Tow dollie

[rmkro]

Has anyone towed a 2020 Equinox behind a 31ft. Class C on a tow dollie?
Pros and cons? Electric or surge brakes?

[Jim Boggs]

I just purchased a tow dolly (cartowdolly.com) to pull our Rav4 behind our 29' Class A. Seemed to be the most practical for me but I've now learned, after towing only several hundred miles, that ALL tow dollies that don't swivel are simply a poor design. With the front wheels strapped down to the dolly, the plane of both front wheels are forced to remain straight and parallel. The only time the plane of your vehicle front wheels are actually parallel is when you're going straight. In all turns, your inside wheel will always steer in to a greater degree because of the smaller diameter track it must take (see Ackerman principle). This becomes more pronounced as the turn gets tighter. When using a tow dolly with the front wheels strapped securely in parallel while making a turn, undue stress is placed on the toad steering linkage/components. The tighter the turn, the more stress is induced and damage to the steering linkage/components may result. At the same time, a side load is placed on the tow dolly wheels causing them to skid sideways. Again, the tighter the turn, the more skidding of the dolly wheels. I haven't noticed any damage to my Rav4 steering linkage/components yet but the tires on my tow dolly are getting shredded when I make turns. Especially tight turns. I can see the stress on the tires in my rear view mirrors. I will have to modify the dolly or use a different towing method all together. I would hate to be driving down the interstate and one of my tow dolly tires blows out due to the adverse wear caused by this problem. It happened to the previous owner of my tow dolly. I guess he didn't understand this issue but if he did, he didn't pass it on to me and now I must deal with it. Just FYI

[Chargerman]

Originally Posted by Jim Boggs

I just purchased a tow dolly (cartowdolly.com) to pull our Rav4 behind our 29' Class A. Seemed to be the most practical for me but I've now learned, after towing only several hundred miles, that ALL tow dollies that don't swivel are simply a poor design. With the front wheels strapped down to the dolly, the plane of both front wheels are forced to remain straight and parallel. The only time the plane of your vehicle front wheels are actually parallel is when you're going straight. In all turns, your inside wheel will always steer in to a greater degree because of the smaller diameter track it must take (see Ackerman principle). This becomes more pronounced as the turn gets tighter. When using a tow dolly with the front wheels strapped securely in parallel while making a turn, undue stress is placed on the toad steering linkage/components. The tighter the turn, the more stress is induced and damage to the steering linkage/components may result. At the same time, a side load is placed on the tow dolly wheels causing them to skid sideways. Again, the tighter the turn, the more skidding of the dolly wheels. I haven't noticed any damage to my Rav4 steering linkage/components yet but the tires on my tow dolly are getting shredded when I make turns. Especially tight turns. I can see the stress on the tires in my rear view mirrors. I will have to modify the dolly or use a different towing method all together. I would hate to be driving down the interstate and one of my tow dolly tires blows out due to the adverse wear caused by this problem. It happened to the previous owner of my tow dolly. I guess he didn't understand this issue but if he did, he didn't pass it on to me and now I must deal with it. Just FYI

Does your steering wheel lock? If so you
Need to turn the key so that your front wheels that are on the dolly allow the rest of your vehicle to pivot in turns. Without doing this you certainly are dragging the tow dolly tires and also the rear wheels of your towed vehicle around turns. Not so much with your rear wheels but there is an impact.

[twinboat]

Originally Posted by Jim Boggs

I just purchased a tow dolly (cartowdolly.com) to pull our Rav4 behind our 29' Class A. Seemed to be the most practical for me but I've now learned, after towing only several hundred miles, that ALL tow dollies that don't swivel are simply a poor design. With the front wheels strapped down to the dolly, the plane of both front wheels are forced to remain straight and parallel. The only time the plane of your vehicle front wheels are actually parallel is when you're going straight. In all turns, your inside wheel will always steer in to a greater degree because of the smaller diameter track it must take (see Ackerman principle). This becomes more pronounced as the turn gets tighter. When using a tow dolly with the front wheels strapped securely in parallel while making a turn, undue stress is placed on the toad steering linkage/components. The tighter the turn, the more stress is induced and damage to the steering linkage/components may result. At the same time, a side load is placed on the tow dolly wheels causing them to skid sideways. Again, the tighter the turn, the more skidding of the dolly wheels. I haven't noticed any damage to my Rav4 steering linkage/components yet but the tires on my tow dolly are getting shredded when I make turns. Especially tight turns. I can see the stress on the tires in my rear view mirrors. I will have to modify the dolly or use a different towing method all together. I would hate to be driving down the interstate and one of my tow dolly tires blows out due to the adverse wear caused by this problem. It happened to the previous owner of my tow dolly. I guess he didn't understand this issue but if he did, he didn't pass it on to me and now I must deal with it. Just FYI

You bought the only brand of dolly that does not have some type of steering or articulation.

[twinboat]

I tow a 2019 Honda Ridgeline, 4 door, pickup behind my Axis. Its built on a E450, class C type chassis.

Dolly has self regulating, hydralic, disk, surge brakes.

[Jim Boggs]

Yeah, my steering wheel is unlocked. I hafta keep the key in and turned on one notch to accessory.

[NXR]

Originally Posted by rmkro

Has anyone towed a 2020 Equinox behind a 31ft. Class C on a tow dollie?
Pros and cons? Electric or surge brakes?

I think you'll find that almost every motorhome owner buys an Equinox because it can very easily be towed with all four wheels on the ground. Yes, more expensive than a dolly but far, far more convenient and quicker to connect and disconnect.

