Towing a car

[mickbarnes]

My wife and I are going to trade our 5th wheel for a class A gas motorhome. Being new to motorhoming (is that word?) I have never towed a car behind. Any advice would be appreciated.

[Nick-B]

Thats a pretty wide open question.

• What is your new motorhome rated to tow, weight-wise?
• Do you currently have a vehicle that is suitable as a "toad"?
• If you need to purchase a toad, what is your budget?
• Do you want to tow "4-down" or use a dolly?
• To tow "4-down" you'll need:
  • Towbar & baseplates
  • safety cables
  • Toad braking system
  • Wiring cable and sockets and assorted electrical bits.

Try to define your needs and budget for us and we can make better suggestions.

[RVNeophytes2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nick-B Thats a pretty wide open question...

Nick shot a bulls-eye, about the equipment you'll need.

The 4-down or dolly threads always garner lots of opinions, I'll start:

DW wants the flexibility to use various cars appropriate to the mission. Therefore, we have a Roadmaster dolly. It has steerable wheels that track behind the rig, is easy to hook up. Any front wheel drive car can be hauled, and mileage doesn't accumulate in the tow car. Either of us can hookup or disconnect in the same time a 4-down is hooked up or released.

To underscore the ease of hookup and maneuvering, I'm sitting here in the sticks'n'bricks, and she is out on a solo RV trip, towing her car, attending a dog show with a girlfriend

Hey, let us all know what you think of the transition from a 5'er to a MH!

[Mr_D]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nick-B Thats a pretty wide open question. What is your new motorhome rated to tow, weight-wise? Do you currently have a vehicle that is suitable as a "toad"? If you need to purchase a toad, what is your budget? Do you want to tow "4-down" or use a dolly? To tow "4-down" you'll need: Towbar & baseplates safety cables Toad braking system Wiring cable and sockets and assorted electrical bits. Try to define your needs and budget for us and we can make better suggestions.

You also need to determine what you want to tow and then is it even towable four down. Most front wheel drive cars (NOT AWD) are towable on a dolly, most rear wheel drive (NOT 4WD) are not towable on a dolly. Most 4WD are not towable on a dolly either. But there are exceptions to those so we need more info.

[mickbarnes]

Actually, we have just made the decision to switch and have not purchased anything yet. We are looking at 34+ ft motorhomes, class A gas, with a minimum of 2 slides, used probably '03 to '06. That's about as far as we have gotten. We will be trading our '08 Jayco Designer, so a lot will depend on the deal. We are full timers.

[ahicks]

I started out with what our coach was capable of pulling, then made the go, no go call regarding the vehicles we currently owned. I decided early on I wanted to go 4 down for simplicity. Our PU was capable, but on the heavy side, so I put it on the back burner. Our car was out. Started researching the more popular 4 down vehicles and decided on the Honda CR-V w/AWD (or whatever you'd prefer calling it) because of it's reputation for reliability, milage, it's weight, it's utility, and the fact the AWD would let us go play/sight see out on the 2 track trails. This car has turned out to be an awesome decision. We're using the daylights out of it - even when we're not on the road.