Front wheel Drive vehicle for towing?

[FJP800]

My wife and I are looking to purchase a vehicle to tow a trailer camper + or - 19 feet. There are a number of front wheel 6 cylinder..300+hp cars..which have a tow rating of over 5,000lbs... Example: Nissan Arcadia.. and I would like to know if there are any problems with using a front wheel car for towing? My wife and I are new at this and need some direction. We plan to travel through out the United States...Not during the winter months...If any of you are suing a front wheel drive vehicle... Any problems? Thank you in advance!!!

[Redsky]

Think about a pickup with a crew cab and a fiberglass shell over the bed. Much better for the dogs as they have a traveling doghouse that is theirs and easily hosed out if need be. I put a thick rubber mat in the back of my trucks so the dogs don't slide around and they love being in the bed. I can open the windows on the cap and they get all the air they want.

Pickups are built to tow and weigh less than a comparable SUV so they can tow more weight.

[bikendan]

i think the OP should compare the mpg ratings of some of the v-6 vehicles they've been looking at, to some of the vehicles with newer better mpg v-8's that are out.
like the GM v-8 or Dodge v-8 vehicles that have the v-4 feature, along with a 6 speed or more transmission.
Tahoe, Suburban, Durango, Grand Cherokee all can have this feature which will allow them to get 20mpg or more highway, when not towing.
sounds like a crewcab truck would be too small for their dogs. if not, any of the newer v-8 trucks or the F-150 Ecoboost, would get similar mpg numbers, except the gas guzzler Nissan Titan.

[Mvander]

My parents tow a 16ft starcraft with a chev uplander. Its stable but dosent like hills at 100+kph. 200hp and 4spd.
Check out can-am rv's website for an entirely different perspective.

[rexlion]

I towed a 5x10 and a 6x12 enclosed cargo trailer quite a bit (for work, daily) with a Windstar. The engine was a bit wimpy but it got the job done. I did have a shortened tire life due to the lightened load on the front drive wheels... the tires would scrub. I never used a weight distribution hitch, which would have helped. Instead I decided to go AWD with future vehicles.

My current tug is a 2008 Toyota Highlander. 270 HP. Very similar to the Acadia in size and tow rating. I have 160k miles on the odometer, and over 120k of those were with trailer in tow. It has done well, but in the last year or so I've become dissatisfied with towing my TT 40 mph up the long grades. So this summer I'm planning to upgrade, probably to a Jeep Grand Cherokee with V8 or diesel. Waaaay more power! Oh, and more capacity for tongue weight, too. 500 lb hitch weight limit does not go very far with a TT; my 16' long KZ weighs nearly 400 lb on the tongue when loaded, even though the dry weight is about 280. Water, LP, etc are heavy!!! Better to have plenty of extra capacity than to push the limit and worry.

[frankwp]

I towed a 3500 lb popup with a Windstar, which is front wheel drive. the unibody construction had no problems with a WDH. They are engineered to work. It towed very well & power was not a problem, even with only 200 HP. A popup is low profile though

[jerem0621]

FWD towing? No problem at all... I do it all the time. I do it so much that I don't even remove the shank from the hitch.

Just stay close to the ratings.

Here is our Sorento with 1300 sq ft of laminate flooring, plus four passengers. Towed like a dream, I really love this little TV. We have the 4 cyl model, no I would not tow a full sized box trailer, but I would pull, comfortably, a small Fiberglass egg camper or a pup.



That saying unibody can't take WD is simply speaking nonsense.

Jeep Grand Cherokee V8 or Diesel, Durango, Acadia, Explorer all have workable ratings. I am sure there are others.

Cheers and good luck,

Jeremiah

[boosTT]

19' tt... Full sized V8 SUV or half-ton truck is what nearly everyone uses- because it works.

[APT]

FWD is not a problem. Using a weight distributing hitch returns the weight to the front wheels for stability and traction.

However, any FWD crossover is limited by about 500 pounds of tongue weight which means at most a 4k loaded TT. Many also are limited by frontal area which is less than a 7' wide high walled travel trailer.

Keep in mind as you shop both TT and TV that for longer trips you'll have more stuff. The average RVer adds about 1200 pounds to the MFR dry weight. Couples that camp long weekends less, families and longer trips will be more.

Towing a high walled RV is hard work. This is why they tend to get 8-10mpg towing instead of maybe 20mpg on the highway otherwise. This means you are towing at 2200-3000rpm on flat highway at 65mph with hills requiring a gear or two lower, 4000-6000rpm. This is not generally a problem for the vehicle, but many RV owners call this "struggling". Do you?

Why an SUV? The rear seat space of the F-150 Supercrew when seats are folded up provides far more than the second row of any SUV ever made. And you get a place to keep all the rough and dirty gear (truck bed) for RVing and pet ownership. Pickups also cost $5-10k less than a similarly equipped SUV. A really nice bed cover is $500-1000. I miss my truck!

