Do you use an SUV to tow a small RV? What combo has worked the best for you, and how did you overcome the challenges of cargo capacity?
Do you use an SUV to tow a small RV? What combo has worked the best for you, and how did you overcome the challenges of cargo capacity?
My wife and I are aiming to break all of our belongings down as minimally as we can in order to be able to live on the road for a while (for a multitude of reasons.)
Within our budget and needs, we’ve decided on a NuCamp 320 teardrop trailer, which clocks in at ~2k lbs unloaded, 3,000 lbs max load. Her, myself and two pups all weigh 300 lbs together. Optimally, we’d like to start with just the vehicle first, and trailer later on as an upgrade.
We were initially looking at a toyota 4runner to pair with this given the advertised 1550 lbs of potential cargo capacity and tongue weight of the hitch. However in practicality, we saw no more than a max capacity of 880 lbs period in the door jams at the dealerships. Even in the off-road models, which just seemed… asinine? Using some calculators, that would seemingly give us very little-to-no wiggle room for any proper amount of livable necessities before we cross that threshold and run into myriad issues.
Now we’re wondering how people actually do it? Are we overthinking it? We did love the vehicle, but these numbers are waaay too close for comfort, seeing as most advice we find online generally recommends not crossing ~80% of the big number. We’ve begun looking at land cruisers as an alternative, but the way the market is right now, and the difference in cost for both new and used, it’s looking more and more infeasible. Don’t even get me started on the GX550.
Have you been through a similar situation? Any advice would be appreciated! 🤍
Edit for future visitors:
We ended up settling on a ‘22 Toyota Highlander XLE, and honestly we’re pretty excited about it! Even with an electric tow hitch, it clocks in at a healthy 1,390 lbs of cargo capacity, with even more room in the back to camp out of. That number will go down a decent bit with some rooftop storage, and maybe back up a little bit if we can (viably) take out the third row seating. But it more than suits our current needs as it stands 🥳
Thanks to the general good advice in the comments, we’ve put the idea of an RV at all on ice, transitioning to a more all-inclusive portable action plan. There were too many ways things could go wrong lugging one at such long distances for the timeframe of our trips. However, we’re really happy to be able to upgrade to that setup at any time we’d like to!
So, I've moved a lot of really stupid bullshit with a really small "SUV" in my life. My venerable old Callie, a manual-trans 1999 Subaru Forester that's actually just a Impreza passenger sedan with a station wagon body on top, has successfully moved a flatbed trailer probably 12-15 times some pretty long distances with upwards of 5000lb on the trailer alone. The car is rated for 1500lb towing.
Let me tell you, she does NOT like it, and is not fast. But she can do it, because I'm extremely careful about it.A vast majority of vehicles are actually fully capable of towing a lot more weight than their nameplate, in terms of engine power. The main things that limit their SAFE capability is braking force and highway stability. Manufacturers set the nameplate limits to where they can guarantee the vehicle stays safe even if operated very incorrectly, with all the weight in one spot, by a complete doofus. They're more for legal protection more than anything; "sorry you were 10lb over the rated limit, that crash isn't our fault."
You can actually go over the rated cargo capacity by a few hundred pounds and not worry too much, just make sure it's spread out evenly across the vehicle. I guarantee you a 4runner can hold more than 880lb inside, with it being a solid rear axle and all.
as far as towing goes:
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Braking force. Passenger cars only have brakes with enough force to quickly stop a vehicle of the nameplate GVWR. There is a decent bit of engineered factor of safety here, so that's how you get a towing capacity around 2000lb higher. Once you exceed that, your braking distance is going to increase linearly, since brakes can only remove a certain amount of energy (and kinetic energy is =mv^2). This also can cause them to overheat if going down large mountain slopes.
With 5500lb total behind my Forester, my braking distance effectively tripled. You can mash the brake into the floor and it would just keep going, it's really spooky if you're used to driving normal unloaded vehicles. I was doing my hauling on empty rural roads, but I would straight shit myself if I had to take that into traffic.
