Advance on Travel Trailer

Thank you.

I plan to have the appropriate trailer hitch installed with anti-sway bar system, just got the new tires, and need the new shocks. If for some reason it feels uncomfortable, then I would consider a new vehicle, but this one is free and clear with no payments :)

HNTucker wrote:
Thank you, all of that info on the water is super helpful! And , I just recently moved from SC and have been wanting to visit old co workers and friends so a trip to see another camper may be in the near future! Thanks for the link

I am just concerned my car could not pull the larger trailer (although I know to many, it’s still tiny) without causing a lot of strain on my vehicle. Max Payload (correction) 1050- it said maximum amount of people and cargo loaded into the vehicle . Unfortunately the people selling the RV seems to say you can pull more and my vehicle is rated much higher for towing but I know it’s probably not an ideal tow vehicle in general, so not interested in wearing it down

My Family has a farm with a lot of paved area for equipment , so there’s my practice arena when I finally get a trailer , But still a little wary about doing it solo on the road

Pulling the trailer is only part of the situation. Handling on the road and braking capability are also very important. I have seen several wrecked SUV/Travel Trailers in the last 20 years. All were short wheel base SUVs, and appeared to have gotten into a sway situation that they could not recover from.

It is important for the tow vehicle to have good properly inflated tires and good shocks. Also the proper hitch for the load.

A body on frame generally is a better tow vehicle vs an unibody vehicle. 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee is a unibody.

Best of luck with your new adventure.

Chris

From the internet:
What can a 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee tow?
5,000 pounds
2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee can tow 5,000 pounds, with a tongue weight of 500. The payload ranges from 1,650 to 2,030 pounds across the SUV trims. The torque is 260 lbs.

Not sure if your Jeep's 5 spd auto is the Mercedes transmission or not (the diesel and the V8 used the Benz tranny) but if the shift lever moves left and right from Drive to allow you to manually up shift or down shift, that is what is referred to as locking out the overdrive. You would bump the lever to the left and a 4 appears in the shift indicator rather than the D and this means that the transmission is restricted to gears 1 thru 4.

3.6L Engine
When in the DRIVE position, the first tap to the left (-)
will shift down one gear and will display that gear. For
example, if you are in DRIVE and are in fifth gear, when
you tap the shift lever one time to the left (-), the
transmission will downshift to fourth gear and the display will show 4. Another tap to the left (-) will shift the
transmission into third gear.


Be proactive going up hills and downshift manually and keep the revs up rather than waiting on the transmission to decided that the engine is too loaded down, its too late then and you have lost speed. Going down hills, go ahead and bump it down to 4th or even 3rd to control your speed so you don't use the brakes so much.

Charles

You will quickly learn to back it , the fun starts when you switch to a longer or shorter trailer , you will have to learn all over again . And we all will be watchin !

For reference, I put 140,000 towing miles (out of 185k total) on a Toyota Highlander which had similar output V6 and 5-speed auto. Mostly towing my previous 6x12 enclosed cargo trailer for work, around 2,500-3,000 lbs loaded. My TT was 2700 lbs loaded, 7' wide by 100" high, and boxy; I towed it through the Rockies several times. The Highlander did fine towing at 60 mph; 65 was pushing it if there was a headwind or a decent uphill climb. At highway speed, wind resistance is a bigger factor than weight.

When climbing a grade you usually have to slow down anyway, so weight becomes the bigger factor there. The trailers you're looking at are somewhat more aerodynamic than the boxy conventional trailers. Less wind resistance means less strain on the drive train. Unless you want to drive fast, you should be fine with the JGC V6. Expect likely 15-16 mpg at 60 mph or so, versus more like 11-12 mpg that you'd get with a conventional TT; that should tell you something about the aero shape of molded fiberglass trailers. You can find a few data points in this table I used to maintain for another RV forum: tow vehicles and FG trailers stats

Thank you, all of that info on the water is super helpful! And , I just recently moved from SC and have been wanting to visit old co workers and friends so a trip to see another camper may be in the near future! Thanks for the link

I am just concerned my car could not pull the larger trailer (although I know to many, it’s still tiny) without causing a lot of strain on my vehicle. Max Payload (correction) 1050- it said maximum amount of people and cargo loaded into the vehicle . Unfortunately the people selling the RV seems to say you can pull more and my vehicle is rated much higher for towing but I know it’s probably not an ideal tow vehicle in general, so not interested in wearing it down

My Family has a farm with a lot of paved area for equipment , so there’s my practice arena when I finally get a trailer , But still a little wary about doing it solo on the road

Backing up a shorter wheel base is more challenging, however it just means you make small corrections faster. You will get use to it.

