This year I bought a car, an all-wheel-drive Volkswagen Golf Alltrack. It’s capable around the farm and has decent storage capacity; I’ve carried 10-foot-long PVC pipes in it with the hatch shut, and below I’m getting rid of an eight-foot children’s slide left on the property by a previous tenant.
Still, it’s no substitute for a pickup truck. I’d really value having an open bed that I could toss animal cages, runaway geese or firewood into. So I’ve been looking into buying a trailer. Alas, I have been misled by watching European videos of the Golf Alltrack (a/k/a Sportwagen). While the Euro-market Alltrack is rated for a towing capacity of 2,000 pounds, the American version–which is mechanically identical–has a tow rating of 0.
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Yes, zero. Why? Flipping through the manual, I’ve learned that in litigious America, VW has decided that Alltracks towing things opens them up to some kind of liability. So they’ve decreed that if you fit a trailer hitch to your Alltrack in the ‘States, it automatically voids the freaking warranty. No towing in America.
This is really disappointing. Particularly since Euro-market Alltracks/Sportwagens have this super-cool integrated hidden trailer hitch that pops out when you need it:
Why can’t we have nice things?
Source: core77