Tow dolly what do I need

[kidkasha]

I have a fleetwood Discovery w/ 275HP CUMMINS Turbo Diesel with Allison 6-Speed Electronic Transmission. I want to get a tow dolly for my 2012 Ford Fusion which can run 4 down. The MH can tow 5000 lbs, and the ford is about 4500 lbs. I am confused as I checked at CW and was told installation is about $3500. for what they said I needed.

I am not cheap, but thrifty as I saw tow dolly's on Ebay for around $500. What else do I need to complete a tow package, and how should I start and what are my possibilities. All and any input is acceptable I am not sensitive to good and bad comments as I am an Insurance salesman.

[kidkasha]

The Ford Fusion is towable 4 down as stated in owners manual. Ford service recommended that I go to U-Haul and have them check it out. I don't know why, but maybe they will just check it out to see where the bar will hook up

[cjoseph]

kidkasha wrote:
can someone please tell how I should go about putting a 4 down system together for my Ford Fusion and exactly what I need and the approx cost. I am a little slow so please be patient.
Arnold

Of course, make sure it is towable.

Pay someone with the knowledge to install the baseplate. (BP $250 instal another $200 to 300) I did mine on the floor of my garage and it was a PAIN. It's a much easier job with the car up on a lift.

Buy a Ready Brute Elite tow bar/surge brake. (brakes and tow bar in one)($800 to $1,000)

If you are somewhat handy, you can run the brake cable and wire the lights up on your own.

Basically, when your blinkers and brake lights come on in the MH, you want them to come on in the Toad. So, you will need to either install a separate set of bulbs (in the tail lights or magnetic on the trunk/roof.) A wiring harness was available for my Jeep that ran from the 7-way on the MH to the left tail light of the Jeep. It was plug and play. My Jeep's original lights are used in this set up. Look for something similar for the fusion and it's an easy install. ($125 (high guess for the Ford))

The surge brake does the braking for you. When the Toad pushes against the hitch a lever pulls the cable which pulls your brake pedal down on the Toad. When enough braking has been applied and no more surge is happening, the lever releases the pedal.

The cable has to be run through the fire wall. If you are not comfortable doing this, that will be more install charges.

I am moderately mechanical with some minor health issues and was able to do the total instal with a little help from a neighbor. He was more interested than employed. He did hand me tools and help feed the cable through the fire wall. The baseplate was more complicated than it needed to be. I bought a Currie for the placement and looks. Make sure your base plate is as "bolt-on" as it can be. My instal required some metal grinding and drilling on the Jeep.

Good luck.

[AJR]

Is your Fusion 2012 or newer? Does it have an automatic transmission with AWD?

First determine if you’re 2012 Ford Fusion AWD vehicle equipped with an automatic 6F35 transmission was built on or after 3/30/2012. If that is true it can not be towed four down, per Ford. You would need a car trailer.

If your Fusion AWD is older than the above date have a Ford dealer perform (TSB) 11-07-15 so it can be towed four down.

You then would need a tow bar (new or used). A base plate that goes on the front of your Fusion (behind the grill) so it can connect to the tow bar (I had mine installed at a body shop for $100.).


Then for safeties sake you well need some kind of braking device for the Fusion. Go to the “Dinghy Towing” section of this site and read, read and then read some more about all the different braking systems. I ended up with a used “Brake Buddy” after a lot of reading.

[BillMFl]

The truely short answer is if you want to tow 4 down easily and relatively cheaply buy a car that can be towed that way. If you already own a nice front wheel drive car (or two, I have a fusion and a focus) or if you have more than one vehicle that can tow with a dolly (I have both a MH and a van that can tow a dolly) then a tow dolly makes sense. You can tow nicely either way. And nany vehicles can be expensive to convert to 4 down. Easiet solution for most folks is to buy a vehicle that can be towed 4 down with a minimum amount of extra equipment. And legal or not, driving steep mountain passes with long 6% grades, a braking system for the toad (which can easily weigh several tons) is just plain common sense. Same for when some fool causes you to stomp on your brakes with little or no warning. You don't want several tons of dead weight pushing you foreward under adverse conditions at highway speeds. Safety doesn't come cheap but how nuch is your and your loved ones health worth?