HNTucker wrote:
Great, thank you for the replies! Again I’m new, and I’m looking at the happier camper:) it allows me to gut the inside for bikes, kayaks , and pets if needed . It seemed to be even lighter with slightly more versatility than the scamps/casitas for my needs.

I’ll have to look up the overdrive lock out and see what you mean. Send any links you think may be helpful:)

Thanks!

Read your owners manual.
Towing isn’t for everyone and there’s a basic level of competence driving required to not be a danger to yourself and others. And not knowing how to shift your 9 year old car is not super confidence inspiring.
Please do your best to learn all you can before towing a RV.
And yes if the Jeep is in good condition it shouldn’t have trouble with either trailer.

Edit.
PS. I saw you got upset at another response and imagine mine won’t set well either. So I’ll apologize in advance but know you’ll be best served to learn all the basic operational procedures of your car before hooking a trailer to it.

HNTucker wrote:
Jeeps Max payload is 2030
Fresh water And grey tank on the little guy- 5 gallons
Fresh water And gray on the big guy- 17 gallons
No black water tank

About the water, with my last TT (2011 KZ Escape) I had a supposed 11 gallon fresh tank. But it would never empty the last gallon or so because the outlet was on the side of the tank a couple inches from the bottom. I was traveling alone and using the water for flushing the toilet and washing dishes (I had separate drinking water, a gallon jug in the fridge). That fresh tank would last me 3 days.

Since I sold that TT, I've been camping with a cargo trailer. Flushing with the porta-potti uses less water than what I'd been using with the regular toilet. My water is kept in a 7 gallon blue Reliance Aqua-Tainer jug, and for washing dishes I set it sideways on a shelf I built, with a dishpan below to catch, and I open the spout to a dribble as needed. I've learned that 5 gallons can last days and days when it is used conservatively and when there isn't the force of a pump behind it. Washing does not take a sink full of water, but only an inch or so in the bottom of a kettle, and rinsing just enough to get the soap out doesn't take much either. It does take a different mindset and a bit of practice to do things this way, but it's not a hardship... one just has to remind oneself that one is 'roughing it'. ;)

That said, you'll have to try camping with the number of people you will have along and monitor how much you are using, so you can gauge how many extra containers you need for the number of days you're planning to camp away from water spigots. For staying in campgrounds, though, there's almost always a spigot somewhere even if not at each campsite.

Happier Camper seems to be building good trailers. With the modular block interior units and maybe the rear hatch you'd have a ton of flexibility (though not a ton of space, obviously). One downside will be that (I think) the upper storage cabinets are pretty shallow and won't hold much, so almost all the stuff you store will be down low in the cubes; you'll have to do a lot of bending over and rummaging to dig out what you want (headlamp recommended).

FWIW, my cargo trailer is a molded fiberglass empty shell too. I ordered it from Li'l Snoozy in South Carolina; they were building out the interiors of their shells as electric-only TTs, but I ordered one with only a front shelf and nothing else inside. They went out of business but now have been started back up under new ownership, see https://snoozy2.com/ Not sure what they would charge for an empty shell nowadays, but it might be quite a bit less money than the HC1 and only a little bit less amenities. I've since built shelves along one side and extended the front shelf with some cabinets, but that's about it.

HNTucker wrote:

Jeeps Max payload is 2030
Fresh water And grey tank on the little guy- 5 gallons
Fresh water And gray on the big guy- 17 gallons
No black water tank


I'd love to see proof of an actual Jeep with 2030lbs of payload capacity.* image not shown due to your preference setting *"


And this is why I didn’t want to post on a public forum but I needed help. You are the reason people don’t feel welcomed on forums and it’s important you know that. There are more constructive ways to help someone if they are wrong and potential help them find the correct answer. Thanks for your useless answer as “I’d like to see proof of bikendan being nice and actually helping someone”