Can a minivan really pull a trailmanor?

Hi All,

My wife, myself and two eleven year old twin girls have been camping the last few years by renting pop-ups. We've talked about buying a pop-up in the past, but never had. We went to the RV and Boat show in Denver on Thursday and fell in love with the trailmanors.

My problem is the tow vehicle. We've got a 2001 Dodge Grand Caravan mini-van that has a tow rating of 3500 pounds. However, I live in the mountains above Boulder at 8500 feet elevation and we generally camp in the mountains. This leads me to believe there is no way that we'll be able to handle this with a minvan. I've been renting around 2000lb pop-ups and gotten decent performance in the mountains with them fully loaded. However, with the trailmanors we're probably talking close to another 1000 pounds fully loaded with a 2720 which would probably be the one we'd choose.

So my first question is, does anyone use a minivan to tow a trailmanor and if so, have they gone driving at higher elevations or in the mountains? Does it handle ok and what model do you have?

My second question is about the tow vehicle. We have been considering replacing the mini-van with another vehicle. The problem is that we like the amount of space we get in our minivan and hate to give it up for the additional towing capacity. If we replace the tow vehicle, do people have suggestions? Here is what I care about -
1. Tow capacity
2. MPG - Let's face it the majority of the time, we're transporting the family and not towing anything. It'd be nice to get better mileage.
3. Need to transport 6 people (our 4 and 2 extra adults or kids)

Thanks for any and all feedback.

--Jeff

[Bill]

Jeff -

I have been accused of being truck-obsessed (see the helpful post at http://www.trailmanorowners.com/foru...uck#post46337), so skepticism is probably in order. But altitude, especially with a heavy load, does have a cost, and I don't think that a 3500 pound vehicle is going to be satisfactory in the situation you describe. A non-turbo gasoline engine loses about 3% of its sea-level horsepower for every 1000 feet of altitude, so at 10,000 feet (presumably an altitude within your travel plans), your sheer pulling power will be reduced by 30%. Your minivan's engine will be struggling, because it can't breathe. The engine doesn't care, it just cranks out 30% less torque and power, and keeps on chugging. But it means down-shifting, slow travel, higher engine and transmission temps, and added stress on all of the drive-train components, which can shorten the life of the vehicle. Beyond that, high altitudes imply steep grades, so your tow vehicle is doubly stressed. And the weight of four people and their stuff in the mini-van is another source of stress. This may be manageable in the flatlands, and some people do use 3500-pound vehicles there. But in the Rockies, I am skeptical. That's why I always ask the question you have already answered - "WHERE will you tow?" I leave it to you to check the Chrysler web site for the real meaning of that 3500-pound rating.

BTW, I owned a 2000 Chrysler minivan, and I loved it. And true to legend, at 100,000 miles, it spread a carpet of small but expensive transmission parts all over the road. I repaired it and loved it for another 50,000 miles - but it was an expensive experience. I never towed a trailer with it, but if I had been towing a trailer for some of those miles, I expect I would have experienced an earlier demise.

BTW again, I own a cabin outside of Estes Park, elevation nearly the same as yours. I have had actual experience towing the TM at these altitudes - and also at the Eisenhower Tunnel and the Vail Pass. Altitude and grade do count!

As for your final question, have you looked at full-size vans, as opposed to mini-vans? Plenty of space, reasonable MPG, and it is easy to get a 5000-pound tow rating.

Hope this helps

Bill

[Mr. Adventure]

Well, let me be the first to say that I think you can pull a trailmanor just great at 8500 feet with a Chrysler/Dodge minivan. But it's less clear how well that will work for you if you do it very often.

- You have about a third less horsepower than you and your TV would have in my neighborhood, so you'll spend a bigger part of your towing experience at full throttle than Bill or I will. And you have much bigger and longer hills to climb than I do.
- Your TV is rated for towing 3000#+ with the factory tow package, but I promise you that our friends in the car business have never thought much about durability at 8500 feet when they offer opinions about tow ratings. The attached file is a couple pages from a 2005 Caravan owner's manual
- The glass jaw for the lighter tow vehicle is often the transmission. Bill's Caravan experience could come sooner for someone who lives at 8500 feet and drives at full throttle a lot. Or maybe they last longer there, with the lowered horsepower and all. Remembering, of course, that new cars are much more expensive than new transmissions, you have to make your own decision, here.
- However, the most important issue is safety. For that, it's about how the vehicle stops, not how fast it can go. Think carefully about how often you want to approach those 5+ mile down grades, too.

Honestly, I think I'd be happier doing this habitually in the heavier vehicle for all of these issues. What's the difference about doing it once and doing it all the time? Once, you can pay extra attention. Once you might have the discipline to drive 10 mph slower. Once, your vehicle might be able to forgive you better than for something you're going to do 100 times. The bottom line is that in challenging circumstances, you must provide the extra margin for being in a place the manufacturers haven't expected you to be, and I expect that you'll find you'll be happier with your TV in Kansas than in Colorado.

