I just loaded four top soil (40 lb bags), four potting soil (50 lb bags), and four mulch (35 lb bags), plus a few other borders and miscellaneous stuff. The back was pretty loaded and had no problems going up on a steep hill with the 450h in eco mode. 8 bags of mulch should weigh less than 5 passengers, which these cars handle just fine.

 

Yes. With 295hp and a lot of torque they can handle it easily, but unless you have oil and xmission coolers, don’t do it for a long distance.

 

i had the car loaded up with gear, and a trailer about 1500 lbs total for 1100 miles yesterday, zero issues, any mode, pulls great,
450 with tow package
I've done this 12 times now, zero issues with any of them, including driving in the mountains.

 

Thanks MOD for merging my question.

Add on. So I spoke with my gear head buddy. His very educated guess is that our RX suspension cannot handle 5000 lbs on the hitch. This is just his thoughts on this.