To combat this, trailers use additional brakes on their own axles, powered either by an electronic brake controller or via a hydraulic cylinder on the trailer tongue ("surge" brakes). I added a junkyard brake controller to my Forester, and it restored a ton of braking force. On the product page for the NuCamp 320, it says it has electric brakes, so that's good. This does mean you need to have an electric brake controller on whatever vehicle you tow with. Tons of mechanics shops can wire those in for you though. -
Vehicle/trailer stability. This is what is collectively known as "trailer sway"
Basically, physics says the trailer needs to weigh less than the vehicle, and must be applying a minimum portion of it's mass to the rear axle of the vehicle so that the vehicle can continue guiding it. If the trailer weighs more, it must transfer an equivalent force via tongue weight to keep things stable; that's how semitrucks work with a 5th wheel right over the rear axle.
With too heavy of a trailer, or too bad a weight distribution, the trailer will begin pushing the vehicle around on the road. If the imbalance is extremely poor, and the driver doesn't know how to stop it, shit happens.
The general rule is you should have 15% of the trailer's weight on the tongue. Most SUV's these days have extremely low tongue weight ratings because of their independent rear suspension- usually less than 300lb, which gets you that 2000lb tow rating.
The good part is proper trailer balance (aka store stuff in the front half of your trailer, NOT the back half) and using an electric brake controller can get rid of this; gently applying the trailer-only brakes helps bring trailers back to straight.
Of course, with those two things taken care of, you then have to worry about your transmission's capability and cooling, and engine cooling. Those you primarily just need to monitor closely using gauges or a OBD-II dongle paired to a phone running Torque app to get engine/trans data. My forester would like to start overheating if I tried to do 60mph in 4th gear too long.
I assume you're buying a new vehicle? Look at a Ford Explorer with the 3.0L V6. They give those a 5300lb tow rating and I can vouch for them actually being really good vehicles.
I knew a guy who bought a small truck (30 years ago) and towed well over rated weight, he got where he was going 200 miles down the road and when he parked over some weeds they started on fire from his overheated transmission, truck was totaled - manufecture denighed warranty coverage and is insurance refused to cover it. they were making payments for a while an a truck that was scrapped.
that's called "don't park in weeds dumbass" and not the fault of the vehicle or even the load itself. Manufacturer justified in denying any kind of warranty.
Any vehicle will do that, even passenger cars well under the weight rating, it's the exhaust and cats running at 600F+ that start dry brush on fire. It is physically impossible for a transmission to get hot enough to set stuff on fire itself before it will completely fail internally.
Thanks for the comprehensive response!! 🙌
Lots of good thoughts to chew on here, I’ll take some time to consider these points! And thanks for not just saying to get a truck instead. I do have some previous experience driving with a truck & trailer combo, though that was only a simple flatbed, so not a very apt comparison.
e: Oh also we’re not locking ourselves into only new vehicles. Just what’s available in the market in our price range, ~30-45k. Lots of carfax diving lately
yeah trucks are honestly overblown as "the only tow vehicles". Yes they're typically designed for towing with heavier duty rear ends, but they suck at being a normal vehicle when not towing. And they come with a very hefty purchase and gas-cost premium. For the small trailer and load you want? a truck, even like a ranger, is probably overkill.
Prior to the late 80s/ 1990s, most people towed camp trailers with passenger cars. American cars were built heavy and could easily pull 4000lb camp trailers slowly, but surely. Trucks were actually very uncommon. Modern vehicles prioritize fuel economy and lower manufacturing cost over versatility, but they can still pull off a lot more than people think.
I guess the main point I'm making above is that capacity ratings are guidelines and not hard limits like many people overemphasize them as. IF you know what you're doing, and make sure to prep correctly ala. electric brakes and tongue weight balance, you can push those limits and still travel safely.
So we actually ended up moving forward on a used Gold-certified ‘22 Highlander XLE with a pretty clean carfax and somewhere between 45-50k miles. Has a V6, AWD w/o rear diff, electric tow hitch. Clocks in at 1390 lbs cargo capacity. Gonna have the shop take a look at it as soon as we can get it off the lot once it’s ready.
We are ditching the RV idea, though in the future this should leave room for that if we really wanted to settle down with that much further down the line, within the discussed constraints. So thanks again for your input! What I’m curious about is the electric dongle you’ve attached to get those readings — Do you recommend one in specific? Not sure if they come universal, or need to be model-specific.
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Don’t forget the weight of clothing, dishes, bedding, water tanks, and tons of other things that add to the trailer weight.