Consider your goals and what type of TT you want. If you plan to tow a lot of miles, then the compromises of a better tow vehicle vs. non-towing is not as important as many weekenders. 10mpg in an Acadia or 10mpg in a V8 half ton SUV is far more comfortable with more space.

You might be a interested in a diesel mid-sized SUV like the Jeep Grand Cherokee or one of the Euro imports from VW/Audi, MB, BMW. They seem to be getting more like 14mpg towing with 400+ lb-ft of torque under 2000rpm offering a far more enjoyable towing experience than most V8 SUVs.

[Dadoffourgirls]

carringb wrote:
Do you mean the Nissan Armada? It is RWD with a V8.

The Arcadia is a GMC crossover. It is FWD or AWD.

FWDs can tow, but you have to ensure a correct hitch setup. One note about the Arcadia...The transmission is tuned for fuel economy, so it hunts really bad when towing. I had to help two different owners who burned up their transmissions towing just small utility trailers.


My first pick for a 19' trailer would be an EcoBoost Ford Flex. The AWD system can apply 100% torque to the rear axle as needed, and more important: 2-turbos!

First - it is a GMC Acadia.

Second - I believe that all vehicles come from OEM tuned for the EPA certified fuel economy. Therefore, it is no different than any other CUV.

Third - I have used an AWD Acadia for towing livestock trailers up to the 5000lb rating. They Acadia has approximately 1400lb payload. Therefore, you can tow and haul some people.

Fourth - My Acadia has the trailer tow package, and trailer tow button. Whenever towing, I use the setting and never had a problem. Just brought an empty 16 ft livestock trailer 200 miles with 4 adults in the Acadia and never had transmission hunting.

[eluwak]

carringb wrote:
The Arcadia is a GMC crossover. It is FWD or AWD.

FWDs can tow, but you have to ensure a correct hitch setup. One note about the Arcadia...The transmission is tuned for fuel economy, so it hunts really bad when towing. I had to help two different owners who burned up their transmissions towing just small utility trailers.

The Acadia also has a low GCWR that makes any weight added to the TV subtract almost directly from tow capacity, so 800 lbs of people/dogs would mean that tow rating would go from 5200 lbs down to 4400 lbs. The payload was decent enough though.

Re the transmission... If you get the factory tow package it should come with a re-programmed transmission module to adjust the shift points. Not sure if those trans might have been on Acadias that someone added an aftermarket hitch to. Originally I thought the non-tow package equipped vehicles were limited to ~1000-1500 lbs, but I can't find my source on that at the moment.

[sky_free]

What price range are you looking at? We use a VW Touareg TDI and it's a good tow vehicle for a 19' trailer like the one in my sig. It's also small enough to park anywhere when used as a daily driver, is great in snow, and is quite fun to drive with all that torque. It's expensive though -- way more than a V6 front-drive anything. The Jeep Grand Cherokee diesel is another choise that is similar, and Mercedes has one too.

Unibody is not a problem if the vehicle is rated to tow with adequate tongue weight carrying capacity.

Note that with any smaller SUV you will be very close to allowable tongue weight and payload for the vehicle, so it's a compromise that may or may not work out for you depending on what you put in the vehicle while towing and how you load in the front of the trailer. We put EVERYTHING in the trailer and just have our 2 dogs in the back, which add up to about 375 lbs of people and dogs in the vehicle.

[carringb]

Do you mean the Nissan Armada? It is RWD with a V8.

The Arcadia is a GMC crossover. It is FWD or AWD.

FWDs can tow, but you have to ensure a correct hitch setup. One note about the Arcadia...The transmission is tuned for fuel economy, so it hunts really bad when towing. I had to help two different owners who burned up their transmissions towing just small utility trailers.


My first pick for a 19' trailer would be an EcoBoost Ford Flex. The AWD system can apply 100% torque to the rear axle as needed, and more important: 2-turbos!

[FJP800]

Thank you for the information!!!!!!! Any suggestions for a V8 SUV? Need an SUV because we have three dogs.. One is 85 lbs.

Regards and thank you again!!!!:)

[Me_Again]

FJP800 wrote:
My wife and I are looking to purchase a vehicle to tow a trailer camper + or - 19 feet. There are a number of front wheel 6 cylinder..300+hp cars..which have a tow rating of over 5,000lbs... Example: Nissan Arcadia.. and I would like to know if there are any problems with using a front wheel car for towing? My wife and I are new at this and need some direction. We plan to travel through out the United States...Not during the winter months...If any of you are suing a front wheel drive vehicle... Any problems? Thank you in advance!!!

Not a good plan! First off it would be a uni-body vehicle and would not be rated for a weight distribution hitch.

Second unloading weight from the front axle would cause traction issues.

Chris