[Cdn17Sport6MT]

Excellent find, Bulwnkl! I found it very interesting. Now they did not show- or speak to weight distributing hitches (and certainly a Mazda6 would not typically be set up to use a weight distributing hitch)... but it's just a point of interest on my part.

Incidentally, this last weekend, I used my (nominally) 4 x 8 utility trailer to transport my two-stone sharpening rig to my buddy's place. I gave it away to him... Pulled the trailer with my '99 Camry (good 'ole workhorse that she is). Pulled like a champ!

 

[Cdn17Sport6MT]

P.S. I find the narrator oddly irritating because he never pronounces the voiceless fricative "th." Instead, he replaces it with the "f" fricative. I don't know why that kinda bugs me, but it does.

I know the origin of the video is Australia, but the presenter could be from England/UK. There are many accents there, and one area in particular where that type of talk abounds...

 

[Cdn17Sport6MT]

Hi all,

Just closing off this discussion.

• The wagon did well towing 550kg. I went very gingerly to the campsite, but returned with much more confidence.
• The biggest concern was not the power or braking capacity or even payload, but the fact that a relatively high riding trailer, when coupled with a low running vehicle, meant the combined vehicle did dip in the middle. No scrapping or anything like that, but just went really slow over bumps. I was also concerned for a while with the rear wheel arch and the gap between the tyre, but all went well.
• Fuel economy in AU is shown as how many litres per 100km. The trip returned 9.9L/100K, which is about what I get for city driving. If I wasn't towing the trailer, I would have expected about 7.5/100
• The transmission was fine - only a couple of times did the transmission kick into 3rd on a hill, otherwise it was comfortable in 4th or 5th.

I weighed EVERYTHING I put in the car / trailer, and in luggage alone, I had nearly 300kg! Adding in the tow ball load, the trailer weight and 4 passengers, I was at circa 80% of payload recommendations (which I think are really conservative).

One thing I learnt is this - you must include the tow ball load in your vehicle payload. This is something people forget all the time.

I also had a number of people comment about how good looking my white 2016 GT wagon is. I think it's hard to find a better looking wagon in the AU market, besides maybe some of the Merc AMGs .

Anyway, go well Mazda peeps.

Andrew

One possible reason why your automatic seemed to perform well (and I don't know about the ATF temps it experienced while towing) is that the Skyactiv-AT has only a small torque converter and seemingly rarely is in anything other than locked-up mode. Now I suspect that it is unlocked to effect shifts... (of course it is) and at a stop... but otherwise it is locked-up. If so, with no fluid slippage, it is not generating a lot of heat. Maybe the OEM ATF cooler is, indeed, adequate. Others?