Towing with a Class C

[Texas Yankee]

I have a Greyhawk 31FS Class C.. I have a Chevy Equinox I can tow, if I choose to. I am looking for advise: tow bar recommendations, reduction in MPG, hassle or needed, etc.

[cabinetmaker]

Originally Posted by Texas Yankee

I have a Greyhawk 31FS Class C.. I have a Chevy Equinox I can tow, if I choose to. I am looking for advise: tow bar recommendations, reduction in MPG, hassle or needed, etc.

Hi Texas Yankee...your Greyhawk has a 7500lb towing capacity so there are many options available.

We opted for a Jeep for ease of setup and towing plus the fun factor at destination and exploring.

Buy you a good tow bar. Money well spent. We have all Blue Ox stuff. I have used their stuff before on previous motorhomes and Jeep setups and liked their tow bars and brackets.

I use the Patriot tow brake and like it. It is portable so I can move it from vehicle to vehicle easily and it is easy to install and remove from the Jeep.

It's not cheap having a vehicle setup for towing so be sure your happy with the one your going to use and it will be around for a few years.

Again the Jeeps are easy to mount the tow baseplates and wiring of the lights. I do it all myself. There are some good videos online showing how to install the baseplates and wiring harnesses. ETrailer.com has many videos. I like doing my own stuff and have the tools so it's not that big a deal. I have installed baseplates on other vehicles besides Jeeps but the Jeeps are the easiest.

Towing the Jeep actually isn't that difficult for my motorhome. It just rides back there and really goes unnoticed most of the time. MPG isn't good on these things anyway so It's hard to say what towing does but I'm sure it doesn't help. I get around 7.5-8mph normally and that includes running the Onan some.

The only hassle of flat towing behind a motorhome is backing up. I have done it before when the tow vehicle was perfectly straight with the motorhome but not very far. I don't recommend backing up. If you find yourself in a dire situation and need to back out then best to unhook the tow vehicle and back out then hook back.

Good luck in your search. If you have a more specific question myself or others here might can point you in the right direction.

[WinnieView]

Originally Posted by Texas Yankee

I have a Greyhawk 31FS Class C.. I have a Chevy Equinox I can tow, if I choose to. I am looking for advise: tow bar recommendations, reduction in MPG, hassle or needed, etc.

We tow our Terrain (sister to the Equinox) and probably spent $500 on the tow bar, another $500 on the base plate and light kit, and $900 on a Brake Buddy.
We installed everything ourselves in the driveway using standard tools in an afternoon.
We use a Demco tow bar and base plate.

[RVermont]

I tow a wrangler with a road master tow base plate. If I did it again I would have replaced the bumper with one that can be flat towed. There are a several manufacturers that offer this feature. I could have used the $400 I spent on the base plate and $100 for a drop hitch to significantly offset the cost of the bumper and could have had a cool front end. Still might do it but not in any hurry just yet.

[Boudreaux]

We have a '16 Greyhawk 29MV, and tow a 16 Subaru Forester (standard transmission). We have over 16,000 miles of towing. We tow with Blue OX ...

[tom463219]

I tow a 2016 Equinox 6 Cylinder AWD using all Blue Ox equipment. No problems. I installed a fuse switch so I wouldn't always have to pull a fuse when towing. In my case when I tow, I see a loss of about 1 mpg. Yesterday we travelled 600 miles towing, and the fuel consumption was 7.33 MPG, it was hot outside and we ran with the engine A/C on. We have about 13000 towed miles on the Equinox .

[lonestarrpm]

Just set up and towed a 2009 Jeep jk 4 door.

Used a roadmaster all-terrain and a roadmadter baseplate.

Harbor freight led light kit. Worked like a charm

This was a temporary setup, so I didn’t add a brake buddy

Hauled great, no increase in turning radius, tracked well, noticed it get caught in some ruts ovccasionally and could feel some bucking on poor roads, but other than braking didn’t know it was back there. I’d estimate it cost me ~1 mpg.

Mike

[WinnieView]

Originally Posted by lonestarrpm

Just set up and towed a 2009 Jeep jk 4 door.

Used a roadmaster all-terrain and a roadmadter baseplate.

Harbor freight led light kit. Worked like a charm

This was a temporary setup, so I didn’t add a brake buddy

Hauled great, no increase in turning radius, tracked well, noticed it get caught in some ruts ovccasionally and could feel some bucking on poor roads, but other than braking didn’t know it was back there. I’d estimate it cost me ~1 mpg.

Mike

Nice looks Seneca!

[foglght]

I flat tow a JK without a drop hitch. Angle is very slight. I bought a Currie tow kit. Breeze for install. the only side effect is the ready brute brake cable sticking out of the front bumper.

[cabinetmaker]

Here is our Jeep and picture of the Blue Ox baseplate installed.

The reason I didn’t opt for the aftermarket bumper with built in tow points is the height. This Blue Ox set up puts my towbar level with the motor home hitch. So I don’t have to use a offset raised stinger in the motor home. Less noise and stress on hitch parts.

[gprapim]

Originally Posted by cabinetmaker

Here is our Jeep and picture of the Blue Ox baseplate installed.

The reason I didn’t opt for the aftermarket bumper with built in tow points is the height. This Blue Ox set up puts my towbar level with the motor home hitch. So I don’t have to use a offset raised stinger in the motor home. Less noise and stress on hitch parts.

