Quote:
Originally Posted by bighogmama
You all have brought up some great points. I never thought about the transmission and brakes needing an upgrade. I live in Arizona, most of my camping would involve some mountain travel. I guess the 2720SL is not a good fit for my vehicle. I don't want a hybrid or any canvas, any recommendations?
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It's hard to draw hard conclusions from just the quick and easy-to-find statistics posted on the Internet. A 2720 will likely weigh more than 3500# when you go camping. Manufacturer tow ratings will be created in the context of high center of gravity towables like boats and full height travel trailers which have more wind resistance and sway problems than the folding TM's. Tow ratings are guidelines, and your mileage may vary.
One wrinkle I find for you is in the attached snapshot I took from the Jeep website which seems to suggest that you have a Class II hitch receiver which may not be rated for the heavy tongue weight of a TrailManor and the necessity of a Weight Distributing Hitch. We're used to seeing Class III receivers which are rated 500+# instead of the typical 350# on a Class II.
These are my own scale numbers for your perspective:
http://www.trailmanorowners.com/foru...ad.php?t=10652
While many of our members have been towing with 3500# rated tow vehicles, it is important to point out that different manufacturers have different ways they tell you to figure it. In other words, there's a pretty wide range of gross towing capacities among manufacturers who say their towing limit is 3500#. What does your owners' manual say about the Gross Combined Weight Rating for towing with your vehicle?
The problem with smaller tow vehicles is that you typically have to distribute your load with care to use your capacities because you're closer to the limits. The problem with larger tow vehicles is that about half of their additional gross weight capacity gets eaten up by their own additional curb weight, which has to be carried around not just while towing, but for the rest of the vehicle miles as well. Where you go is important, too, and many of our Western members need more power and carrying capacity because they carry heavier loads to go dry camping off road and at higher altitudes.
I'm not sure there is such a thing as a brake "upgrade" since brakes tend not to vary within a specific model line. Power train combinations tend to affect tow ratings through durability factors, not safety issues. The wheelbase of your vehicle is shown on the Edmonds website as 116" (which is, for example, longer than the 2007 Ford Explorer which is known to be a good tow vehicle for a TrailManor).
I'm a big fan of searching this forum to get the experience and opinions of TrailManor owners who tow with similar tow vehicles.