Must Motor home lights be on to tow a Jeep Cherokee?

I am sad to here that Jeep Dealers are still allowing folks to purchase these Jeep Cherokees to tow. We just went through hell with ours trying to get it repaired only to find out that there is no repair, no fix, nothing that can be done to correct the problems that occur when you are towing these vehicles and hit a rough spot in the road. So many of us now know that these new Cherokees cannot be safely towed behind motor homes. It has nothing to do with your towing setup, the wiring, the tires, the alignment and all the other stuff. Those of us who have experienced the problem now know it is the Jeep Cherokee.

We just traded ours in on a Wrangler and took a large financial loss, because our dealer and others have said these should NOT be dingy towed. One told me straight out. These are NOT Jeeps. They are not on the same types frames, etc. as other Jeeps. They are mostly Fait. If you have not seen the video I have posted on Facebook and Youtube, please look for it or contact me directly. This is a dangerous vehicle to dinghy tow. Yes, we did all our homework and made sure it had the Active II drive and all the right stuff. These front ends are not going to stand up to the wear and tear of the towing. If it has not happened it will. When it does it will scare you very much!!

It took a few months and several thousand miles of towing for the first swaying event to happen, but once it started, we realized the danger and took it to the dealer. They realigned every thing, but it did not take long before it started again. IF it has not happened to you, great, but I believe that it will and from what I and others have now found out there is no fix! One man is using bungee cords and weights to hold his steering wheel in place. They have had the Cherokee come lose twice because of the shaking.

Drive them for every day, they may be great for that, do not trust them for towing. I know of many others who wish they did not own one for that purpose. PLEASE I am not just trying to rain on anyone's parade, this is a safety issue for you, your loved ones and those driving around you. Chrysler does know about it but has not stopped selling them for this purpose. Our dealer says the will not even order the four wheel drive unless someone insists, then they warn them against towing now that they know.

Send me a message and I will share the video and other information with you.

It is wired wrong; it sounds like a hot wire is feeding back to a ground.

A bit of a head-scratcher, but I'm pretty sure it's wired wrong, and that at least part of the problem involves ground.

If the Jeep is using its normal Stop/Tail/Signal lights as its towed vehicle lights, I think it needs protection diodes. Or maybe they're built into the design if it already has a special harness.

You don't want toad feeding back into coach's electrical system, as in somebody steps on toad's brakes/turns on toad's lights, while connected to coach. Likewise you don't want coach sending voltage anywhere in the toad but the lights. Modern cars have lighting fed by some computer (BCM, PCM, etc.) and you don't want he coach backfeeding power back into those black boxes.

Yes, we purposely bought the Active Drive II so that we could tow. I also thought that it was odd that the MoHo lights would have to be on. I don't mind that, but it doesn't make sense to me.

Things were much easier with the old Jeep. But, that's been passed along to our oldest grandson who just drove off to college in it.

Thank all of you for the replies. I also suspect that it's a wiring misconfiguration. I'll keep all of you posted. I'm taking it back in this coming week.

I tow a 2015 Jeep Lattitude Drive II and I don't have to turn the lights on. I use the Blue Ox system.

Do you have the Active drive II system on the latitude?In 2014 that was the only system you could tow 4 down.The System I was the standard set up and the II was a $900.00 option to get the transfer case.

Sounds lIke it's setup wrong. Correctly wired with diodes the Jeeps lights should work from the MH as usual...

Suspect he just wired it wrong. Some of the jeeps have a ready to go plug in harness.

Yes, I should have mentioned that. The mechanic said that the running lights on the Jeep would power off the lighting system on the motor home. That clearly was not the case. Our 1999 Jeep towed behind the same motor home and worked as one would expect. I do know that the "advanced electronics" of the new cars are much more complex, but it still makes little sense to me. Clearly the wires are not correctly matched. I'm taking it back in next week -- WITH the motor home --- to have them set it up correctly.

I would have taken the motor home in the first time, but I got stuck on Jury Duty, so my wife had to drive the Jeep in without the motor home.

Have you asked the mecanic this question? It seems he would be in best position to explain.