What's a good DD that can Tow

[Halon]

I'm not in the market at this moment, but an starting to research this, and open to hear what anyone has to say who might be knowledgeable on the subject.

I would like to eventually start trailering my car to the track. That way if I break an axle, I'm not calling all over the place trying to find one so I can get home. I'm also going to be buying a boat here soon (something like a 20' open bow runabout/ski boat), and it would be good to have something that could pull it. So with all that in mind, I want this so I can tow my Talon maybe 4-5 times a year, and tow a boat maybe 3 times a year. Enough that I don't want to have to count on borrowing someone elses vehicle, but not enough that I need a small semi just because it's the best towing vehicle out there.

Now I already have 2 vehicles (Talon, Saab). Neither of which will do the job. I'm not interested in getting a 3rd vehicle, so that means whatever I got would replace my Saab. Now with that in mind, I often take 200 miles trips to Fargo, Ottertail, etc. My Saab gets 35mpg on the highway, which I doubt any towing vehicle I'd be interested in will be able to do.

I'm not interested in a pick-up, or a mini-van. So that kind of leaves me with SUV type vehicles. My dad has a 06 TrailBlazer with the Inline-6 that he uses to tow their camper around. Something like that is what I'm thinking would do a decent job. Only thing is he rarely even gets 20mpg with it.

So let me know what you all think might be good options. I can't afford a new vehicle, so it'd probably be a few years old. I don't want some loud diesel truck because this is going to be my daily driver also, so I want it to be somewhat nice, and get the best mileage as possible. I thought some newer Chevy's had V8's that shut off 4 cylinders to help with cruising mileage.

I also want to keep it as small as possible. I don't want to deal with trying to park a Suburban every day.

[Kracka]

How about a Jeep Cherokee or Grand Cherokee?

[viridionplague]

how much you thinking of letting the saab go for?

[95talonracer]

I loved my supercharged SS. You can get a Silverado ss cheap and they are sporty and pulled really nice.

[s1ngletracker]

How about a Jeep Cherokee or Grand Cherokee?

I have a cherokee with the 4.0 HO, only problem is I don't know how well it'd tow a car. Maybe a GC with a V8 would do better? The mileage won't be above 20mpg on either of them.

[1QUICK4]

As much as I hate to say it check out a Bronco or F150 with the 4.9L staight 6. They have more torque than the 302 F150's and get pretty decent mpg.

Otherwise I'd say get a Siverado/Suburban/Tahoe and say F the mpg

[MustGoFaster]

Oddly enough on my recent trip to Indiana, we used a Honda Pilot (3.5L Vtec V6) to tow. But that was with a light car and trailer combo (~3500lbs combined), but it did just fine, maintained 70 MPH uphills, with some effort of course, but it always had enough power and the right gear (2nd gear at 4K for some of the bigger ones) to get it done.

If you put some thought into your setup, a vehicle that's not known for awesome towing capability can do just fine. But I don't think you'll find anything capable of towing ~4500lbs reasonably and getting 25+mpg (not towing). Even the Pilot only got 21-24 MPG not towing. But we did get 17 MPG on at least one tank with the car and trailer on the back.

Over on the SCCA forums, there is a section dedicated to towing. You might want to check it out. http://sccaforums.com/forums/70/ShowForum.aspx

[A//// Guy]

Yea id probably look toward a newer Tahoe with lower miles or a Toyota truck. Small Suvs like a pilot or even a jeep arent the greatest idea for pulling a car on a trailer. For the boat, they would do just fine though.

[tehehodi]

^^^ if going new, yes, i would do a tundra....mmmmmmmmm

[Halon]

I'll try to explain again.

I'm not looking for the best vehicle to tow this stuff. What I'm looking for is a vehicle that will be 99% used for daily driving, and 1% used for towing. So I'm more looking for a vehicle that gets decent gas milage, that when needed, COULD tow a car to Brainerd, or COULD pull a boat out of the water and tow it an hour away. My dad used to tow our 18' Bayliner with a Chevy Celebrity Wagon with a 2.8 V6 from Maple Grove to Brainerd once a year. Was it an ideal towing vehicle, no. It was a decent DD, that could tow it if needed. I towed a Colt from Detroit to Blaine on a flatbed using a little 6cyl S-10 a couple years ago. Again, not the ideal vehicle, but it worked. These are examples of how they aren't ideal towing vehicles, but they did 'get r done' we just had to take it easy.

I don't want a Tahoe, way too big, and horseshit gas milage. And like I mentioned before, I don't want a pick-up, period. No Tahoe, no Silverado, no F150, none of that.

That Honda Pilot is probably more of where I'm wanting to go. Not an ideal vehicle, but for the very few times it would tow something, you can just take it slow and easy and it'll get the job done.

I was even looking into something like a Hyundai Santa Fe. I'm looking to keep the cost down, so I don't mind looking at more economical brands like Hyundai & Kia.

Not sure exactly but I'm pretty sure the weight I'd be towing around would be right around 3500lbs. That's about the weight of the boats we're looking at. My Talon weighed in at 3040lbs, so add a trailer on top of that and we're probably right around the same weight.

Something I noticed was it appeared Kiggly was towing his rid with a 4Runner or something like that. And that was his race car, and one of those long completely enclosed racecar trailers with tools and all that. I would think if it could tow that, it could tow my car on a flatbed.