Hmm.... that's a tough one. From your other posts you indicate you might be towing "long haul" as well as for short distances. You might want to define long distance for us, and where you are likely to tow.
As it is, I can relate my towing experiences with my now departed Legacy GT with the 5 speed auto. Last year I relocated from southwestern Missouri to western South Dakota, specifically from the Ozarks to the Black Hills.
Besides renting a box truck and car hauler to haul most of out stuff and my wife's car, we also rented a 5X8 U-Haul trailer (largest trailer we could tow according to the owner's manual) that we proceeded to load up. I am not sure what the loaded trailer weight ended up at, but I can tell you there was virtually no room left and I had to put about 10psi worth of air into the trailer tires once it was loaded up.
On the road the load was not all that bad, and getting up to speed was not a big problem once things were moving. The turbo H4 is not an ideal engine for starting to move a total mass of over 6,000lbs though, and I can't imagine your naturally aspirated unit will do significantly better. At least once I got up to a little bit of engine speed the boost kicked in and made a big difference. At highway speeds on level ground you can really tell the trailer is back there, especially when it is shaped like a big brick. Don't expect to overtake anyone on a two lane highway, or spend much time in the fast lane not that you would while towing.
Given the short little trailer I didn't have any trouble with getting pushed around in curves by the trailer even going down hill, but a longer or heavier trailer probably would have. My biggest gripe with the LGT/Outback for towing (or general driving) is the relatively weak brakes, my car didn't like to stop in a big hurry without a trailer and it was even less inclined to with an extra 2500lbs or so to stop. Trailer brakes would have been great.
From Springfield, MO to Chamberlain, SD I didn't have any real trouble towing at a moderate speed (65-70mph), but once we left Chamberlain and crossed the Missouri River headed to Rapid City I the car started to become really taxed with the load. Chamberlain is at about 1450ft above sea level, and when you head west from there it is a long steady climb to Rapid City at 3200ft. Then you get to head into the hills up to an average of 4-5000ft of elevation. The car spent a lot of time in 4th gear, with many trips to 3rd in order to maintain 65mph. The temperature gauge moved past the middle of it's sweep and stayed about 3/4 of the way to overheated, so I slowed down to 55mph (20mph below the speed limit) and didn't have any further heat issues. If it had been summer and 100 degrees outside I would have overheated trying to tow at 65-70mph, as it was the temp still shot up and it was -2 ambient temp when I made the trip. On the plus side the AWD made dealing with a few patches of black ice much more pleasant than it could have been.
The worst experience on the trip was getting to the town we though we would live in only to find the place we were going to lease for the year to be extremely sub par. So the next morning we canceled and headed back to a much nicer town we had driven through. Then I got to yank the trailer back up a 7 mile long 6% grade. Yeah, that sucked. A lot. I think I topped out below 50mph.
So my advice (for what little it is worth) would be to slow down if you intend to tow (and let's face it motivating around 6000-6500lbs with a NA H4 is going to be slow anyway). For extra piece of mind make sure you have trailer brakes and I would also look at an oil cooler/tranny cooler.
Hmm.... that's a tough one. From your other posts you indicate you might be towing "long haul" as well as for short distances. You might want to define long distance for us, and where you are likely to tow. As it is, I can relate my towing experiences with my now departed Legacy GT with the 5 speed auto. Last year I relocated from southwestern Missouri to western South Dakota, specifically from the Ozarks to the Black Hills. Besides renting a box truck and car hauler to haul most of out stuff and my wife's car, we also rented a 5X8 U-Haul trailer (largest trailer we could tow according to the owner's manual) that we proceeded to load up. I am not sure what the loaded trailer weight ended up at, but I can tell you there was virtually no room left and I had to put about 10psi worth of air into the trailer tires once it was loaded up. On the road the load was not all that bad, and getting up to speed was not a big problem once things were moving. The turbo H4 is not an ideal engine for starting to move a total mass of over 6,000lbs though, and I can't imagine your naturally aspirated unit will do significantly better. At least once I got up to a little bit of engine speed the boost kicked in and made a big difference. At highway speeds on level ground you can really tell the trailer is back there, especially when it is shaped like a big brick. Don't expect to overtake anyone on a two lane highway, or spend much time in the fast lane not that you would while towing. Given the short little trailer I didn't have any trouble with getting pushed around in curves by the trailer even going down hill, but a longer or heavier trailer probably would have. My biggest gripe with the LGT/Outback for towing (or general driving) is the relatively weak brakes, my car didn't like to stop in a big hurry without a trailer and it was even less inclined to with an extra 2500lbs or so to stop. Trailer brakes would have been great. From Springfield, MO to Chamberlain, SD I didn't have any real trouble towing at a moderate speed (65-70mph), but once we left Chamberlain and crossed the Missouri River headed to Rapid City I the car started to become really taxed with the load. Chamberlain is at about 1450ft above sea level, and when you head west from there it is a long steady climb to Rapid City at 3200ft. Then you get to head into the hills up to an average of 4-5000ft of elevation. The car spent a lot of time in 4th gear, with many trips to 3rd in order to maintain 65mph. The temperature gauge moved past the middle of it's sweep and stayed about 3/4 of the way to overheated, so I slowed down to 55mph (20mph below the speed limit) and didn't have any further heat issues. If it had been summer and 100 degrees outside I would have overheated trying to tow at 65-70mph, as it was the temp still shot up and it was -2 ambient temp when I made the trip. On the plus side the AWD made dealing with a few patches of black ice much more pleasant than it could have been. The worst experience on the trip was getting to the town we though we would live in only to find the place we were going to lease for the year to be extremely sub par. So the next morning we canceled and headed back to a much nicer town we had driven through. Then I got to yank the trailer back up a 7 mile long 6% grade. Yeah, that sucked. A lot. I think I topped out below 50mph. So my advice (for what little it is worth) would be to slow down if you intend to tow (and let's face it motivating around 6000-6500lbs with a NA H4 is going to be slow anyway). For extra piece of mind make sure you have trailer brakes and I would also look at an oil cooler/tranny cooler.
