Do you tow or do you rent one when you get there???

OldDoggy wrote:
Looking at a used Kar Kaddy to buy for our great western adventure next month. We are thinking about how nice it would be to have DW's car handy for her to use when we get there. Maybe some of you can share your thoughts and experiences with us and help us make up my mind (she already made hers up). How many MPG's does it cost to tow, and how much ware and tare on the driver is it?? Appreciate any info you want to share on this topic, going to look the dolly over tomorrow with the intent of buying it. Talk me out of it.

Thanks, Just Another Old Doggy, Don

When we first started RVing we tried renting rather than towing along a car. The first few times things went OK, but we stayed the entire time at a single location.

When trying to move more than a few times or a few miles renting presented problems. Sometimes even though we made reservations well in advance there was no vehicle when we arrived at the rental agency. Sometimes it was due to late returns by previous customers. Other times it was due to unexpected traffic volume, or weather conditions.

The agencies are dependent on timely returns of rentals to make them available for incoming customers. Should a vehicle need maintenance, repairs, the weather turn bad, or a vehicle be involved in an accident the whole system gets disrupted. There were times when we had to wait several hours for a rental due to circumstances beyond the agencies control.

In addition rental agencies were not always in the near proximity of the places we were staying. In one case the nearest agency was over 80 miles from our destination. Not only did that add considerable mileage, but it dictated we take a specific route home to drop off the car.

Within 2 years we purchased a dolly and took our Buick along. Primarily because the car would be where we wanted it anytime we wanted it. We wouldn't have to go out of our way to pick it up or return it, and it made moving to multiple locations much easier.

More recently we were on our way to Florida for a few weeks. The original plan was to go down the Atlantic coast and up the Gulf coast visiting friends and interesting places as we went along. Unfortunately our towed vehicle (now a 2004 Jeep Wrangler being towed 4 down) was rear ended as we were towing it. It was not drivable, but fortunately the motorhome was undamaged. We continued on our way leaving the Jeep at a local body shop.

This required us to change our plans considerably. We could either rent a car at each location, rent a car at 1 location and drive separately the entire time we were in Florida, or stay in a single location and rent and return a car to a single location.

We chose the latter and still had a good time, but it was an entirely different vacation from the one we had originally planned. This year we're going to try to recreate the vacation originally planned for last year.

Case and point, for us it's much more preferable to take along our own vehicle than to try to rent one.

Put almost 7000 miles on the Huricane and had a great time. The KarKaddy SS worked well, was great having our car when we went sight seeing. Even just a trip to the grocery store was made easy by having the Malibu with us. Didn't realy see any appreciable dip in gas milage towing, the head winds are what cost MPG. Being foldable was a plus as well, being able to store the dolly on my site, rather than unloading the car and putting it in a storage area. Looking forward to doing it again next time. Just Another Old Doggy, Don

IMO, ya done good.
Now, have fun!

Appreciate all the input, THANKS. Well I went and done it, I bought a DEMCO KarKaddy SS. It is a used 2009 model and it folds up to a small package when not in use. It is galvanized, has surge drum brakes and LED lighting. The fellow I bought it from is going 4 down with his Jeep, he used this to tow a Chevy Impala. We will be taking DW's Malibu west with it for our big first time RV adventure next month. Again thanks for all the comment.

Just Another Old Doggy, Don

I think whether or not to tow a car depends on what kind of camper you are. If you mainly go to your favorite CG and stay there, then return home, there is no point in towing a car. If you are a tourist that travels to see the sights, then a car is necessary IMHO. We normally stay 2-4 nights in one place and use our car to sight-see, then move on and repeat the procedure.

Its much easier to sight-see with a car and also using the car at 30 mpg beats the MH at 8-9 mpg.

Most of us do a mix of the 2 extremes so it depends on your mix.

We see about a 1 mpg hit when towing 4 down and it doesn't affect your driving much except you cannot backup with a toad.

You might want to try it without a toad and then decide what is right for you.

PS. One of out friends bought a dolly and now, after a year or so, says he wishes he had bought a towable car instead. YMMV.

"From my years of observation, I would say 97% of us tow 4 wheels down, 2% use some type dolly and 1% rent a car."

I don't know that I can agree with those figures, at least not here in Montana. From my observations of tourists and locals, it is more like 75% tow four down, 24.4% use a dolly, .1% use a car hauler trailer, and .5% have no towed vehicle.
Approximately 80% of the four down tows seem to be Jeeps.
these figures are, of course, not totally accurate. I haven't kept a log of observed RVs, so they are just guesses.

EDIT: Just in the past week, I have seen a couple of huge motorhomes towing car trailers, so I figured I should adjust my figures to allow for them.

When we bought the RV, we owned a car that could be dolly towed, so we bought a dolly at the same time. Drove the car to pick up the RV and had them show us how to strap the car onto the dolly.

Fast forward 3 years - the car is worn out and must be replaced. We bought a manual transmission Subaru that can be towed 4 down. We sold the tow dolly on Craig's List and put that money into the base plate/tow bar needed for the Subaru.

We are happy campers. (While i definitely prefer towing 4 down, if we had to go back to a dolly for some reason, I wouldn't complain.)

jrp wrote:
On your "great western adventure", I would hope you'll be spending most of your time out in the boonies far away from any rental agency.
Towing an appropriately sized dinghy behind a typical motorhome, you never know the dinghy is back there.
From my years of observation, I would say 97% of us tow 4 wheels down, 2% use some type dolly and 1% rent a car.
With a hundred vehicles of all different types now capable of 4 wheel down towing, its no wonder so few waste their time with a dolly.

I cannot believe I AM A 1%er WOW

On your "great western adventure", I would hope you'll be spending most of your time out in the boonies far away from any rental agency.
Towing an appropriately sized dinghy behind a typical motorhome, you never know the dinghy is back there.
From my years of observation, I would say 97% of us tow 4 wheels down, 2% use some type dolly and 1% rent a car.
With a hundred vehicles of all different types now capable of 4 wheel down towing, its no wonder so few waste their time with a dolly.

I'm 2 years older than Mowermech and totally agree with him.

For almost 10 years and 51,000 miles we’ve pulled our Vibe on a KarKaddy Dolly and will continue to do so. Most of the time we park in one location then travel up to 200 miles a day around the area to visit other points of interest. The fuel savings on the Vibe is substantially greater than any mileage lost pulling a toad or renting. Plus, as has been mentioned, in some areas car rentals are not readily available and it’s nice to have the transportation on the road if you have a MH break down or if you just want to eat out or get milk some evening.

Dave