Does Curt Hitch for 2011 Volvo XC70 Increase Tongue Weight Capacity

Updated 07/19/2022 | Published 07/18/2022

Question:

I installed a 350lb tongue weight rated Curt hitch to my Volvo I bought from your site. The manual for the 2011 Volvo XC70 has a max tongue weight limit of 160lbs. After installing the hitch does this limit now increase to 350lbs? 13266

asked by: Dale P

Expert Reply:

With any towing setup you are only as strong as your weakest component as that would be the component that would fail if overloaded. So even though the Curt hitch part # 13266 has a tongue weight capacity of 350 lbs you'd still be limited to 160 lbs since thats what your 2011 Volvo XC70 is rated for.

The reason the hitch is rated higher than the vehicle is because the engineers at Curt designed a hitch to fit the vehicle and then tried to make it as strong as possible and then independently weight rated it. So the hitch is a bit overkill but there's no real downside to that.

expert reply by: Jameson C