Travel trailer towing?

bigcanoe · **Joined:** Mon Oct 31, 2005 5:33 pm **Posts:** 96

Whats the longest/heaviest (gvwr) travel trailer you think I could safely tow with the Liberty CRD with a anti sway/weight destributing hitch?

manganos · **Posted:** Wed Dec 27, 2006 6:34 pm

I'd wait and see what happens after the F37 recall. If they are reducing power then they are going to reduce the tow rating. I have a 19' Jayco Hybrid and I was right on the limit of the tow rating with 295 ft/lbs. I'm stuck now with a vehicle that they are de-tuning because they use crap for a transmisson

spoonplugger1 · **Posted:** Wed Dec 27, 2006 10:32 pm

It's on Page 286 in your manual. 5000lbs, 64 sq ft of frontal area, max length 25 ft.

bigcanoe · **Joined:** Mon Oct 31, 2005 5:33 pm **Posts:** 96

Oh, thanks for the pointer!

the_dude · **Posted:** Wed Dec 27, 2006 10:38 pm

thanks for the manual excerpt.
many of us don't have em and have been waiting for over 6 months on backorder from DCX. :cry:

jinstall · **Posted:** Thu Dec 28, 2006 3:28 am

towing capacity here on the 2.8CRD is 3300KG!!! 7,260lbs no weight distribution.

alljeep · **Posted:** Thu Dec 28, 2006 8:34 am

jinstall wrote:

towing capacity here on the 2.8CRD is 3300KG!!! 7,260lbs no weight distribution.

This forum is awesome! It's cool to hear from other folks around the world and here is a case in point. Why are their CRDs rated to pull 2,260 more lbs than ours??? I wonder if there is additional support added to the unibody like a bolt on cross member or something.

I suspect it's just a difference in laws between the countries. Some allow a manufacturer to claim a higher rating given a certain set of design elements.... Cool mystery, whatever the answer is...

elysium · **Posted:** Thu Dec 28, 2006 9:15 am

i'm really looking forward to towing my race car with the CRD

action · **Posted:** Thu Dec 28, 2006 11:21 am

manganos wrote:

I'd wait and see what happens after the F37 recall. If they are reducing power then they are going to reduce the tow rating. I have a 19' Jayco Hybrid and I was right on the limit of the tow rating with 295 ft/lbs. I'm stuck now with a vehicle that they are de-tuning because they use crap for a transmisson

Now how do you figure this??? Both the Gasser & CRD with an auto trans both have the same tow rating even though the gasser has less torque LOL...

Anyway, the tow rating of the vechicle is partially based on the power, but largely based on the BRAKING capacity of the tow vechicle, and the size & weight of the tow vechicle. A physically heavier and larger vechicle will be able to control a heavier towed load as it resists pushing/pulling by the trialer better.

Based on this, consult your owners manual....the large problem with travel trailers is how much wind they catch that will try to swing the arse of your Jeep around, especially on a cross wind.

manganos · **Posted:** Thu Dec 28, 2006 1:16 pm

I see you point. If I wanted a crappy tow vehicle I would have bought the 3.7 gas version. I should have kept my Cummins

My CRD did "ok" while pulling my 19' travel trailer. It was all over the road without sway control but the diesel kept up with traffic. Let me ask you one more thing. So if they put a 4 cyl gas engine in this thing that has no torque but 190 hp at 9k rpm do you think the tow rating would be the same since the brakes are the same size? Tow ratings come from multiple things including the engines performance.

action · **Posted:** Thu Dec 28, 2006 2:29 pm

Like I said before, power does play a role, but lesser or at best, equally to braking power, and the combination of size & weight.

If a suburban was offered with the exact same HP & torque ratings, it would likely have a higher tow rating based on its size & weight.