My SUV can only tow 2700lbs. Basically useless to tow anything.
We currently live in the SUV. We learned a TON from the YouTube “CheapRVLiving”. We even have a fridge, solar power, electric cooker, heated blanket.
Yeah, that’s what’s immediately putting cinderblocks on the whole operation here. Thank you for the channel rec! I’ll admit the built-in solar panels and battery of the NuCamp is the largest draw towards it. Curious to see how one can retrofit an SUV with one, but we are being careful to adhere to US-CA border restrictions around vehicular modifications.
If you plan to cross boarders, I think it’s recommended to have the registration for the trailer with you. At least it’s that way going in and out of Mexico. Sounds like you need a larger vehicle to tow a trailer like that.
Traverse can do up to 5k.
Tahoe can do up to 8k.
Ranger can do up to 7.5k.
If I was towing a lot I’d be looking at trucks. Not a lot of difference between a 4-door truck and an SUV with a bed cover or cap.
Just get a tent if you must camp. the nice ones are still only 100lbs and will pack in your suv. Throw in a camp stove and cooler and you get most of what you want.
don't forget about hotels. The savings in fuel will buy a mid grade hotel room every night, often with money left over for a meal. RVs only make sense if you are staying in one place for a week for each day of travel.
That’s a salient point about the fuel economy. I’m assuming it won’t just halve after attaching a semi-loaded RV, but maybe third or even quarter?
Atm I can’t say we would or wouldn’t be staying in one spot for a week+ at a time, at least not at first, so we’ll definitely have to weigh the short-term vs long-term timelines further.
depends on size but larger trailers and a gas engine will do far worse than half. That is why semis are diesel. My diesel truck is 18mpg unloaded but max towing drops down to 12. A ford f150 would get 20-25 unloaded but towing could get around 8.
you are talking about much smaller trailers than what I'm thinking about above so you will do better but I don't know how much.
A 4runner has a 4 liter engine, surely it can tow that tiny RV. Wtf.
It might be worth asking the dealer why the capacity is only 880 lbs. Maybe there is a simple upgrade that can be made to increase that because fundamentally a vehicle with an engine that size should be able to tow medium-sized boats, etc.
You cannot upgrade your towing/payload beyond what is stated on the sticker. That’s a legal mandate and if you’re pulled over and checked you will be cited.
Engine displacement doesn’t have a lot to do with towing. Coolers, braking, frame, and electrical control systems all play a factor as do your suspension (axel, shocks, springs and any control arms/trailing arms) and steering systems.
The 4Runner is an old platform, but it’s important to remember that Toyota probably didn’t want to equip it and rate it beyond the current payload due to people being able to step up to a Tacoma which is largely the same but made for towing and hauling more than a 4Runner. Even though the Tacoma also isn’t the best at towing and payload.
Thank you for chiming in, these are the concerns we're weighing right now.
Unfortunately the dealership was a bit clueless about the difference between Towing and Cargo capacity.
From our own researching the owners manuals in the 4runner lineup, the absolute best we can get is 1165 lbs cargo with a very specific year & trim. That’s a little better than 880, but a far cry from comfortably workable.
Somewhat recently I was car shopping and looked into towing capacity for a Prius.
No Prius stateside is rated for towing at all, but in Europe where they sell the same damn model it is rated for a light trailer going a max of ~65mph. It was my understanding from digging into it that the US version doesn't officially have tow capacity because of the legal speed limit on our highways being above what it's safely capable of.
So at least in this one case it's due to liability avoidance even though Prius can tow a light trailer if you drive like a grandma on the highway. If it's true for that it's probably true for other cars with more oomph
Yeah, what’s funny is during all this we noticed our Malibu’s cargo capacity is rated at almost 1,000 lbs in the door jam sticker.
Now, obviously, as you say it’s definitely not translatable to a tow hitch rate, and we’d never attempt something stupid like attaching a hitch and towing with it. But we found it funny that (aside from interior space) for cargo travel alone, we’d be better off with what we already have than a 4runner! (again, generally, obv there are a select few base models that do a lil better.)
I just don’t get why the 4runners are getting rated so low for what seems to be their most attractive feature. We saw the land cruisers seem to be a lot bulkier in the undercarriage.