Trailered versus Towed

[BayRunner]

Originally Posted by MemByTheMile

We don’t have a vehicle that is 4 down capable, so we trailer.
Trailering can be a hassle. Trailers require more space, trailers have wear and tear - but trailers allow us to bring a vehicle we like and don’t need to be concerned with wearing out the expensive tires on that vehicle and instead wear out much cheaper trailer tires.

Also consider what you are towing with - overall length becomes an issue, especially in a few notable states. Due to our rig being a 45’ unit we were declined even getting a permit for being over 65’. But if the rig was only 40’ they wouldn’t have cared if our overall length was 90’ and they would have granted the permit. This is one time that having a flat tow would have been great.

What state were you trying to get a permit from? Personally, not something I would have worried about. I don’t think a LEO would give it a second thought unless doing something unsafe and drawing attention.

[KenZ71]

If the toad is lifted possibly the tow bar will be too far out of level for tolerance.

That may or may not be a concern. Could also use a gen-y ball mount to raise the tow bar.

[zmotorsports]

We have done both in the 30+ years of RV'ing now and over 250k miles.

We used to race and hauled our 26' enclosed race trailer around behind our 40' coach. When we weren't racing we flat-towed our Jeeps behind our coaches most of the time, although on occasion we would trailer them. Then around 2006 when we got out of racing and got more heavily involved in Jeeping (off-roading) we continued to haul our 26' enclosed race trailer around with both the Jeep as well as our Harley Davidson in the trailer.

What we found out over the years was that we were using the Jeep much more than the bike and upon many occasions we found after hauling the bike around that we never even unloaded it. Then about 8 years ago we were heading to a rally in Texas and waffled on trailering vs. flat-towing. We opted to flat tow it as the drive was a couple days getting there and we thought it would be nice to check out the small communities that we were traveling through and opted to flat-tow it for sight-seeing each evening after arriving at the campgrounds.

We ended up selling the trailer upon arriving back home from that trip and haven't missed it.

I will admit that there are times I miss having my enclosed race trailer in tow but that is because I had all my tools, air compressor, workbench and misc. equipment along for the ride plus I liked arriving at my destination with a clean Jeep, but other than that flat-towing is SO much more convenient and conducive to getting into smaller out of the way places.

I HATED when some RV parks would make us disconnect as we weren't allowed to keep the trailer at the site and the time wasted loading/unloading as it was no where near as quick as the flat-towing method.

Also for general traveling I have found that flat-towing to be more preferred because while driving if we see somewhere we want to explore it is nothing to pull off, disconnect the Jeep in a matter of about a minute, go off exploring and then upon returning to the coach a matter of about two minutes to reconnect and be back on the road. We have done this multiple times and had we been hauling the Jeep in the trailer I doubt we would have taken the time to unload the Jeep just to go on a quick hour or so sightseeing side trip and then load it back up again. This as well as arriving at a nice smaller and out of the way RV park or campground and being turned away due to not fitting in a site, which happened more times than a few. What is also nice is when leaving a campground early in the morning and not having to worry about someone hanging out into the lane or on a corner blocking egress. If space permits we connect the Jeep before leaving our site, if not, worse case scenario is we pull out of the campground with the wife following me in the Jeep and we connect out on the street before getting underway. Easy peasy and no worry of being blocked in somewhere trying to get the coach and trailer out of the campground. Obviously in larger RV parks this is less of a concern but we also like to stay in smaller and less crowded parks or campgrounds so this is exceptionally important to us.

Lastly, I also have people in our Jeep group that insist you must trailer your Jeep in case you break down. My suggestion is to build your Jeep properly and wheel it properly so the chances are greatly reduced of breaking down. I wheel our Jeep as that's what I built it for but I don't flog on it or beat it. We routinely flat-tow our Jeep 650-900 miles from home, wheel for 6-days straight at a gathering or rally, then hook up and flat-tow it the same 650-900 miles back home without incident or issue. IF there ever were to be an issue then we'd just resolve it and move on. There is no way you will ever convince me that buying a trailer, paying insurance on a trailer, paying for tires, brakes and other routine maintenance on a trailer is more cost effective than the tires on your Jeep and you're not causing any adverse wear by flat-towing it, no more than merely driving it.