Like you said, you could feel the trailer affecting your vechicle while towing even though you had the power, you dont have the "girth".

jinstall · **Posted:** Fri Dec 29, 2006 3:24 am

elysium wrote:

i'm really looking forward to towing my race car with the CRD

Mine does all summer long. I hope it will do it again in January when I go to Hockenheimring.

jinstall · **Posted:** Fri Dec 29, 2006 3:28 am

alljeep wrote:

jinstall wrote:

towing capacity here on the 2.8CRD is 3300KG!!! 7,260lbs no weight distribution.

This forum is awesome! It's cool to hear from other folks around the world and here is a case in point. Why are their CRDs rated to pull 2,260 more lbs than ours??? I wonder if there is additional support added to the unibody like a bolt on cross member or something.

I suspect it's just a difference in laws between the countries. Some allow a manufacturer to claim a higher rating given a certain set of design elements.... Cool mystery, whatever the answer is...

This is how:

Trailers here have brakes on them that are controled by movement in the trailer tongue. Pull on the tongue and the brakes are "free". Let off the gas or apply the brakes the trailer brakes on it's own. There is a master cylnder in the tongue itself. Also trailors are limited to 100kph or 58 mph, period. Some are limited to 80kph do to size. The hitch I have looks no different than what is avalible in the US except that it sits LOWER to allow the trailor to be level with the ground. Also it has a one size ball on it.

Goglio704 · **Posted:** Fri Dec 29, 2006 12:30 pm

Brakes that actuate by pressure on the trailer tongue are not a Euro thing. Dad had a utility trailer with them 25+ years ago. U Hauls still have them if I'm not mistaken. Backing, especially up an incline, is not fun. You have to get out and manually disable the brakes on all of them I've seen.

litton · **Posted:** Fri Dec 29, 2006 12:47 pm

That's really old tech. I'm not even sure you can even buy trailers with surge brakes any longer......Electric is sooooo much better in every way.

Joe Romas · **Posted:** Fri Dec 29, 2006 1:18 pm

litton wrote:

That's really old tech. I'm not even sure you can even buy trailers with surge brakes any longer......Electric is sooooo much better in every way.

You can still get surge brakes and they don't require a special controler and wiring on the tow vehicle. But electric brakes do have several advantages in my mind and one is backing up and the second is being able to manually to activate them to stop a fishtail thing :!:

I've had both and electric ones are indeed better. I spent the better part of a day putting the supplemantry brake harness on my CRD for when I find the trailer I want

jinstall · **Posted:** Tue Jan 02, 2007 6:59 am

litton wrote:

That's really old tech. I'm not even sure you can even buy trailers with surge brakes any longer......Electric is sooooo much better in every way.

You can get them with ABS as well. German don't make anything new and "low tech".

Goglio704 · **Posted:** Tue Jan 02, 2007 3:21 pm

Did they overcome the backing issue? Seems like they could if the system is sophisticated enough to have ABS.

Joe Romas · **Posted:** Tue Jan 02, 2007 3:40 pm

Goglio704 wrote:

Did they overcome the backing issue? Seems like they could if the system is sophisticated enough to have ABS.

Back around 1968 there were some English Sprite brand "caravans" (travel trailers) brought over and we bought a 13' model. It had surge brakes and there was a lever you could move to backup. But as soon as you pulled foward the lever was reset. (unless you removed the collar that reset it :lol:

) But there were provisions for a solenoid that allowed backing up automatically. Locally you can get redimixed concrete in a trailer with surge brakes. Last time I got some I asked them how do you back up knowing the problem. They didn't have a clue as to what I was talking about :roll:

jinstall · **Posted:** Wed Jan 03, 2007 3:09 am

I remember someone telling me about the lever. I have never really come to the issue of having to back up and up. The biggest issue I have had with it is getting the race car properly seated with a 50/50 weight. This is not easy on a FWD race car. We havea triple axle trailer we use fo r the timing gear and that thing is a witch to turn with. It is only 14ft long and 3 axles with fat short tires on it. We call it the pizza wagon becasue it came from a pizzaria and has the italian colors on it.

Travel trailer towing?

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