Thinking of getting a Dolly

mowermech wrote:
IMO, the only dolly to buy is one that has some method of steering.
The American Tow Dolly, Mastertow dolly, and others, have "turntable" steering.
IMO, that is adequate.
The Demco Kar Kaddy dolly has king pin steering, with a shimmy damper to control wheel shimmy. There may be others that have such steering.
I had an older Kar Kaddy a few years ago. It worked great, IMO. I sold it because it did not have brakes. That was a dumb thing to do!
Yes, such steerable dollys are not cheap, but I would never buy any other kind.
As for the "problems" loading or unloading a dolly, all I can say is that we are all individuals. What one person finds to be unsupportable, another will find to be no problem at all. The only way you will find out what YOU like is to actually try it.
Good luck.

And I prefer the ACME dolly system of letting the car do the steering, Lighter weight and tighter turning without risk of denting car. To each his own.

IMO, the only dolly to buy is one that has some method of steering.
The American Tow Dolly, Mastertow dolly, and others, have "turntable" steering.
IMO, that is adequate.
The Demco Kar Kaddy dolly has king pin steering, with a shimmy damper to control wheel shimmy. There may be others that have such steering.
I had an older Kar Kaddy a few years ago. It worked great, IMO. I sold it because it did not have brakes. That was a dumb thing to do!
Yes, such steerable dollys are not cheap, but I would never buy any other kind.
As for the "problems" loading or unloading a dolly, all I can say is that we are all individuals. What one person finds to be unsupportable, another will find to be no problem at all. The only way you will find out what YOU like is to actually try it.
Good luck.

TugCE wrote:

Heisenberg wrote:
That CRV is about the best 4down toad you can find. 56,000 miles is barely broke in. There are probably several here that would take it off your hands.

CRV in possession looking for a tow dolly does not make sense to a veteran RVer.

I am fully aware of the CRV being a great toad but as I stated the DW is thinking about wanting a car this time! So, to me right now, I think a Dolly is a little smarter than spending the Money to outfit the CRV then a few months down the road have to do it all over again with her NEW car.

I understand. That is why I use a dolly. My wife can and did get what she wanted. I did not want to be limited on what we could buy based on pulling four down. Look into the ACME dolly. When I have to, I can unhook it and put it under the back of the coach easily.

Heisenberg wrote:
That CRV is about the best 4down toad you can find. 56,000 miles is barely broke in. There are probably several here that would take it off your hands.

CRV in possession looking for a tow dolly does not make sense to a veteran RVer.

I am fully aware of the CRV being a great toad but as I stated the DW is thinking about wanting a car this time! So, to me right now, I think a Dolly is a little smarter than spending the Money to outfit the CRV then a few months down the road have to do it all over again with her NEW car.

1999 Nissan Quest loads just fine but unloading the dolly would want to catch the back edge of some plastic shields solution was to lay a piece of cardboard underneath the Quest problem solved.

My suggestion is to observe someone going through the process of loading and strapping a car on the dolly. Not easy.Had to constantly check the straps as they tended to get loose. I did it once and sold the dolly and set the car to flat tow. At my age 77 it is not easy to get on the ground to strap the car. Then you have to store the dolly at your destination. Then think about doing all that in the rain.

That CRV is about the best 4down toad you can find. 56,000 miles is barely broke in. There are probably several here that would take it off your hands.

CRV in possession looking for a tow dolly does not make sense to a veteran RVer.

Thanks for the replies so far and I have done quite a bit of searches but thought it would be m=better to ask the questions that I need answered.

The DW and I had to make a quick trip up to FSU in Tallahassee to see our Grandson perform, he was attending a Band Camp. We took her CRV and were talking about her getting a new car as she will be retiring in about 2 years.

She has decided to start looking now. Her 08 CRV only has 56,000 miles on it and has never been back to the dealer for work. Hopefully whatever she decides on will be as good.

So, I guess I will begin looking at Dollies in earnest as I will need to get setup before she decides what type of car she wants. I will make sure that it is towable on a dolly though.

We've towed using a dolly in the past. No big deal as far as towing. The one issue we encountered was that in some parks you have to store the dolly away from your site. For that situation you need a to equip the sedan to tow the dolly to and from the storage area.

If you are going for a really nice (and expensive) sedan, you might want to consider an enclosed trailer instead of a dolly.

You will get a lot of responses on this as well as telling you to search for threads about dollies. We too use a dolly as well as tow four down with our jeep. By using a dolly I can tow our highlander or MKZ sedan without any problems. The dolly I chose was the ACME dolly. The ramps store on the tongue and are not an issue with clearance. The only thing you may find is if you load your sedan on soft ground the front spoiler (if you have one) may get close to the ramp. I have not had any problem with the MKZ other than the spoiler being close when I loaded it on sandy type soil. With all this being said choosing the dolly will be what you like. Surge brakes, light weight in case you need to unhook and move it around, maint free bearings, do ramps detach are some of the things you will have to decide. One thing about a dolly is as long as your tow vehicle is front wheel drive only you do not have to worry about what tow vehicle to purchase. Granted there may be some too wide or heavy but for the most part not.