VAN FOR TOWING

I believe it's rated at 3,600 pounds. What is your van payload and what will you carry in the van when towing ... people and stuff?

What is the payload capacity of the Caravan.
Look on the drivers side door for the weight specs. Post what you find.
Standard caravan is not rated to tow 3100 lbs

We have a 2008 Chrysler Town & Country. There is no way we could tow any trailer with it. Even a pop-up weighed too much.

My son tried towing a 2,700# PUP with his town and Country with towing package twice. He traded the T & C for a hemi Durango. If you are serious about the camper, you will be disappointed when you try to tow it. A small PUP or Aliner will be OK <2,000# I would say IF you have a towing package.

My wife has a 2011 Town and Country, 3.6 liter. I don't see it as a vehicle suited for towing a trailer that will be pushing 4000 lbs ready to go camping. Maybe a popup but, a travel trailer's going to add a lot of wind resistance to the weight you're already pulling. We pull a 5700 lb dry weight trailer with a Suburban 1500, 5.3, SumoSupersprings. The wet weight is probably 6500-ish. It does OK. The chassis is fine. The 5.3 works pretty hard on the up hill pulls. Personally, I think you will be really unhappy trying to pull a travel trailer with a 5th generation Chrysler/Dodge minivan. Don't get me wrong, we love the vans we have owned. For what they are built to do they are awesome. But, IMO not built for pulling a travel trailer. For years we pulled a 16 foot, single axle Prowler TT with an F-150, a Jeep Grand Wagoneer (V8) and a Toyota Landcruiser FJ60. The F-150 did a good job of towing. The Jeep and the Toyota sucked. Based on that experience I wouldn't consider towing any travel trailer with the minivan. Also, based on what I have read about the transmission in those vans I think towing that kind of wind resistance and weight will be hard on it.

We had a class A gasser motorhome. We decided we wanted to go a different direction so we bought a new 27 foot TT. I used the cash that I got from the sale of the old motorhome and bought a Suburban (as a third vehicle). I found mine at a small used car lot near my house. Mechanically it was very sound but needed some TLC. I did a few jobs to bring it up to as perfect as it could be (parking brakes, transmission filter, new speakers, all oils and fluids, differential rebuilt). At the time my toad was a Honda CRV. Since then I sold the CRV and just drive the Suburban as my daily driver. Point is, we wanted the travel trailer and made it work within budget. With everything I spent to get the burb up to speed I was still under fair market value.

Don't believe what the salesman tells you about what can tow what. They want the sale. In 2012 Chrysler went with bigger brakes on those vans but, they still aren't intended to stop that much weight even with the brake controller. You're going to need a weight distribution hitch which will add like 80 pounds to the hitch weight. The rear suspension's going to be well over what it was built to handle. And, there's not much that's affordable to fix it. I have been under there and seen exactly what those suspensions look like. I recently replaced the shocks on our T&C. The suspension bumpers are inside of the springs. Pretty major surgery to boost up that rear end, even if the rear wheel bearings can handle it over the long haul, which I have reservations about.

You would enjoy the travel trailer for sure. But, I can tell you that towing with a vehicle that can't do the job very well takes all of the fun out of it. Once you load up the van with stuff and wife and kids. Then load up the trailer with LP gas, water, clothes, food, lawn chairs, TV, spare tire, bicycles and plastic forks you're pretty heavy, even with 17 feet. Most 17 footers have a single axle so, weight and balance can be funky if you're not really paying attention. We found that crosswinds could be pretty terrifying on top of a tall bridge crossing the intracoastal waterway.

That's my 2 cents anyway.

I will add sort of a "counterpoint" to what others are saying. I don't know your van's specs off the top of my head, but what you're considering might be ok if your van is properly equipped and more importantly, you manage your expectations. Your van can tow a maximum of 3600 pounds. It will be difficult to keep a 3100 pound dry weight trailer at that weight. Without knowing your van's GCWR (maximum weight of van and trailer combined), you may not be able to tow the full 3600 pounds without exceeding that rating. You also need to know hitch weights, have a brake controller installed and make sure your hitch is up to the challenge. Power should not be an issue. The Pentastar V6 has a good reputation as a powerful, durable engine.

This an apples-to-oranges comparison in some respects, but a while back I used to tow a 21' hybrid trailer with about the same dry weight as yours with a Ford Aerostar minivan. It was rear wheel drive, but had far less power than your Grand Caravan. I found the performance to be acceptable in the mountain passes but not fantastic. Your van should perform much better, but payload, transmission temperature and handling are concerns.

Mickey4me wrote:
We have a 2016 Dodge Caravan and looking at getting a new trailer. The one we are looking at is 17 ft. and has a Dry Weight of 3163 lbs. Anyone out there towing with a van? How is it towing? What size trailer? Anything we should know before making this purchase? Help!!

There are thousands of people successfully and confidently towing pop ups with their minivan.

However, even if your max tow rating is 3500lbs (it wont be more) the dry weight of what you're looking at it way too high. When loaded, or even as it sits on the dealers lot, will weigh a lot more.

Don't believe the dry tongue weight either.

Consider looking at dry weights of 2000-2500lbs and gross weight ratings of 3500-4000lbs, no more.

You might also consider a WDH of the 600lb bar/6000lb capacity range.

two issues generally not specified by vehicle manufacturers, payload capacity and engine power

with a 3000 lb trailer, your tongue weight will be around 450 lbs. that's the weight carried by the van. what will be left for passengers and stuff in the back
the other issue is engine power, it takes a LOT of power to pull a travel trailer at 60 mph.
our first camping trip was with a 2300 trailer towed by a ford windstar. weight was fine with a wdh hitch but a headwind or a long hill was agony. first time in my life that I was passed by an older Volkswagen camper going up a hill

Mickey4me wrote:
We have a 2016 Dodge Caravan and looking at getting a new trailer. The one we are looking at is 17 ft. and has a Dry Weight of 3163 lbs. Anyone out there towing with a van? How is it towing? What size trailer? Anything we should know before making this purchase? Help!!

Minivans are designed for people moving, not towing.
Front Wheel drive, unibody chassis, drive gears for gas mileage, poor torque numbers are all negatives for towing.

Your Caravan will only have a towing capacity of around 3500lbs IF it has the factory tow package.
That trailer loaded, will easily exceed that capacity.

Plus your van has a frontal area limitation that any conventional TT will exceed. It should be listed in the van'so owners manual.

Full size vans make good tow vehicles, mini vans do not.