You will not believe what I just saw. A red xfire pulling a fully loaded trailer of good size.

 

red necks are everywhere...he was probably evicted....lol.... given the suspension, I wouldn't want to do it, but each too their own.... Buy a pick up truck....buddy....lol

 

Without checking the owners manual, I believe the maxium weight it says you can carry in the XF is 450lbs.
With a light trailer tounge weight, you could still be under that figure, ( depending upon the size of the cars occupants, and what you're carring in your trunk of course).
I think several people here on the forum have installed trailer hitches to haul small trailers to carry race tires and tools to the track without any problems.
But as "Doc" pointed out, with an IRS I wouldn't want to over load it. As long as you keep the trailers tounge weight at a constant weight, that's really the only actual GVW that comes into play.
Mercedes has used our engine/transmission combo in many larger cars for years, and I'm sure they've probably pulled travel trailers, or boats behind them. But I can't say for sure if the larger Mercs used the same XF differential, (which by the way is probably the weakest link in the whole set up).
If you are still concerned, you could always call a Mercedes dealer, and ask them what the towing capacity of a 2003 SLK320 is, and go by what they say.
I'm not sure, but I think the Crossfire owners manual recommends not towing anything, but I personally feel that's just Chrysler's way of protecting their own butts.

 

Well, since you are serious, I will be serious. IF you look under the car to see where you will have mount your "pulling" points, and with known shock tower failures. You will see there isn't enough metal to truely tow much at all. You have the drive trane to pull 'say 5000lbs, but you don't have the suspension, or good mounting points, well, you will break something for sure...
so if you want to pull a trailer, I would not pull anything over 500lbs, and keep the tongue weight under 25lbs....with this in mind, I would say most small trailers would be at least 250lbs, leaving you a 250lb payload...

 

You need to keep your tounge weight at about 15% of total weight or else your trailer will be wiggling until it ties you in a knot. 500 lbs. Equals about 75 lbs on the tounge.

 

Next time get the VIN and post it. That poor Crossie will end up for sale somewhere and the tranny won't be worth ****.

 

That isn't true on small short wheelbase trailers.....but true on just about anything else. You put that much on those little dudes, you won't have a tongue long... Most aren't much more than a motorcycle trailer....anything bigger, you will do some damage to your XF... There just isn't enough "frame" if you will, since there isn't one... to attach to. It's been done, but I wouldn't want to do it...

 

the trailer was a large trailer probably 8x12 and loaded pretty good.

 

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