Does my 1998 astro have plug ins for a 7 way trailer wiring hook up? If it does were would I find it. 6cyl, rwd, 8 passenger.How much can this astro pull in trailer weight?

thx

 

there is nothing existing that you can plug into for any wiring .you would have to hard wire it .i believe there is a stub harness inside the back of the van were the spare tire jack is in the rear corner of the van .you should be able to tow 3500 lb with a class II hitch .with out any special extra equipment .

 

yes you can probably tow up about 5000lb but you will need weight distribution bar set ,add's about $300.00 to the mix and a class III 2" hitch $275.00 , ,ohh and a brake control and 12vt lead .add about another $200.00 if you have to pay to have it done .

 

This is where I can offer a few tips. This was me when we upgraded from a popup to HTT. It weighted 5500lbs (just weighted it this year after getting the burban). My van had a 5000 lb capacity with the 3.42 gears. I ended up putting 2 tranny coolers one stacked and the other just a regular fin cooler as just one cooler still had me running 190 to 210 all the time while towing. I also ran a tranny temp guage to verify what i was running. I drove in O/D except when the tranny was searching for gears. (as per my brother inlaw he was a tech for a gm canada dealer) They fixed the problem with the tranny burning up in the mid 90's. I had also changed the rear shock to coilovers. I had a husky weight distrubution system with friction antisway. I got rid of that for a reese dual cam weight distrubution antisway combo. Much better. It towed ok. would I recomend it . Lets just say i'm a confident driver and well we moved up to the burban for a reason. Longer trips. It did hills ok. flats no problems except when trucks went by I had to hug the right solid line of I would be sucked into there lane and yes there is sway. We towed with this set up for 3 years. 10.5 mpg average towing. This is what it looked like before I added everything to the astro. Oh yeah you definatly need a class 3 hitch with weight distrubution if your tounge weight is over 400lbs.




This is what I look like now with the burban.

I would not recomend towing anything 5000lbs unless you know what your getting into and still say stay small until you can get a bigger tv. If I knew then what I know now I would have gotten the bigger tv first. JMO.

Inside the door or glove box there should be a chart with all your rpo codes type them in on this page and it should tell you every option you have and what tow rating you have. http://cadillacfaq.com/rpo/index.php

 

Thanks i've bookmarked that sor myself.

 

looks like a nice air ride suspension would help level the astro and the burban also for like 200.00

 

With the correct weight distrubution air ride isn't nesessary in the burban. I managed to get mine level. I actuallly had it up a bit high in the back so I adjusted it to bring it to level. If you dont want weight distrubution then yes air ride would work.