borrowed 18' travel trailer with my '74 VW van when,
uh, the need for more civilized camping presented itself.  Never gave me
any trouble other than the excessive use of 1st and 2nd gears on some of
the hills around here.

Seems like the rating on my '74 for passengers/cargo was about 2000#.  I
think it's a bit less for my '85GL.  According to the charts Helmut
posted, "unbraked" towing limits are 1320#.  I recall reading, last
year(?), some notes from our European Vanagon Nuts about folks over
there towing all sorts of travel trailers on holiday.

You know, Matthew, "A heavy object, only vaguely tethered with a single
hemi-joint at the midpoint to the rear of another object has nearly
infinite range of unpleasant motions and paths it can take when the
object in front slows suddenly"  is EITHER an indictment of anal sex OR
a fair description of pulling calves!!!

BOB - WA4RRN
'85GL - "Bourgeois"
http://www.lesbianmales.org