The people of altitude who do this all the time are less flexible about the lighter TV's for important reasons.

Hi Jeff -

First off, let me state that as of right now we have no experience towing a TM. But we live "downhill" from you in Longmont and have been considering/researching Trailmanors for a while now. Like you, we also had been considering towing a 2720 with a minivan, in our case Anne's 2004 Toyota Sienna. Unlike you, our immediate plans for camping this year will be traveling to the east coast to visit our families so we would be mostly going from 5000 ft. to sea level and back ... which we figured wouldn't have been such a strain on the Sienna and would have allowed us to put off getting a new tow vehicle for at least a year.

Anne went to the Denver RV/Travel show on Thursday where she quickly determined that a 2720 wouldn't work well for our family - we have 3 girls aged 10, 8, and 6 - and we'd need a 3023 or 3124KB instead. Today, the whole family went to the RV show and found out that, with the great swing hitch that The Car Show puts on TMs which reduces length more than the factory swing hitch, we could fit the 3124KB in our garage so that's the one we're getting. But now we *have* to upgrade our TV because there's no way we'd even try to tow that with the Sienna. Right now we're thinking of picking up a used Ford Expedition w/tow pkg. in exchange for Mark's 2000 Sienna which has no chance of being a TV. A quick glance at prices on used Expeditions shows some reasonable prices for picking up a TV that can handle the greater trailer weight.

Anyway, that's our 2 cents ... based totally on thought process, not real-world experience though ...

I had pretty much figured that I'd need to change up the TV. I told my wife that unless she wanted to go to a full van it'd probably be back to an SUV (we're not pickup people :-)). We used to have a Jeep Grand Cherokee and the last 6 months I owned it (just under 100k miles), I had to replace the rear deferential, front deferential, rear axle, and V8 engine (it blew a rod). After that, we got the Dodge Grand Caravan since it was the only minivan at the time that had AWD and we sometimes need that where we live. However, I made sure that I got the extra warranty on it and I was glad I did. It definitely paid for itself and we've got around 130k miles on it now, so I'm getting ready to replace it anyway. We had the AWD go out last year and we debated about replacing it.

I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that we'll end up going back to a SUV that won't get as good mileage as I'd like, but that will be able to pull what we need. That's what we get for living up in the mountains :-). I just started looking online this weekend to try and figure out what's best. Bill, since I noticed in your signature that you have an Explorer, I was looking at that too. I'm also considering a Honda Pilot, Nissan PathFinder and Toyota 4runner among others. Still trying to figure out what seems best for us.

If anyone has any opinions, I'd love to hear them. I'd prefer something that has a decent maintainence record.

If you choose to get the Explorer, just be aware that Uhaul will not rent any trailer to you. If you expect to never rent a trailer from Uhaul, then this does not matter.

I only point this out so you don't get surprised later.

Uhaul does not do this because they think it is unsafe. It is just to costly to defend themselves against lawsuits.

[CAmark]

FWIW -- I have a '04 Honda Pilot pulling an '06 2720SL. We travel with just two of us and a fairly light load. We get to occasional mountains and I put up with some long slow grades, both up and down, on occasion; but, I would not want to pull more than this size trailer and lite load with the Pilot. If I were to add two 11 year olds and their related stuff I would want a TV larger than a Pilot to control the load. My comments are not intended to address the power loss at altitude as I have no "hi-altitude" experience > 5500 ft; but primarily the handling/stopping safety aspect at any altitude.

Mark

As the other people said make sure you have a good warranty on the Chrysler minivan before you tow with it. You will need it. Make sure it covers the transmission as you will be replacing it pretty soon. If your motor mounts are old, the motor/tranny will sag on the mounts and the axle shafts will impact into the tranny. If you stress old mounts it will happen faster. Better to warn you ahead of time...

At 8500 ft for regular towing I would buy something with a small V8 or strong V6. 4Runner 19mpg, Sequoia 15mpg, Midsize Nissan SUV whatever-its-called, V8 Explorer or Expedition, Tahoe if you are into Chevy's good mileage too. Third row seats are available on the midsize SUV's. We have a small third row seat on our 4Runner but it's more for kids and small adults.

TM-2619
TV-2002 Town and Country van
Installed transmission cooler and extra oil cooler
leveling bars
brake control.
After replacing the transmission in my van, I have now a 2004 chevy truck to pull my camper with.
Just a little information you may need .

We towed our 2720SL just fine on the flat roads of Florida where we live with a 2006 Ford Escape. Escape was equipped with a class 3 hitch with equalizer bars. It was also equiped with a tranny cooler.
Just one trip to the Smokey's convinced me of the need for a larger tow vehicle. It wasn't the uphill at 30 mph with my foot in the fuel injector, it was the ride down the other side of the hill that scared me. I kept looking in the sideview mirrors to see if the TM was passing us. I rode the trailer brake the entire time.
I now tow with a 2006 Ford F150 which came equipped with factory tow package and as they say, I don't even know I am towing a trailer.