Towing your toad

[Mostovi]

For those who bring their car, truck, jeep or whatever along, what is your preference of towing and why. Do you flat tow, use a tow dolly or put it on a trailer.

Planning to retire soon and looking for information from those of you who have experience in this kind of towing.

Thanks in advance for sharing your information.

[WAFlowers]

I flat tow a Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland. I can disconnect and drive away in minutes. Hooking up takes just a little longer. Wife likes the creature comforts and I can explore logging trails and even rougher with Quadra Lift suspension and Quadra Trac II transmission.

[bullydogs1]

Just sold 2007 Saturn which was a daily driver and flat towed for 11 years.....Set up 2018 Equinox Diesel to flat tow which can carry the dogs and has rear AC and is flat towable..no fuse to pull...just charge battery while you drive. and it gets a real 48 MPG...and I do a great deal of highway driving with it...

[Mostovi]

smlranger wrote:
Seems the concensus is flat tow. When we got our first motorhome, I bought a Mastertow dolly. I used it for 6 months and decided it was generally a PITA. I sold it and rigged up to flat tow. Never looked back.

As noted you just need to find a vehicle that can be flat towed and also meets your other travel needs. We now tow a F150 4WD Super Crew.

The F150 is one of the vehicles we're looking at. Thanks to all for the good info.

[Lwiddis]

How you tow your toad depends on the toad. Easiest is flat towing.

[smlranger]

Seems the concensus is flat tow. When we got our first motorhome, I bought a Mastertow dolly. I used it for 6 months and decided it was generally a PITA. I sold it and rigged up to flat tow. Never looked back.

As noted you just need to find a vehicle that can be flat towed and also meets your other travel needs. We now tow a F150 4WD Super Crew.

[rockhillmanor]

I flat tow 4 down.

The only thing I would add about dolly towing for you to consider is I have been at many CG's where they don't allow you to leave the dolly on your CG site. Albiet Of course there are just as many that don't care.But it is something to consider when deciding which way is less of a hassle.

When they don't allow the dolly at your site, that means you have to park the dolly behind the CG office or where ever they say for you to put it. And all the ones I've seen you just can't pull your car in to load it you have to drag it out by hand and load on the road.

That and on small sites, having the dolly parked on the grass where your eating/bbg area is located is sometimes a pain.

I have also watched many RV'ers getting ready to leave and struggling to get the car aligned and on, and tires ratcheted down etc. All I have to do is hook up two pins and plug in a few wires and plugs and I am gone!

[Dutch_12078]

I dolly towed cars to and from car auctions in a previous life, so when it came time to haul a toad behind our then new to us Class A, there was never a doubt in my mind that we would tow 4-down. Our 2002 Toyota RAV4 automatic 4WD could not be towed as is, but it could by adding a Remco transmission lube pump, so that's what we did since we really liked the car. When it came time to replace it, everything switched right over to our then new 2011 RAV4 except the base plate. 50,000+ miles later, and our tow setup has never given us any significant problems.

[Dale_Traveling]

I flat towed from the very start of my RV adventure because I had a car that could be flat towed otherwise I would have gone with a dolly. On our second towable and replaced the original with a Honda CR-V.

[Trackrig]

Flat tow, much easier and quicker.

Here's an extreme example. In CA, went to pull into a fuel station, but couldn't seen the canopy over the fuel pumps as we came down the street do to the the palm tree's. Turned in, and realized the canopy was too low to get the DP under it. The DP was just off of the road, but the Jeep was well out in traffic still.

It was 5:00PM on a work day and traffic built up right on the tail of the Jeep so we couldn't have backed up if we could have with the toad on. I hopped out of the DP, unhooked the Jeep in about a minute, forced some cars backwards behind me, and drove the Jeep around to the back of the fuel station. Then jacked the DP around some to miss the canopy.

I never could have got out of that situation nearly so easy if my toad had been on a dolly or trailer.

Bill

[Johno02]

Talking about in bad weather, if you both drive, they connecting the toad in bad weather or locations is an option. Many times we have driven both vehicles to a location what is a bit more protected to hookup. Under an awning at a filling station is always a good option. In most cases, especially if I need to fill gas, then we wait to hookup while filling the rig with gas. usually in the shade, and under an awning if it is raining or worse.

[Dance_Chick]

We flat tow and aren't interested in any other way. We've have had a couple of instances where we had to unhook the toad because we got ourselves in a bind somewhere and as mentioned, we couldn't back up the motorhome. You'll quickly learn to scout where you're going BEFORE you blindly forge ahead...LOL Sometimes things have to be learned the hard way, I guess - for us anyway. But, it wasn't the end of the world either. We easily re-attached the toad, ran it through the necessary steps, and were on our way.

[rk911]

we flat tow for the reasons stated but also because no added weight from the dolly or trailer is involved. the amount of weight you can safely tow will be the lesser of the following:

- the gross combination weight rating of the MH minus the actual weight of the MH as it is loaded and configured for travel

- the weight rating of your hitch

- the weight rating of your tow bar

[Johno02]

Have been flat towing for a number of years, and would not consider anything else. Others have other opinions, and their reasons. In our case, we are towing a 2011 HHR with a blue Ox towbar, and it takes us less than a minute to either hitch up, or unhitch. And we do not have to worry about what to do with a trailer or dolly. Preping the HHR consists of removing only one fuse, located inside the passenger compartment, and within easy reach from the drivers seat. However, it is becoming much more difficult to find a vehicle that can be flat-towed any more. As far as towing, behind our small class A, I have to watch the rear camera to even know if it is there. But yes, it does taka a bit more to tow it, and without an extra braking system, it will tend to push us a bit.

[2gypsies1]

Flat tow is the easiest. We could disconnect/connect in a couple minutes. There will be folks saying "but then you can't back up". In 16 years of full-timing we never had an occasion to back up with the car connected so that is no issue. Have you ever backed up a trailer? Not fun all the time.

You do have to make sure your car can be flat-towed. There are towing sites out there that will tell you if it is or not - if you're planning to purchase a car. If you already have the car then read your owner's manual for the information.

We've volunteered in parks and saw problems folks had with having a trailer or dolly. Storage on the campsite is a big one. A dolly is awful if you need to prepare to leave and it's raining.

Good luck with your choice.

[Fleet_Man]

Flat towing is most trouble free, no dolly or trailer to worry about when you disconnect.