Nice Ride !! I tow one just like it and love it. I tow it behind my 2017 GreyHawk 29W. I agree with your reasoning on the bumber and Blue Ox baseplate. Enjoy !!

[jd99336]

I have a 31DS Greyhawk pulling a 2016 Jeep Cherokee KL Trailhawk. Without the toad I get about 9.5 to 10.5 mpg or sometimes better. With the toad, 7.5 to 8.0 seems the norm. Just so everyone knows....the 2019 Cherokee finally resolved the need to install a flat tow harness on the Cherokee which relieves that major expense in setting up (search on the Cherokee forum if more info needed).

I went with Blue Ox base plates and ReadyBrute towbar which includes a "surge brake" so no brake unit to deal with. Fast hook up and go and when i am done, not much left to tell it is even a towable.

I did all of the install myself in about a day (you remove the front bumper facia and tow hook plates) which was challenging but saved me a bunch. Total coast all in was around $1500 or so if my feeble memory has it correct.

[cabinetmaker]

Originally Posted by gprapim

Nice Ride !! I tow one just like it and love it. I tow it behind my 2017 GreyHawk 29W. I agree with your reasoning on the bumber and Blue Ox baseplate. Enjoy !!Attachment 41461

Yep...just like ours. Best color Jeep ever made!

[RVermont]

As everyone says there are a huge variety of options. You need to look at the ride height of your towing vehicle and the mounted height of the towed hitch. The seneca has a ride height of 20 inches. The wrangled jl roadmaster height is 16 so I needed to get a drop hitch.which puts everything back 12-16 inches and can drag on dips and driveways. Other then that the flat tow was amazingly simple and quick. .

[rickemo]

Ditto on backing up with a flat towed vehicle. We tow a Jeep Wrangler behind our 31’ Melbourne. Earlier this summer I needed to back up about 10’ in a Walmart parking lot to make a turn to exit. It all seemed to go well until the next day when I noticed a crack and some scraped paint in the fiberglass above the right turn signal. The Jeep bumper wedged against the bottom of the corner of the fiber and the stress put a 2” crack above the turn signal. Appears easy to repair but we will unhook for sure in the future. I will say that being my first tow vehicle, the wrangler is easy to hook-up and tows very easily. We have a Demco tow set-up.

[thirdktm]

We have the Class C Melbourne, Mercedes Sprinter chassis. It's a turbo 6-cylinder engine. I worried that it would struggle pulling our two-door Jeep Wrangler. It does not struggle. Lost maybe 1.5 mpg. Which I thought was great.
As for the towing apparatus: Blue Ox tow bar on the front of the Jeep. Ready Brute towing apparatus. I chose it for its simplicity. It does not use an electric box on the floor of the Jeep to activate the brakes. Visit the Ready Brute website to learn about it. Price was about $1,400, I seem to recall.
And I paid a local (Albuquerque) independent RV service shop to install everything. The shop game me the tow bar, which they had just removed from another Jeep. I paid him about $1,000 to install everything.
I would do everything the same if I did all of this again......Very happy.
Hooking up the Jeep takes maybe 10 minutes. Disconnecting, 5.

[GrayHawk51]

Originally Posted by Texas Yankee

I have a Greyhawk 31FS Class C.. I have a Chevy Equinox I can tow, if I choose to. I am looking for advise: tow bar recommendations, reduction in MPG, hassle or needed, etc.

I purchased the 2018 Equinox automatic front wheel drive to tow with my grayhawk 29MV. I purchased the blue Ox tow bar but the issue is that because they made the 2018 Equinox 6 inches shorter in front the tow bar sticks out that much. If you don't mind that then it's not an issue. I would look at the other tow brands and ask how far they stick out from the front of the vehicle.


I also recommend that you do not go with the NSA RV tow package as I just got hit with a $489 repair bill as it interfered with the computer breaking system and ended up having the dealer pull out the $800 install tow parts. Now I'm looking at the RVi 3 breaking system.

[Gonzobuilt]

We have a Greyhawk 31fsp and pull a 2015 Nissan Versa Note. Works extremely well except make sure your patriot break controller is at the right setting. I had it to strong and smoked the entire break system on the car. Ouch!!

[jd99336]

Originally Posted by GrayHawk51

I also recommend that you do not go with the NSA RV tow package as I just got hit with a $489 repair bill as it interfered with the computer breaking system and ended up having the dealer pull out the $800 install tow parts. Now I'm looking at the RVi 3 breaking system.

This would have to be explained to me. The NSA system uses a cable that "pulls" on the arm of the brake pedal. Most others (including the RVi) use an arm to "push" on the arm of the brake pedal. The forces should be similar, unless the steel cable of the NSA somehow was routed in a fashion that interferred with something elese causing damage? I just inspected mine and find no evidence that it is in any way putting stress on the brake pedal arm, so it would be good to know what exactly caused the damage and was it actually the system itself, or an improper installation? I can think of a couple of failure modes (adjusting the cable too tight so that the brakes are constantly rubbing, or perhaps cable gets wrapped around something, but that would only be from the firewall to brake pedal or at the hitch as the rest of the cable is sheathed).

Thanks for the clarification.

[JD51]

Agree with Cabinet maker, we have a 17 Greyhawk 29MV and we tow a Jeep Rubicon, use Blue OX and the Patriot. Works great.