I bought a 2020 Equinox because all it took was a year of towing my Sonata on a dolly to convince me that I had made a mistake buying the dolly.

Before anyone jumps in and says they can connect their dolly and get the car on it and strapped down as fast as a flat tow, I'm calling BS. Ten minutes max to connect and that includes the braking and lighting tests. About five minutes to disconnect. I've done both in the driving rain. No comparison.

Ray

[twinboat]

The DW and I can hitch up the dolly and load the car on it, in less then 10 minutes, if we take out time. Its simple and routine for us.
Of course we bought the right dolly and did a few modifications to it.

I suppose with 2 people doing it, its actually more then 10 total minutes, but like I said, we don't hurry.

Here is a guy loading up in 5:20 time. He doesn't use safety cables, like I do, so I have that added step, maybe 15 more seconds per side.

https://youtu.be/boilt5TT428

I have watched a couple drive the car up on the dolly 7 or 8 times, moved the rig twice, between drive ups and strapped the tires 2 times. Not sure what the issue was but yes, they took more then 10 minutes.

[New2road]

Please read the owners manual for the car/ SUV you are looking at. Make sure the version you are looking at can be dolly towed. I.E. is it 4x4, All wheel drive, two wheel drive etc.

It really does make a difference. You are making a big investment, you don't want to damage it be being wrong.

We dolly towed for our first year. We shifted to towing 4 down after that. the effort was larger setting up the dolly, not horrible just more work. What finally got us was dealing with the dolly in some of the resorts we stayed in. They wouldn't allow the dolly at the sites so we had to work around that. It was just additional stress we didn't want or need.

Your mileage will vary. Everyone has reasons for the methods they choose, no right or wrong. Figure out what will work for you.

Good luck and enjoy.

[Prof_T]

My father used a dolly for many years with no issues. When we purchased our RV last year we went with a Master Tow Dolly because we did not have a vehicle that we could tow 4 down. No issues at all except for the aggravation of hooking up and unhooking. The biggest issue is what do you do with the dolly once you get where you are going? With that said it is much cheaper to purchase a dolly and ours works great. We recently sold our Chrysler 300 and purchased a used Equinox so that we can flat tow. I've still got the dolly and will be selling it. Both systems serve the purpose. Both have concerns that must be addressed. Both are good.

[NXR]

Originally Posted by twinboat

Here is a guy loading up in 5:20 time. He doesn't use safety cables, like I do, so I have that added step, maybe 15 more seconds per side.

https://youtu.be/boilt5TT428

Point taken. The correct answer is almost always "It depends" and I should know that by now...

I had seen that video before and a couple of notes:

1. I'm not sure I would ever take towing advice from someone who has been using their drop hitch as an "anti-wheelie device". See the screen capture.

2. Not only does he not use any type of safety cable or chains as you noted, he also does not check underneath to see if there is any kind of rubbing between the straps and the shock towers.

Perhaps he knows he has plenty of clearance. My car did not. When I could get a finger width between the shock tower and the inside of the basket strap I knew that was as good as it was going to get.

A couple of additional differentiators for us:

1. Needing to stop after a few miles to re-tighten the straps. Not a time-consuming ordeal for sure but occasionally there simply was no place to do that.

2. One thing new dolly users may not be aware of is the distance between the outside of the dolly tires versus the same distance on the motorhome. Our motorhome is 96" from the outside of a rear tire to the outside of the other tire. The dolly was 102", a mere three inches on each side, right?

Unlike a flat tow where the car is always tracking inside the motorhome's path, a dolly is close but not perfect unless it's a small dolly.

Where this comes into play is on right-hand turns because the dolly tire may scuff or hit a curb that the motorhome rear tires easily clear.

3. The smaller tires on a dolly not only mean a higher rotational speed, it means that a hole that the motorhome or car tire will just roll across may cause damage to the dolly tire. I had that happen on a pop-up with larger tires and bent the rim. A half-mile later, right after we got on the interstate, the tire went flat.

Even better, an hour later the spare I put on went flat. The metal part of the rubber valve stem decided to make like a bottle rocket and departed for parts unknown but that is not normally a concern.

I explained all of this to the person who bought my dolly and he was fine because of the price difference with flat towing. He said he was a weekend camper and did not often take a car.

Both methods have their place.

Ray

[twinboat]

Yup the hitch thing is sad.

My dolly tracks outside the RV track, because of the overhang beyond the rear axle and relatively short distance from the ball to the tires.
I found out the hard way, that I can not pull away from a curb to sharply. The outside dolly tire drives up on the curb.

Smaller tires ? My ST205/75R14, are smaller then my 16 inch RV tires but not by much. What size tires are on some of the smaller 4 down cars out there ?

Maybe some rigs hitched to some dollies are just not meant to be, or I just picked the right dolly to hitch to both of the MHs I've had.

I'm fine with my dolly and have towed 3 different FWD cars on it, with no modifications to any of them.

[Jim Boggs]

[QUOTE=twinboat;5687790]The DW and I can hitch up the dolly and load the car on it, in less then 10 minutes, if we take out time. Its simple and routine for us.
Of course we bought the right dolly and did a few modifications to it.

What modifications did you make and do you see the dolly wheels skidding at all in a tight turn?

[Rickarriva]

I use a stearing (swivel) dolly behing my 36" Southwind. With the added length of the dolly and my FWD Dodge Journey, it can be intimidating when pulling in to refuel with limited space. I was shocked the first time i did this and found out that the dolly and tow vehicle steered right into the pump without wide swinging the MH. This is true on tight exists especially at store fronts with patroon parking. Some day I may switch to a toad but not worth the expense presently. My dolly is a Road Master