Carry that Weight: GMC Releases New App with Trailering Tips and Info

These days, reading the owner’s manual is a task for the digital contrarian—and the task most often ignored by emboldened enthusiasts who know more about the car than the person who sold it to them. One of the few scenarios that requires serious attention from all drivers, however familiar they are with a vehicle, are the restrictions and guidelines for towing. Because towing can be tough, y’know?

With this in mind, GMC has launched its “GMC Trailering Guide”—an iOS-based app available for free at the iTunes store—to familiarize owners with the towing capabilities of their pickups and to outline a variety of towing scenarios in a condensed, digital format.

The app gleans information from the brand’s own towing crib sheet— which is listed on its website—and divides it into four categories intended to assist drivers. The Learning Center and Glossary provide towing abecedarians with the terminology and basic knowledge necessary for proper towing. Dinghy Towing instructs drivers about the conventions of hauling a vehicle behind their GMC product. Video content includes Trailering 101 videos; additional “How To” video content will be updated over time to increase the tool’s instructional capabilities.  A pre-towing checklist, which covers all aspects from brake fluid levels to trailer safety chains, is perhaps the most useful feature.

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And, curiously, the Find Your Vehicle section presents the optimal GMC product for a given towing situation—in case you aren’t already driving it.

The GMC Trailering Guide enters a marketplace rife with driver-focused digital tools, including Ford’s proprietary towing app that debuted in 2011. So far, no word from GM if owners should expect a badge-engineered version for the Chevrolet Silverado. And no indication if the competition from Ram or Toyota are busy coding their own versions of a digital guide—although if they are, we would wager a guess that theirs will also produce more torque.

Source: CarAndDriver