Hi DRosado,
After researching various tow bar and supplemental braking systems, we went with the Roadmaster Sterling Tow Bar and the SMI Stay-IN-Play configuration for towing our 2017 Jeep Wrangler Sport behind our 2018 Newmar VLDP.
The main reasons we decided to go with this configuration was price, ease of installation and that we didn't have to make any modifications to our VLDP.
We also looked at having the entire system installed for us but after looking at the installation process and the excellent installation videos and instructions on etrailer.com, my son-in-law and I decided to perform the installation ourselves which saved us literally over 1k in installation charges and price markup.
We purchased our configuration from etrailer.com which had the best prices that we found online and even beat Amazon.
1. The
Roadmaster Sterling All Terrain, Non-Binding Tow Bar capability is absolutely awesome when you do find yourself in a binding issue with your towing vehicle. Plus, it is 8k # rated.
2. The only heavy lifting that we experienced during our installation was when we installed the
Roadmaster EZ5 Base Plate Kit onto the Jeep which does take some muscle and strategic positioning for lifting the base plate into place.
3. The
Roadmaster Diode 7-Wire to 6-Wire Flexo-Coil Wiring Kit installation took some time because of snaking all the wires from the from the base plate to the rear Jeep lights but pretty straight forward.
4. The
Roadmaster Battery Charge Line Kit installation was also pretty straight forward and required since we didn't want our Jeep battery to go dead while towing.
5. The
SMI Stay-IN-Play DUO Supplemental Braking System took the longest to install because of all the wiring involved. We found installing the SMI Controller within the engine compartment worked best for us.
After 3k miles utilizing this configuration, we experienced zero issues and installing it ourselves saved us $$$ and it took us two days to complete the entire installation.
Just wanted to share our configuration and hopefully you will soon choose the right one for your setup. Good Luck
.