[msmith1199]

Has anybody who makes these tow dollies come up with a better system other than straps for attaching the tires to the dolly? For motorcycles on a trailer you can get these nice metal devices that trap the tire and then pivot as you drive up on them locking the bike into place. You still need straps, but with the locking in device for the tire you don't have to tie it down like you did without it. It just seems like something similar could be made for tow dollies.

[msmith1199]

Frosty10 wrote:

kidkasha wrote:
can someone please tell how I should go about putting a 4 down system together for my Ford Fusion and exactly what I need and the approx cost. I am a little slow so please be patient.
Arnold

I don't think the 2012 Fusion is approved for four down towing. Ford had too many transmission fail so they stopped approving the Fusion. The hybrid might be towable.

You need to check with Ford to be sure.

This is the first thing you need to do. There may be a section of your owners manual that tells if you can even be towed or not. If it can't, then you have an added expense of a drive shaft disconnect or transmission cooler. For me that would be a deal breaker. I'd go with the dolly.

[msmith1199]

PastorCharlie wrote:

Effy wrote:

PastorCharlie wrote:

jerseyjim wrote:
IF you can tow 4-down, forget the dolly. 4-down is easier and cheaper. What you need is a baseplate and towbar. More than one company makes them...I use BlueOx for my baseplate and Roadmaster for my towbar. Then you have a choice of using magnetic lights or a diode kit for your toads' brake and marker lights.
I would suggest you not doing it yourself...at least this time. Check with an RV dealer or Camping World. Most likely under $1500 for everything.
IMO with your motorhome and the weight of the Ford Fusion, one of those "aux. braking systems" are not needed at all. But that's MY opinion.

Most all states require a braking system.... the MH will probably stop it on normal terrain but the LE will also stop it and give an invite to their justice center.

I hear this a lot on this forum that law enforcement will fine you etc etc. I would love to hear one documented instance where a MH was stopped pulling a toad simply to validate they had supplimental brakes. It's not required in a lot of states, hence why they manufacture and sell tow devices without them. You guys crack me up. Good idea? depends on your setup. Required? depends on state and set up.

http://www.brakebuddy.com/Towing-Laws

This has been beat to death on here, but these people are lying to you. The weights they are giving in these charts are for towing a trailer and even in some cases they have those wrong. For example in California you have to have brakes on a camping trailer that weighs more than 1500 pounds, but for any other trailer you can go up to 3000 pounds before it has to have brakes. A towed motor vehicle is not a trailer under California law and has braking performance requirements, and not a weight limit requirement. The people at Brake Buddy that put this chart together have probably received a million emails from people telling them this, but for some reason they chose to lie to you. I would have no problem if they want to say you should have the braking system, but I do object to them lying to you can tell you it's required my law when it is not.

[msmith1199]

Effy wrote:

PastorCharlie wrote:

jerseyjim wrote:
IF you can tow 4-down, forget the dolly. 4-down is easier and cheaper. What you need is a baseplate and towbar. More than one company makes them...I use BlueOx for my baseplate and Roadmaster for my towbar. Then you have a choice of using magnetic lights or a diode kit for your toads' brake and marker lights.
I would suggest you not doing it yourself...at least this time. Check with an RV dealer or Camping World. Most likely under $1500 for everything.
IMO with your motorhome and the weight of the Ford Fusion, one of those "aux. braking systems" are not needed at all. But that's MY opinion.

Most all states require a braking system.... the MH will probably stop it on normal terrain but the LE will also stop it and give an invite to their justice center.

I hear this a lot on this forum that law enforcement will fine you etc etc. I would love to hear one documented instance where a MH was stopped pulling a toad simply to validate they had supplimental brakes. It's not required in a lot of states, hence why they manufacture and sell tow devices without them. You guys crack me up. Good idea? depends on your setup. Required? depends on state and set up.

A few years back I did my own research on this issue. I didn't check all 50 states, but I went through about 20 of them including ones where people said they did have such a law. I think I found two states that actually had a law that described towing a motor vehicle and said that a aux brake system was required. I think Canada does have a law requiring the aux brake system. Most of the other states I check had braking performance requirements. Basically there is a chart that says at this speed you have to be able to stop this fast. This is the law California uses when it comes to towing motor vehicles. California does have a weight law on trailers, but not motor vehicles. The only way I know of that law enforcement can enforce this braking performance requirement is to have you get out on the road and get up the speed and slam on the brakes and see how fast you can stop. In all my years as a cop I never once saw this take place, even by the Highway Patrol.