And for the record, my Jeep is FAR from stock so don't let people tell you a lifted or altered Jeep is more problematic to flat-tow. I built our suspension under our Jeep with 4.5" of lift, 37" tires and powered by a 6.2 liter LS engine so it is far from stock and flat-tows beautifully and has done so for 12 years now and many, many thousands of miles.

[IMD]

Originally Posted by zmotorsports

We have done both in the 30+ years of RV'ing now and over 250k miles.

We used to race and hauled our 26' enclosed race trailer around behind our 40' coach. When we weren't racing we flat-towed our Jeeps behind our coaches most of the time, although on occasion we would trailer them. Then around 2006 when we got out of racing and got more heavily involved in Jeeping (off-roading) we continued to haul our 26' enclosed race trailer around with both the Jeep as well as our Harley Davidson in the trailer.

What we found out over the years was that we were using the Jeep much more than the bike and upon many occasions we found after hauling the bike around that we never even unloaded it. Then about 8 years ago we were heading to a rally in Texas and waffled on trailering vs. flat-towing. We opted to flat tow it as the drive was a couple days getting there and we thought it would be nice to check out the small communities that we were traveling through and opted to flat-tow it for sight-seeing each evening after arriving at the campgrounds.

We ended up selling the trailer upon arriving back home from that trip and haven't missed it.

I will admit that there are times I miss having my enclosed race trailer in tow but that is because I had all my tools, air compressor, workbench and misc. equipment along for the ride plus I liked arriving at my destination with a clean Jeep, but other than that flat-towing is SO much more convenient and conducive to getting into smaller out of the way places.

I HATED when some RV parks would make us disconnect as we weren't allowed to keep the trailer at the site and the time wasted loading/unloading as it was no where near as quick as the flat-towing method.

Also for general traveling I have found that flat-towing to be more preferred because while driving if we see somewhere we want to explore it is nothing to pull off, disconnect the Jeep in a matter of about a minute, go off exploring and then upon returning to the coach a matter of about two minutes to reconnect and be back on the road. We have done this multiple times and had we been hauling the Jeep in the trailer I doubt we would have taken the time to unload the Jeep just to go on a quick hour or so sightseeing side trip and then load it back up again. This as well as arriving at a nice smaller and out of the way RV park or campground and being turned away due to not fitting in a site, which happened more times than a few. What is also nice is when leaving a campground early in the morning and not having to worry about someone hanging out into the lane or on a corner blocking egress. If space permits we connect the Jeep before leaving our site, if not, worse case scenario is we pull out of the campground with the wife following me in the Jeep and we connect out on the street before getting underway. Easy peasy and no worry of being blocked in somewhere trying to get the coach and trailer out of the campground. Obviously in larger RV parks this is less of a concern but we also like to stay in smaller and less crowded parks or campgrounds so this is exceptionally important to us.

Lastly, I also have people in our Jeep group that insist you must trailer your Jeep in case you break down. My suggestion is to build your Jeep properly and wheel it properly so the chances are greatly reduced of breaking down. I wheel our Jeep as that's what I built it for but I don't flog on it or beat it. We routinely flat-tow our Jeep 650-900 miles from home, wheel for 6-days straight at a gathering or rally, then hook up and flat-tow it the same 650-900 miles back home without incident or issue. IF there ever were to be an issue then we'd just resolve it and move on. There is no way you will ever convince me that buying a trailer, paying insurance on a trailer, paying for tires, brakes and other routine maintenance on a trailer is more cost effective than the tires on your Jeep and you're not causing any adverse wear by flat-towing it, no more than merely driving it.

And for the record, my Jeep is FAR from stock so don't let people tell you a lifted or altered Jeep is more problematic to flat-tow. I built our suspension under our Jeep with 4.5" of lift, 37" tires and powered by a 6.2 liter LS engine so it is far from stock and flat-tows beautifully and has done so for 12 years now and many, many thousands of miles.

Thx for taking time to share ur thoughts. It’s fundamental to me when comparing costs of trailering vs towing. Convenience is equally a factor in both short distance travels and long distance travels. Finally, my primary concern is a major breakdown that disables the capability to tow. That said, I know my vehicle, do all preps and inspections before heading out to the next trail ride.