I have a 1998 Buick Century Custom.
These are the original specs: 3,135 cc 3.1 liters 6 V front transverse engine with 89 mm bore, 84 mm stroke, 9.6 compression ratio, cast iron block, light alloy head, overhead valve and two valves per cylinder.
The engine has been well maintained, and there are no problems with the car. What is my towing capacity?
Interesting point doornobk...
doornobk
Favorite Answer
The owners manual will tell you. If you dont have that often times the hitch companies will have it on their websites.
The engine is the least of your problems when looking at towing. First concern is safety issues like brakes and the structure of the car. Since cars dont have frames anymore there may not be any place at the back of the car that is strong enough to transfer the weight to the places it needs to get to. In a FWD car like yours all the weight and power is in the front. Another issue with FWD cars is they have very light springs in the back (because all the weight is in the front) so adding weight to the back sinks them down which throws off all the alignment of the wheels and steering which is a bad thing when you are now trying to control a bunch of extra weight with a mind of its own. RWD cars do better at this because they had to have weight in the back to give traction to the drive wheels. The next concern is Brakes. Now days they use computers and engineer the brakes to be just good enough to stop the car with a normal load. Back in the old days they threw in a bit of extra capacity just to be safe but that is not the case anymore. Brakes are critical because you may not have any control of how often and how quick you need to stop. Engine is much less of an issue because most people dont get injured from accelerating slow. Yes it is nice if you have enough engine to drive somewhat normally and its also a bonus if it can survive but that is much less critical than being able to stop (and steer) when you need to.
done wrenching
i would not tow over 2000 lbs, if that much.