What do you tow with?
We have abandoned our plan to buy a small hybrid and are looking at a number of hard-sided TTs, in the 22'-26' range. We have to buy a new vehicle to tow it with and are thoroughly confused. We've d...
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We have been looking at a Jayco White Hawk UtraLite 26', which weighs 5724# with full tanks. Also a Forest River Surveyor Sport SP264, which weighs 5133# dry; and a Surveyor Cadet 226. We are open to other TTs but that's what we've found where we live.
What we've been looking at to tow with are Expeditions and Sequoias, all 5.7L V8s, with towing hitches but no other special stuff for towing a load.
We started out looking at a Ram Hemi and a Tundra, all no older than 2011. But we realized that whatever we buy will tow maybe 10% of the time and be driven as our car the rest of the time, and we are more comfortable in an SUV than a truck, as nice as these were. My husband is 73 and has no mechanical or automotive knowledge. I'm almost 70. Were we to hit the road full-time or even half-time, we'd probably go for the truck, but for our plans, even anticipating some longer-term trips of a month or so, it seems like overkill when weighed against the daily use aspect. Where we live, we feel that we need a 4WD or AWD, in case it ever snows again (starting to look unlikely, but we are in the foothills of Northern California and really don't want to be forced off the road when it snows because we don't have chains. And we definitely don't want to mess with them. So we'd prefer an AWD.)
Anyway, one dealer says the Tiguan diesel is too small and lightweight to tow 6000#, and our friend vehemently tells us that the dealer is full of it. We're going back and forth - SUV? Truck? Diesel whatever? Tahoe? Sequoia? F150? Expedition? Tundra? We go to Los Angeles four or five times a year and would like to be able to take whatever set-up we buy, but there's the Grapevine to consider, a long steep segment that crosses the Tehachapi Range. And an SUV is more useful for us than a truck.
There's a huge amount of information we should know, and we're willing to try to learn it, but it gets very confusing when we're getting advice that's diametrically oppositional. We just don't know whom to believe.
What we've been looking at to tow with are Expeditions and Sequoias, all 5.7L V8s, with towing hitches but no other special stuff for towing a load.
We started out looking at a Ram Hemi and a Tundra, all no older than 2011. But we realized that whatever we buy will tow maybe 10% of the time and be driven as our car the rest of the time, and we are more comfortable in an SUV than a truck, as nice as these were. My husband is 73 and has no mechanical or automotive knowledge. I'm almost 70. Were we to hit the road full-time or even half-time, we'd probably go for the truck, but for our plans, even anticipating some longer-term trips of a month or so, it seems like overkill when weighed against the daily use aspect. Where we live, we feel that we need a 4WD or AWD, in case it ever snows again (starting to look unlikely, but we are in the foothills of Northern California and really don't want to be forced off the road when it snows because we don't have chains. And we definitely don't want to mess with them. So we'd prefer an AWD.)
Anyway, one dealer says the Tiguan diesel is too small and lightweight to tow 6000#, and our friend vehemently tells us that the dealer is full of it. We're going back and forth - SUV? Truck? Diesel whatever? Tahoe? Sequoia? F150? Expedition? Tundra? We go to Los Angeles four or five times a year and would like to be able to take whatever set-up we buy, but there's the Grapevine to consider, a long steep segment that crosses the Tehachapi Range. And an SUV is more useful for us than a truck.
There's a huge amount of information we should know, and we're willing to try to learn it, but it gets very confusing when we're getting advice that's diametrically oppositional. We just don't know whom to believe.
