Towing with a minivan

I never mind towing at max for 2-3 weeks per year, but the dry weight is already too close to max towing in this case and as other have said, the tongue weight will be 350-450lbs once your loaded up.

No need to buy a truck, but I would trade the minivan in for a mid-size SUV at least.

Give the people at CanAm RV Centre in London a call

I am sorry for this long response.

I have a fantastic Minivan. It’s a 2014 Town & Country. I set it up to tow a PUP which it did with ease. I had to run a WD hitch because the tongue weight was too heavy. With the WD hitch it towed amazing. Power was never an issue.

I now own a F150 and am looking for my next PUP (kind of want a vintage Apache or Bethany PUP, but I digress) or small TT

We still have the Van and we used it to tow an occasional utility trailer or small U-Haul after we sold the PUP...

Here is the thing...when I weighed the PUP I had 475 lbs of tongue weight. And there was NOTHING I could do about it. The PUP had a slide and limited storage. No matter how I loaded the pup I couldn’t get the tongue weight down to 10% (300 ish lbs is where I needed it). My owners manual said the tongue weight limit was 300 lbs or so for my van and I totally destroyed that rating.

I have an aftermarket Draw-Tite hitch that is rated for 500 lbs with WD..good to go right? Nope, the OEM rating trumps that.

With the WD, like I said, it did great. But, I think the WD hitch has loosened up the uni-body somehow. The doors don’t seem as tight and the interior body panels now rattle more than they use to before we towed with the WD hitch.

I also have worn out the rear springs and the rear shocks and they are going to be replaced very soon. I think that towing with my van has caused accelerated wear on the rear suspension. Although these are maintenance items as well.

It could be just age as we have 88k on the van now, but it was enough for me to say no, and go with a TV with a solid frame. The receiver on my F150 is rated for 1,200 lbs of tongue weight (with or without WD) and 12,000 lb trailer. Way more than I will ever use. I now have more lower end torque for towing and 1,800 lbs of payload.

This truck would have handled that pup with ease and that 475 lbs of tongue weight would not bother it.

So please, as much as I advocated towing with a Unibody van in the past, if you have to exceed the max tongue weight the OEM recommends then DON’T do it. Matter of fact, I don’t recommend exceeding any spec the OEM gives.

Also, my OEM recommends 40 or 50 sq ft as a max frontal load for my van. I am not sure that there is a TT save for a Scamp type trailer that will stay under this.

YMMV but IMHO for a TT something with a body on frame is where it’s at.

My good friend BenK on here says it best... my paraphrase is when the SHTF it is not the proper time to make sure everything is capable of handling the emergency.

Thanks!

Jeremiah

Great response Hommer
Any half ton pickup will have a fairly easy time with that TT, and you can still get good mileage with something like an ecoboost f-150.
Be exceedingly gentle and you can break in the camper, but do try to upgrade the tow vehicle when you can. Your taking a reasonable approach as you leave the minivan.
Happy motorin

Sorry, down and OP, you’ll hear no better news from me. A vehicle’s towing capacity is only one of a dozen or so numbers that need to be considered before you can tow pleasantly...and safely.

hommer638 wrote:
Thanks to all that replied. I knew that I would be close for weight.
But it's just the wife and me, no kids, and I was planning in taking out all the rear seats in the van when going on a trip. Even then I think weight wise I will be too close to the limit. I do not like the idea of going on a long trip thinking of what might happen on the road.
So I think we will be shopping for a pickup ether full or mid size.

Probably a good plan. Here are some things to keep in mind when truck shopping.

There will be a tire and loading sticker (on drivers door or door post) that shows a max occupant / cargo weight rating (AKA payload). That number is the trucks capacity to carry things. It gets used up by weight of aftermarket accessories (bed caps / liners, undercoating, step bars, floor mats, etc), people, pets, cargo, hitch equipment, and loaded trailer tongue weight.

Loaded trailer tongue weight will be about 12 - 13 percent of total trailer weight.

Your trailer is about 2900 lbs empty. It will be 36 - 3800 lbs when ready to camp. Your loaded tongue weight will be 475 +/- 25 lbs.

You'll need to find a tow vehicle with enough payload to carry everything listed above, plus your family, have a little wiggle room for unexpected weight, and enough tow capacity left to tow at least the gross weight (about 3950 lbs) of your trailer. That could be a bigger van, an SUV, or pickup truck. Maybe find a tow vehicle that is big enough to handle your next (bigger) trailer.

Trailer tongue weight is not a constant number. It goes up and down during every trip. If you have holding tanks that are located in front of the trailer axles, they will add more weight to your tongue weight. If they are behind the axles, they will take weight off the tongue.

The added weight of accessories, people, pets, and cargo, not only eats up available payload, it also reduces the vehicle's max tow capacity, pound for pound.

Hitch receivers have weight ratings (with and without weight distribution) of their own.

Tow vehicles are not all created equal. You may find two trucks, sitting side by side, same year/make/model, with different payload and tow capacities.


Note: The closer you get to max weight on either payload or tow capacity, the more unpleasant your towing experience will be.

hommer638 wrote:
I knew that I would be close for weight.

So I think we will be shopping for a pickup ether full or mid size.

With a CCC of just 1000 lbs you can expect that once loaded & ready to camp this trailer's GVW is going to be awfully close to it's GVWR of 3954 lbs. 13% to 14% gross tongue weight to gross weight therefore means you'll be running somewhere in the range of 500 lbs to 550 lbs of gross tongue weight which is really too much for any minivan. :( If you are entertaining the idea of a better tow vehicle I'd recommend you cut to the chase a go to at least a 1/2 ton truck, most of which when properly equipped can easily tow a travel trailer weighing at least 6000 lbs. Do this and you'll have far more options for what you can tow now and in the future. :)

Thanks to all that replied. I knew that I would be close for weight.
But it's just the wife and me, no kids, and I was planning in taking out all the rear seats in the van when going on a trip. Even then I think weight wise I will be too close to the limit. I do not like the idea of going on a long trip thinking of what might happen on the road.
So I think we will be shopping for a pickup ether full or mid size.

hommer638 wrote:
I have a 2011 Toyota Sienna with the tow option that is capable of towing 3500 lbs. I also just purchased (not taken delivery at this point)a 2018 Forest River Wolf Pup 16FQ that weighs 2919 lbs empty along with an equalizer weight distribution hitch.

Unfortunately, no it's not as you need to also account for the weight of passengers and any cargo in the van when towing. This Wolf Pup 16FQ has a GVWR of 3954 lbs which is well beyond the rating for your Sienna. :E This also doesn't take into account the significant effects of wind resistance at highway speeds which quadruples as road speed doubles. For towing with any minivan you really ought to be considering only low profile trailers like popups or A-frame trailers.

Not the doom and gloom posted thus far. I'd say doable but not ideal.
People have done far more with much less and vice versa.
Would not be my first choice, but take er easy and it'll pull that little camper around for a long time. I'd def look into additional trans cooler and idk if they make air shocks or something to help the rear suspension, but see how the wdh loads the van up first.

By not ideal, I mean the van is set up and geared towards people hauling, not having an anchor hooked to it. My comfort level would be inversely proportional to the number of miles towed. Local trips, occasionally, let er rip. Regional trips, long distances, east coast mountains, not so much. Running through the Rockies and up to Alaska....find a better tow rig.