Tow Dolly costs

We traveled with toads and without - sometimes renting a car if needed, like to explore a National Park. But having one with you all the time, encourages you to explore. I think some of our best trips revolved around exploring a given area and finding those quaint, out-of-the-way spots that our RV couldn't get into.

Deb and Ed M: Yes, we are often frustrated because we can't find a place to park near a restaurant, brewery, etc. We feel we are missing out on some fun exploring by not having a car with us.

We certainly won't tow on every trip--but will definitely want one for our cross country trip.
TVQ1

TVQ1 wrote:
Thank you all for your replies! Looks like we are looking at, at the most, a 1mpg difference. I think we can live with that. I definitely think it’s worth it for the convenience of having a car handy.

TVQ1

We traveled with toads and without - sometimes renting a car if needed, like to explore a National Park. But having one with you all the time, encourages you to explore. I think some of our best trips revolved around exploring a given area and finding those quaint, out-of-the-way spots that our RV couldn't get into.

Thank you all for your replies! Looks like we are looking at, at the most, a 1mpg difference. I think we can live with that. I definitely think it’s worth it for the convenience of having a car handy.

TVQ1

dodge guy wrote:

BTW, running the generator is much worse for mileage than towing a car.

Hmmm...the Onan 4KY generator uses about half a gallon an hour (of course depending somewhat on the load). At highway speeds, if my math is roughly correct, that would work out to approximately a 0.5 mpg difference between generator usage and no generator usage for a typical class C motorhome...which seems to me to be more or less in line with the difference one might expect from towing a car.

At low speeds and city/town driving, the impact of the generator per mile will be greater mainly because one is traveling fewer miles in the same amount of time (and generator fuel usage tracks time, not distance).

Our gas engine class A drops exactly .5 MPG once we hook our CRV to the back.

I just set up my buddy`s Focus to flat tow behind his new Class A V-10. he didn't tow with it last year, and did this year. he said the difference was negligible. probably less than .2mpg. he did say that towing the car made the MH much more stable on the highway.

BTW, running the generator is much worse for mileage than towing a car.

We dolly tow are KIA Sportage behind V10 30' MH. I have found the MPG change about 1 gal while towing, of course that changes if you plan on mountain driving. Just hook up and enjoy.

Our experience is that towing a vehicle (dolly or flat - we did both) behind our motorhome reduced our mpg from 8.5 to 7.5. We had a 28' Class C "widebody" with the E-450 chassis. The dolly/car offered no wind resistance.

We recently towed a Pruis C home from FL for our daughter, behind our Transit T-250. The tow dolly was wider than the van, and dinged us about 4 mpg which we suspect was due mostly to wind resistance.

Regarding the ease of dolly towing vs flat-towing? We just made a list of each step to take with either method. The hassle of moving around the dolly once camped, is offset by the ease of bringing almost any car along as your toad.

I think it shouldn't affect mileage too much wile you are cruising on the flat and level. the toad might even break up some turbulence from the RV
but whatever it will be worth it IMHO
bumpy