Towing Tear Drop Trailer

I don't have any real data, but even if you drive in mountains without a trailer you're adding more wear than driving on a flat highway. There is a youtube Attention Deficiet or something like that, who tows dirtbikes with a prius... or they did for a while. I wanted to do something like that and then one day I found their channel... I've decided to save for a house. I have a 10' Prius with 181k on it now, I got it at 163k. I have a ScanGauge 2. Didn't know it can check inverter temps, will have to look into that. I just use it for engine temp, rpm, mpg, mph?

Many manuals don't recommend to tow. But you can find these same vehicles towing in other countries. Some have significantly greater towing capacity, most notably with trailer brakes. A little mini cooper can tow 3000lbs~ with trailer brakes. I live in Texas, USA and they don't even put trailer brakes on trailers that have a GVWR of 3000 or 3500. (bad memory) As it's complaint with the law.

So sure towing a trailer is going to add more wear to your vehicle, but is it worth it to buy a whole other vehicle just to tow every now and then? I'm hoping I can take my car to 200k miles. It's kind of been driving funky since I've owned it. Now I think something might be going on with the brakes... I just replaced the 12v a couple weeks ago. I think a lot of Prius die around this mileage. Maybe it will go more, idk. I do live Texas where people drive 20k a year as Texas is huge and have 75-85mph speed limits. I've only been driving about 7k a year and after moving, it will be about 3.5k.

 

Those particular modules were either 265 or 285 watts each, maybe as high as 290 watts, I can't recall exactly which ones in that picture but yeah a fair bit of power!