Passenger Safety is my main worry

[TJ&LadyDi]

Pay close attention to weight capacities of the specific suv you purchase. The manual has specific instructions for hitch weight, total weight (with and without weight distribution hitch).

As a rule of safety you should not exceed 90% of this weight. Often it includes the weight of the suv itself.

Trailers with 2 axles generally tow better than those with single axle.

Make sure the trailer weight as you will be using it doesn't exceed the 90% rule for either the SUV or its own axles.

My daughter is looking for a trailer for the jeep. Its rated at 3500lbs towing capacity. For her, we are looking at a trailer with unloaded weight of 2000lbs, and loaded weight of 2700lbs max. This leaves plenty of safety margin.

Excellent points! Staying well within weight ratings is an essential safety factor.

TJ

 

[redbaron]

One more point. Be very careful when looking up tow capacity of a vehicle. Each model and option will affect tow capacity, often greatly.

In some cases AWD will have less capacity than its RWD counterpart. Transmission, engine, trim, year, aftermarket wheels, and tires all need to be evaluated and factored.

 

[kangarooelaine]

UPDATE:
Decided to purchase a Class C. It's 24 feet long and technically sleeps 6 (in 3 beds). I have my son ride in the cab in the passenger seat. Other adults who travel with us (my husband and/or my mom) can choose to ride in the dinette seat or drive a separate car. It's working well for us so far.

First we camped in the driveway for a night.
We went to a nearby Forest Service campground in the mountains twice. The whole family went and we used a separate car. These were our 'shake down' trips to see what we needed and how things went.
We went to a state park campground a few hours away. Again used a separate car.
We went to a nearby private campground in National Recreation Area. No separate car that time.
My mom and I did a 2 day trip just us. We did a Harvest Host and toured two National Refuges.
My son and I did a 4 day trip just us. We visited a bunch of state parks, a national refuge, and one national park!
My husband and I did a 3 day trip just us. We visited a state park and boondocked on BLM land.
Next week my son and I will go to another national park.

We haven't been to the same spot so far except for those first two trips. But found a lot of spots we want to go back to again.

There is a HUGE learning curve with RVs. There are things I wish I knew beforehand and perhaps I would have made a different choice. But I feel pretty confident that the perfect RV doesn't really exist and there are pluses and minuses for all the options. And I feel like our choice was a pretty good one because it suits our needs.

The pros:
- We can fit in a lot of places without trouble. Driving our rig is easy.
- We have enough space, tank sizes etc that we can easily boondock a few nights in decent weather no problem.
- It's 'forcing' us to explore areas we might not have explored before. We want to get the value out of the RV so we are really using it.
- It's given us something new, fun, exciting to do during this depressing Corona-time.
- Zero mechanical or structural problems so far. Even though we bought used, this RV is in great condition.
- It's faster and easier than a travel trailer would have been. And given that it turns out a lot of our trips will be on the shorter side, it makes more sense to factor in the setup/breakdown time.
- Because we didn't already have a truck to tow a trailer, the total cost of what we chose was a lot less than if we bought a truck and travel trailer.

The cons:
- Water is a constant issue. We just haven't exactly figured out how to let everyone shower regularly without having hookups all the time. And a lot of the places we want to go only have electricity and dump, no water hookups.
- Even though our motorhome is pretty small it's still pretty big for a few tight roads.
- We don't have space to park our RV at home so we have to store it. That adds a huge hassle that we hadn't really considered before. It adds an hour at each end of each trip. And we can only go get it at certain hours of the day. BUT... it's taught us to park really well because the spaces are really tight.