Tow Capacity of Mercedes 2.7 Liter 5 Cylinder Diesel

[JimBollman]

Just starting my search for a used class B. I see the Mercedes 2.7 Liter Turbo Charged 5 Cylinder Diesel in some of the units and wonder what is it's towing capability. On some of our trips I pull a 12 foot enclosed trailer that load is around 3000lbs. I don't need to pull this through the Rockies but do need to pull in the mountains in the East.

I will be picking a B that is around 20' or less that isn't overly tall, I would like no more than 9' tall and would rather be down around 8'.

[JimBollman]

Normally I only tow on one big trip a year and maybe a few local trips. The once a year trip is normally around 1000 miles but this year was 1700. Our normal trailer trip is driving out of the mountains so less than half the trip is hilly. The rest of the time we leave the trailer at home.

Very early in the learning curve. Currently have slide in 8' popup camper on a F250 with 7.3l diesel so no problem towing now. Problem is as my wife's knees gets worse she doesn't think she will be able to get into the overhead bed.

Being happy in an 8' popup truck camper should make it easy to move to a smaller B. Had 65 Ford van in the early 70s with pop up top before we moved to truck campers. It had been a commercially conversion but had been wrecked before we got it so we started with an empty shell after it got out of the body shop. Was crude when I did the conversion but served us well for many years.

[retraite]

The Achilles heel, IMHO, is the tire and axle capacity of the rear axle on a 2500 Sprinter when towing.

When we were looking for a Class B some years ago, the 3500 Sprinter was not being used yet by any "upfitters". So, our search was limited to Sprinter, Ford and Chevrolet (the Dodges were no longer be "upfitted").

We did want to tow regularly as we wanted to take both a motorcycle and a canoe with us. The motorcycle was inside the trailer, the canoe on top. The trailer was a single axle 3500 GVWR trailer.

When I did the arithmetic of adding the trailer tongue weight to the rear axle of the 2500 Sprinter, we would be WAAAAAAYYYYY overweight. So, no sprinter.

The wheelbase of the Chevrolet was much longer than the Ford, so the distance from the rear axle to the ball was MUCH shorter (about 17 inches shorter as I recall) on the Chevrolet, so we settled on a Chevrolet chassis.

In the end, we bought a new Pleasureway Lexor on a Chevrolet Express 3500 and have been VERY happy with it. We've towed well over 30,000 miles with nary a problem.

We did add an aux transmission cooler with fans, independent air bags on the rear axle, brake controller, and more.

AsheGuy's "local" towing of a small utility trailer with some mulch would not be a problem I'd think; but a long trip - up and down mountains etc. - well, I wouldn't want to do that in a Sprinter 2500 towing a 3,500 lb. trailer.

But, to each their own.

[JimBollman]

Thanks AsheGuy. Good to know it could do the towing. The height would be a problem because the carport that it would live under is only 9'6". I had already figured that a B Sprinter with roof air might be to high, now I know.

Jim...

[AsheGuy]

RVs based on the 2.7 liter 5-cyl turbo diesel 2500 Sprinter (such as our LTV) are 9.5' tall including the roof mounted A/C. This has not been a problem for us except the obvious parking garage limitation. We have a garage with a 10' door and it easily fits in it. But this seems to rule it out for your purposes.

It's towing capacity is 5000 lbs. The only trailer I have ever pulled with it is a small (4'x 8') utility trailer to haul bark mulch.

The turbo diesel is quite capable of moving the RV over the tallest mountains with no problem but I suspect a trailer even close to its towing capacity would slow it down.

As an RV chassis, we have been quite happy with our Sprinter that now has 140K miles on it.

[My_Roadtrek]

midnightsadie wrote:
we have one a 2007 I 5 MB diesel on a sprinter chassis 3500 series I pull a 18ft boat loaded to AZ most years without a problem. and still get 17mpg. any questions just ask .

His is a Class C, and as usual his post is of no help to the OP.

[midnightsadie]

we have one a 2007 I 5 MB diesel on a sprinter chassis 3500 series I pull a 18ft boat loaded to AZ most years without a problem. and still get 17mpg. any questions just ask .

[Lwiddis]

Did you see this one? http://www.roadtrek.com/models/170-versatile/

[Lwiddis]

Very surprised Mercedes has nothing online regarding the towing abilities of their Bs. Let me look.