Class A towing

[Smitty64]

New to Class A travel and looking for dingy recommendations. I have been looking at Jeep Wrangler, Subaru Forester, and Honda CRV. Looking to tow 4 down

[bsinmich]

Most of the new Ford products are towable 4 down with no problems auto or manual.

[Dog_Trainer]

If you don't mind a used tow I loved our HHR I still see a lot of them around. It was easy to tow I installed 1 switch which was easy and I loved the room in this little 3100 lb car. It was a great toad.

[timmac]

zman-az wrote:

timmac wrote:

What year of Wrangler is that without steering lock, the reason I ask is my 04 Wrangler has steering lock, maybe the OPer is not looking for a new Wrangler if the new ones no longer lock.

It's the newer jk,s that don't use it. Not sure of the year they did the change, probably around 2011.

Google steering wheel lock removal for jeep tj and you can remove the interlock in your jeep. That's what I did to my 03 and love not having to use the key anymore.

Thanks I might just do that, hate having to still lock the Jeep with keys inside even though I carry extra keys.

[zman-az]

timmac wrote:

What year of Wrangler is that without steering lock, the reason I ask is my 04 Wrangler has steering lock, maybe the OPer is not looking for a new Wrangler if the new ones no longer lock.

It's the newer jk,s that don't use it. Not sure of the year they did the change, probably around 2011.

Google steering wheel lock removal for jeep tj and you can remove the interlock in your jeep. That's what I did to my 03 and love not having to use the key anymore.

[epiphone]

We just went thru this same drill. Bought a 2013 jeep wrangler. Hooked up with roadmaster all terrain bar and invisibrake. Just returned from 2500 mile trip thru mountains out west with no problems. I can hook up and disconnect by myself in 5 minutes. Best decision I could have made.

[timmac]

Heisenberg wrote:
Wrangler and Equinox are both very easy. Wrangler does not get good fuel mileage but great on western trips. Equinox gets excellent mileage and is a daily driver. Demco base plate was easy on both. Equinox has steering lock and fuse issue, and Wrangler does not have steering lock and I can put the key in my pocket while towing it. It depends on one's needs. I got 2 great toads.

What year of Wrangler is that without steering lock, the reason I ask is my 04 Wrangler has steering lock, maybe the OPer is not looking for a new Wrangler if the new ones no longer lock.

[lostdog]

Vncgrg wrote:

summerhouse wrote:
We towed a Jeep Wrangler for four years. It was the absolute easiest thing to hook up! There is no steering wheel lock so you don't have to leave a key in the ignition. They are built perfectly gorgeous the job.

with zero problems.
X2, DP drives CRV and it is set up to tow, but I prefer to take Jeep
along...

X3. Been towing a wrangler for 25,000 miles with zero problems. No fuses, no steering locks and no mileage on the odometer. Using our Roadmaster All Terrain and ReadyBrake it takes us less than 5 minutes to hook up, put jeep in Park, transfer case in neutral, light test and pull away. I just can't see how it can be easier.

[zman-az]

Between my dad and I we have had several tow vehicles. 02 Malibu, 08 Malibu, 03 TJ wrangler, 07 JK wrangler, 11 Grand Cherokee and now a 14 Equinox.

I can tell you without a doubt the 03 and 07 Wranglers are far easier and quicker to connect and disconnect. The GM stuff wants you to pull fuses and the grand Cherokee has that electronic shifter that frustrates me as you have to have the perfect sequence to get in/out of neutral as well as pull the start button.

I did modify the 03TJ so that a key was not required in the ignition. The newer jeeps (Cherokee and Wranglers) do not require to have a key which is nice.

My dad has the 07 Wrangler and Equinox. He only tows the wrangler if he thinks he will be in places where he wants to explore offroad, otherwise he tows the Equinox. He says he can tell at least a 1mpg difference with his workhorse chassis when pulling the wrangler vs his previous malibu. The Equinox is so new I don't know if there is a mpg difference yet. I do think there is some restrictions on towing the Equinox, like stop ever x miles and run engine but I don't recall the exact details. BTW, we found installing the Demco Base Plate in the Equinox a PITA compared to all the other cars we had, we had to do a lot of modifications. Glad I own a plasma cutter and welder as we used it on the install.

All vehicles had the diodes installed in the tail lights for easy hook up and there was no issue installing those in any of the vehicles.

[mnoeltne]

Yeah, as mentioned, the Subies must have a manual trans. My wife has a Forester with a manual. We are discussing using it as an alternative for our Jeep.

A Jeep could have either a manual or automatic, but the transfer case must have a neutral setting and be approved for towing by Jeep. Not all the new ones do that anymore.

[wa8yxm]

One bit of caution: in days of old ALL 4wd Jeeps had manual transfer cases and could be twoed 4 down.. Then they had one transfer case that .. It was not recommended.

Last spring I rented a Jeep liberty from enterprise (nice ride) FULL TIME All Wheel drive with automatic transfer case and electric clutches.. NOT towable 4 down

Make sure you have a MANUAL transfer case.. That's all i can add.

Oh, one other thing.... One of the Auto mag's does an annual "Bang for the Buck" contest, Companies subimt their fun (usually sports) cars and JEEP walks away with the trophy, Most every year. You see the formula is "FUN/Cost" and,,, Well, Jeep is very big on Fun, and low on cost, compared to say a Mustang 5.0.

[ArchHoagland]

Remco

This site will tell you if a car is towable 4 down and if not, what you can do to make it towable.

[SRT]

Smitty64 wrote:
New to Class A travel and looking for dingy recommendations. I have been looking at Jeep Wrangler, Subaru Forester, and Honda CRV. Looking to tow 4 down

The Subaru Forester requires a manual transmission (We own 2 Subaru's). It's a great car/SUV if you don't mind shifting for yourself. Plus it has extra ground clearance for those dirt roads.

[Gjac]

You can tow a lot of vehicles 4 wheels down. I assume you want the car to be your daily driver(DD) when not towing? I would focus on a car that would meet these needs first. The next thing I would look at is how you would use the vehicle when traveling in the MH. Would you be exploring off roads out west in remote areas 90% of the time or will you be on paved roads 90 % of the time and maybe 10% of the time on dirt roads. Do you want space for large dogs and stuff in the tow vehicle or just 2 adults and 2 kids. You can't find a perfect vehicle that does everything but only one that fits your style of camping. I wanted a DD that gets good gas mileage(40 mpgs) I would have liked to have a Jeep when exploring remote areas sometimes but would not want to use it every day with such poor gas mileage. So for me I bought a used 2002 Toyota Corolla 5 speed towed it for 70 k miles all over the US and Canada. I would buy used because it will get dinged towing. It gets 40 mpgs on the hwy and after 170 k on the OD miles and normal maintenance it has worked well as a tow car. I drove it on a lot of dirt roads in Alaska and Az and what I want in the next tow car is something that has a little more ground clearance and would still get 40 mpg for a DD. I will look at another small car sedan when replacing this one. All the ones I looked at had better ground clearance than the Corolla and got between 38-40 mpgs hwy. Chevy Cruse, Ford Focus, Elantra, and Versa all manual transmissions. Some come with 17 in higher aspect ratio tires as an option giving you even more GC.

[Vncgrg]

summerhouse wrote:
We towed a Jeep Wrangler for four years. It was the absolute easiest thing to hook up! There is no steering wheel lock so you don't have to leave a key in the ignition. They are built perfectly gorgeous the job.

X2, DP drives CRV and it is set up to tow, but I prefer to take Jeep
along...

[wolfe10]

Yes, need to know if you are looking at manual transmission or automatic.