OldDoggy wrote:
Looking at a used Kar Kaddy to buy for our great western adventure next month. We are thinking about how nice it would be to have DW's car handy for her to use when we get there. Maybe some of you can share your thoughts and experiences with us and help us make up my mind (she already made hers up). How many MPG's does it cost to tow, and how much ware and tare on the driver is it?? Appreciate any info you want to share on this topic, going to look the dolly over tomorrow with the intent of buying it. Talk me out of it.
Thanks, Just Another Old Doggy, Don
When we first started RVing we tried renting rather than towing along a car. The first few times things went OK, but we stayed the entire time at a single location.
When trying to move more than a few times or a few miles renting presented problems. Sometimes even though we made reservations well in advance there was no vehicle when we arrived at the rental agency. Sometimes it was due to late returns by previous customers. Other times it was due to unexpected traffic volume, or weather conditions.
The agencies are dependent on timely returns of rentals to make them available for incoming customers. Should a vehicle need maintenance, repairs, the weather turn bad, or a vehicle be involved in an accident the whole system gets disrupted. There were times when we had to wait several hours for a rental due to circumstances beyond the agencies control.
In addition rental agencies were not always in the near proximity of the places we were staying. In one case the nearest agency was over 80 miles from our destination. Not only did that add considerable mileage, but it dictated we take a specific route home to drop off the car.
Within 2 years we purchased a dolly and took our Buick along. Primarily because the car would be where we wanted it anytime we wanted it. We wouldn't have to go out of our way to pick it up or return it, and it made moving to multiple locations much easier.
More recently we were on our way to Florida for a few weeks. The original plan was to go down the Atlantic coast and up the Gulf coast visiting friends and interesting places as we went along. Unfortunately our towed vehicle (now a 2004 Jeep Wrangler being towed 4 down) was rear ended as we were towing it. It was not drivable, but fortunately the motorhome was undamaged. We continued on our way leaving the Jeep at a local body shop.
This required us to change our plans considerably. We could either rent a car at each location, rent a car at 1 location and drive separately the entire time we were in Florida, or stay in a single location and rent and return a car to a single location.
We chose the latter and still had a good time, but it was an entirely different vacation from the one we had originally planned. This year we're going to try to recreate the vacation originally planned for last year.
Case and point, for us it's much more preferable to take along our own vehicle than to try to rent one.
