We have a 2007 4 door Jeep Wrangler 6 cylinder. The towing capacity is rated for 3500lbs. We want to buy a 2003 Trail Cruiser C19 which has a dry weight of 2850 lbs. Do you think we will be ok. we don't drive far to camp, usually within an hour or 2 of home. I do not want to buy another tow vehicle to make this work. I think we have a class 2 hitch, do we have to upgrade to a class 3 hitch to accomodate the sway bar and leveling equipment? I assume we will have to have the brake box put in the jeep as well? Thoughts please. Thank you
I would guess that the real dry weight is somewhere around 3100-3200 lbs. You would have to check the yellow sticker on the trailer to be sure. The yellow sticker is the as delivered weight. The published dry weights you see in the brochures are without any options like battery, propane, awning, oven, etc.
That would put you over weight by the time you added your stuff and added passengers to the jeep.
Yes, a class 3 hitch and brake controller would be needed. Plus, even with the 4-door, the jeep would have a pretty short wheelbase which makes swaying easier to happen.
Not saying it can't be done, but I don't thing you can do it within the 3500 lb limit.
Ray
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Your VEHICLE tongue weight spec is almost certainly 350#. You need a minimum of 13% of the TT FULLY LOADED weight on the tongue. Thus your maximum FULLY LOADED TT weight is 2,700#. Most of us add around 1000# over dry weight, but you are overweight before you add ANYTHING.
Note putting a Class 5 hitch on a Pinto would NOT increase its tow rating. I doubt putting a Class III hitch on your Jeep does either, sorry.
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designerchris wrote: We have a 2007 4 door Jeep Wrangler 6 cylinder. The towing capacity is rated for 3500lbs. We want to buy a 2003 Trail Cruiser C19 which has a dry weight of 2850 lbs. Do you think we will be ok. we don't drive far to camp, usually within an hour or 2 of home. I do not want to buy another tow vehicle to make this work. I think we have a class 2 hitch, do we have to upgrade to a class 3 hitch to accomodate the sway bar and leveling equipment? I assume we will have to have the brake box put in the jeep as well? Thoughts please. Thank you
not really. that's a 20' trailer that's 8' wide. i'm sure it exceeds the Jeep's frontal area towing limit and that's too long for such a short wheelbase vehicle, IMHO.
now add 40lbs. for the battery, 40lbs. for propane, at least 80lbs. for 10 gallons of water and say 390lbs. for cargo. now it weighs 3400lbs.
now subtract 100lbs. for the WDH from your 3500 tow capacity and you're at your max. and that's with only a 150lb. driver in the Jeep.
yes, you'll have to upgrade the hitch and duplicate the factory tow package, if it doesn't have it. with only a class II, sounds like it didn't come with it.
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As you can tell towing a HTT with a 3500 max tow vehical is frowned on here, but some do it. Most likely no matter what you do you'll be overweight, do check what the max tongue weight the Jeep can handle is, you'll need 500 lbs. You'll also need a 7 pin connector on the back along with a weight distribution hitch, class 3 hitch and a brake controller. It's going to cost you roughly $1000 to find out if the jeep can do it.
Once you hook up you may find the rear end sags, if so Air-bags help a lot.
You should probably take a look at popups and fiberglass eggs before buying an HTT, they'd be a better fit for the Jeep.
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Lessons learned. In the 70s I had a 6 cylinder Chevy II Nova and I bought a small travel trailer to haul from Duluth MN to Biloxi MS and back to live in when I had a 3 month temporary duty. I found out that small cars and larger trailers do not match up. We had a couple of good scares (one a wild sway problem where I almost lost control and another a hill that we couldn't make it up and had to get towed out), but made it back to Duluth in one piece. The next car I got was bigger and more powerful. That Chevy II was never the same again after that trip. You might want to consider a smaller trailer or a larger car IMHO.
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Back in my JEEP days we didnt have much luck towing much of anything with a JEEP WRANGLER. They are not built for towing. Everyone would lose a rear-end in just alittle time.
I use to tow a 5X8 trailer alot getting back into the local woods with a setup like shown here... Never made any long trips however.
I hooked up my 2008 4200lb OFF-ROAD POPUP to my 99 TJ Wrangler Jeep and it looked just like this setup shown here. No way would I head out down the road with this...
Maybe the newer JEEPS have improved for towing over the years but I doubt it...
Lots of photos of folks pulling trailers with Jeeps... The word safely comes to mind...
Photos shown here from google images...
Another clue back in the day was if you showed up at a UHAUL place to rent any trailer to pull with a JEEP, you would be turned down... Happened to me several times...
My Posts are IMHO based on my experiences - PM me Roy and Carolyn
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Ok, you guys are all great. I see most of you are Senior members so you must know what you are talking about. I appreciate the advice even though I didn't want to hear it. I did not want to switch out of the Jeep to buy another tow vehicle but I have a newer Ford Edge, thinking maybe switch that out for a Ford Explorer. Those are rated much higher. Will that do the job??? Maybe a 2007,08 or an 09?
We have an '01 Explorer with a tow package which includes a 4.10 rear end. The owners manual says our max tow weight is 5900#. Our Jayco 19H has a weight sticker on it of just over 3700#. As others have pointed out you still have to add in propane, water, etc and of course all your "stuff" to get the real weight. Our Explorer tows it OK but it doesn't set the world on fire.
We live on the west coast so pretty much everywhere we go camping has a mountain to cross somewhere. I installed a transmission temp gauge and watch it closely when going up long grades. That is usually a 45 to 50 mph slog unless you like watching your tach hover near 5 grand.
For me, if you're going to invest in a new TV, look at something with a bit more capacity. Maybe the newer Explorers have more power, haven't seen the specs on them yet.
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