[Frosty10]

kidkasha wrote:
can someone please tell how I should go about putting a 4 down system together for my Ford Fusion and exactly what I need and the approx cost. I am a little slow so please be patient.
Arnold

I don't think the 2012 Fusion is approved for four down towing. Ford had too many transmission fail so they stopped approving the Fusion. The hybrid might be towable.

You need to check with Ford to be sure.

[kidkasha]

can someone please tell how I should go about putting a 4 down system together for my Ford Fusion and exactly what I need and the approx cost. I am a little slow so please be patient.
Arnold

[PastorCharlie]

Effy wrote:

PastorCharlie wrote:

jerseyjim wrote:
IF you can tow 4-down, forget the dolly. 4-down is easier and cheaper. What you need is a baseplate and towbar. More than one company makes them...I use BlueOx for my baseplate and Roadmaster for my towbar. Then you have a choice of using magnetic lights or a diode kit for your toads' brake and marker lights.
I would suggest you not doing it yourself...at least this time. Check with an RV dealer or Camping World. Most likely under $1500 for everything.
IMO with your motorhome and the weight of the Ford Fusion, one of those "aux. braking systems" are not needed at all. But that's MY opinion.

Most all states require a braking system.... the MH will probably stop it on normal terrain but the LE will also stop it and give an invite to their justice center.

I hear this a lot on this forum that law enforcement will fine you etc etc. I would love to hear one documented instance where a MH was stopped pulling a toad simply to validate they had supplimental brakes. It's not required in a lot of states, hence why they manufacture and sell tow devices without them. You guys crack me up. Good idea? depends on your setup. Required? depends on state and set up.

http://www.brakebuddy.com/Towing-Laws

[Chopperbob]

Pm me.
Bob

[kidkasha]

can someone please tell how I should go about putting a 4 down system together for my Ford Fusion and exactly what I need and the approx cost. I am a little slow so please be patient.
Arnold

[Retired_JSO]

We have a 2010 Honda Accord with very little mileage. After we bought our Motorhome, we thought about getting a towable vehicle but just couldn't justify the expense. We decided to purchase what I would call an upper end tow dolly with surge brakes and lights. It meets and exceeds the required laws here in Florida and I plan to tow it to wherever we travel. In OP's case, if my vehicle allowed 4 down towing, I would have purchased the equipment to tow our vehicle 4 down because:

1. Additional area needed to stow the dolly either here at home or at campsites and physically roll it to the stowed location.

2. More time consuming to connect.

3. Having to have an additional tire for a dolly spare and stow it.

4. I am getting too old to crawl under the car to insert or remove the tilt pin.

[BillMFl]

Lets separate fact from fiction. A top of the line tow dolly equiped with surge brakes and LED lights can be had for about $1800. There is a simple conversion connecter that converts your RV connecter to a flat 4 pin and it comes with the dolly or buy one for less than ten dollars. And it does not require two people to drive on or off the dolly unless you are an insecure, nervous or incompentent driver. The hardest part of the tow dolly is attaching or detaching the straps. My Master Tow Dolly was about $1800 complete. A really good 4 down system complete with a brake controller and installation often costs more than a tow dolly. An elderly person with a bad back or knees should go with 4 down. Many vehicles require additional drive shaft, oil pump or electrical modifications that can add to the expense. None of them are cheap. I drive on or off the ramps in a couple minutes by myself and it is easy. Doing the straps takes 5 to 10 minutes with a little practice. A tow dolly is great if you own more than one front wheel drive car (I do). Either a dolly or 4 down tow easy. The dolly has more flexibilty as it can tow a variety of cars without modifications. Depending on the vehicle to be towed, 4 down can require anywhere from a few to a lot of modifications. Your best price for a new tow dolly is buying direct, not thru CW or other dealers who mark up the price a lot. For most folks the easiest thing is to buy a car that can be towed 4 down with the fewest modifications. You probably don't want to have to disconnect a drve shaft, etc. If you insist on towing a vehicle that is not suitable then consider a car hauler trailer. Exotic car owners prefer enclosed haulers. But now you are talking some real bucks. Big toys for big boys are not cheap!