Preferences on pulling a toad, or rent when there?

Believe it or not mpg is not drastically changed when towing. The main cost is the set up. The peace of mind and convenience of having your own toad is (as they say) "priceless".

You can give it a try to find out if it works for you. There are a lot of things that can and do come up that make having your own car along vital.

Renting limits your choices for stops. Some locales do not have rental agencies. Most larger metropolitan areas will but smaller towns may not. For example--if you come to our region...a car dealership 30 miles away handles a few rentals but the nearest agency is 75 miles away. One time we went to Gatlinburg, TN toadless and found the only place to rent a car was from a towing service. The car was a stinking wreck and we had have the tow truck driver go miles through the mountains to get it and return it. The nearest agency was Knoxville, TN.

We found going without a toad was simply not safe and very inconvenient. We've had many incidences when we'd been in real trouble if we'd not had our own vehicle along. We'd rather depend on ourselves than on the availability of a rental anywhere we may happen to be.

We have only gone 1 time without a toad but the fuel use was the same MPG as with a toad along. Enterprise left us stranded the first time we tried them. There has never been a second attempt. Reservation was useless.

I always reserve a vehicle close to our destinations and have never regretted it. Choosing this way requires you be fairly close to your rental location to take delivery and make return. Some trips I've planned so we didn't need a toad to get around those locales so all it takes is intelligent planning. I would probably pull one but we only have the summer months to travel due to family commitments.

Helpful hint: if you do rent a car at your destination, check your personal car insurance before you go to the rental office. You may already have insurance on rentals included in your policy and won't need to buy the rental agency insurance.

Our last trip to Baltimore, the car rental place picked us up at the campground, photocopied our insurance card and away we went. When turning the car back in, they took us back to the cg. We never spent more than 10 minutes in the rental office.

With our geezer discounts and a special they were running, the total cost for the rental was only $25 for the entire time of 5 days. We called the office to see if there were additional specials not listed on the web and there were.

Each trip will have different situations and as you gain experience in recognizing what works for you, it will be easier to decide whether to rent or not.

We always have a Toad with us, even with a 5th wheel before we gave it to Daughter.
">clicky
Now with the class "B" we tow something for the desert and beach.
It never hurts to have a second mode of transportation plus the extra storage, if needed. It affects my MPG very little and well worth the extra cost.

One advantage of the toad is that you can store things inside and on the roof including bicycles and kayaks. A rental is going to cost $30 a day plus the insurance and other extras that are required and have a total out of pocket cost of $40-45 a day in many parts of the country. There are also no rental places in out of the way areas where you are going to be traveling. And you still have to get to the rental agency and then back to the campground and vice versa at the end of the stay.

My first RV was a Class B, so no toad. But it turned out that I tend to stay in one CG for a week or more to see what I came to see. That meant hooking and unhooking utilities one or more times each day to see the sights or hit a grocery store. Sometimes my previous spot was taken and I had to pick another one. And it still was too tall to park in a garage and too long to park in a single metered space. Enterprise will deliver a rental car to you and pick it up but its expensive and they aren't everywhere I go. So, I went with a 'C' and pull a Jeep Wrangler toad.

JMHO, but if towing a car with us was not an option and we had to rent a vehicle when we got to our destination...We would have just stuck with a towable RV and tow vehicle. Not having a 'toad' with you and having to rent a vehicle, IMO creates so much 'PITA' (pain in the ***) that you're really better off going with a towable RV (5er or TT).

As already said, the extra fuel you burn when towing is usually sooo small, it doesn't really enter into the equation. The much bigger expense is the expense to get the towed vehicle set up, and get all the hardware needed to tow it. I don't doubt that in some cases you may actually save $$ renting a vehicle instead of setting a vehicle up to tow, but I just would not want to do that (rent). Like I said, I'd go with a towable RV before I'd do that.

we started RVing in 1986 but didn't pull a toad until 2003. for the first years we simply dud our day trips in the RV and we became pretty accomplished at breaking and re-setting camp. after 10-12 years of that we rented cars, mostly from enterprise and that worked OK. it was a hassle even though they picked us up.

we made the decision to start towing in 2003 and bought our first jeep...a new jeep wrangler sport (which we still have) and boy did a whole new way of RVing open up to us. we were free! if we wanted to go out for dinner on an overnight stop we could. no more breaking camp. no more waiting for a rental car and the hassle involved. after a while it got so that I could unhook the jeep in 5-10 minutes and hook it back up to the MH in about the same time.

if you take a lot of RV trips or if you're out for weeks/months at a time then I say start towing. to me, renting only makes sense if you take 1 or 2 trips a year.

good luck.

enblethen wrote:
We have done it both ways. Costs if you already have toad setup would be deducted and spread over many trips.
When we had our Class C, it was easier to get around cities and towns. It wasn't that great for site seeing. Some of the roads were too narrow and winding.
With our Class A, it is a near must to have the little car. Sight seeing, shopping and touring cities. Failed to take car on last trip to Alaska. Big mistake!
Yes, it will take more fuel dollars to take toad. Depending on where you are headed whether there is any rentals available and at what cost. Your rental pick up location could make it more costly.
Some idea of where you are heading would help.

As above -

"suprz" - try a couple of trips *before* purchasing a toad.

Decide if you *need* a rental car -OR- would prefer a toad.

Proceed accordingly.

~