Santa Fe 2013 (3500lbs) and 2800lbs TT

maxpare wrote:
I just bought a brand new Hyundai Santa Fe 2013 2.0TSE with a towing capability of 3500lbs, never towed anything in my life since it's my first SUV and decided to go take a look at what kind of RV we could get...

We are really interested in a Coachmen Clipper 17BH

Clipper 17BH

The base weight is 2818lbs and the tongue weight is 400lbs...can I tow this? All the salesman at the show were saying that those kind of TT were made for my type of SUV, but I am not sure...

Max,

Take it from me as one who has been there, done that and have the T-shirt ... it is not capable enough. I had a 3.3L V6 Santa Fe with the same specs and then bought a Jayco 17Z hybrid with 350# unladen tongue load and 3500# GVWR. Lets put it this way ... pulling the trailer home from the dealer I realized it would be too much trailer for the CUV, and ended up getting the truck.

On the scales the trailer ended up weighing 3800# with a 600# tongue. The truck handled that with ease but I shudder to think what the Santa Fe would have done. Tail wagging the dog especially in the wind, that's for sure.

Payload of the tow vehicle is what the weight of the passengers, cargo, gasoline etc. needs to be subtracted from, not the towing capacity.

As for the beautiful Santa Fe you have - you need to be thinking smaller popup. My Snta Fe pulled my old 8' popup (weighted approx.1400#) to Canada and back with ease. No frontal area to push the wind (and cause a heck of a lot more "apparent weight" for the trailer. I believe that the tow capacities of vehicles don't account for the effect of wind.