Flat towing a Suburban?

[SirRobyn0]

Oh ya I was going to mention that. It seemed counter intuitive to me at first auto trans in park t-case neutral, eventually I came to understand the point is that you don't want splashing fluids to turn the output shaft in the tranny... Aw makes sense now, but seems like that is a seldom made point, auto tranny really does need to be in park not neutral.

 

[mcarlo86]

I hate to dig up an old thread but I've got something to add that some folks may find useful. My first question is did you @mcarlo86 ever tow the Suburban behind the motorhome and how did it do?

One thing no one else mentioned is some RV's have frame extensions off the back of the frame to make them longer. Some of these are very stout frame extensions that may even be stronger than the factory frame, others I've see have been much smaller channel steel butt welded to the factory frame, and not suitable for towing at all. So a person really needs to look for that, you wouldn't want to tear off the rear of the RV going down the road.

Now my experience with towing with an RV. Keep in mind I live near the cascades so I know what it is like to pull hills and passes. At this point I've had basically two RV's note worthy here. Both of them I knew we'd tow with so it was high priority the frame extensions were strong. First one was a 22' 77 class C with the Dodge 360. Towed on a dolly our minivan I don't really know the total weight but I'd guess 5,500 to 6K. And we also towed my 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee flat towed which is right around 4,200LBs. The difference between the two was very noticeable. We have also towed these two same setups with our current RV which has the 454, and is a 1999 so it's an injected vortec. The newer RV is bigger and heavier, than the 77, and it handles them both better, but in either combination the minivan slows ya down more. I'd say as long as you are 100% sure the frame is up to it, run a brake setup in the suburban and try it. The worst thing that will happen is you won't be happy with your ability to get up to speed and maintain it on hills and you'll never do it again.

Like you the idea of a Suzuki or any other sub compact car or suv is totally inappropriate for our life style. Frankly the Jeep is to small, but it's a compromise that works for weekend trips. For longer trips we'll still use tow the minivan once in a while.

I haven't tried it yet. My motorhome does have the frame extensions that were poorly welded on. That was one of the first things we addressed because we do pull a covered trailer with it quite a bit and also will pull our side by side and atv's on a car trailer behind it. The 454 has plenty of power, my big concern will be getting a brake setup for towing the suburban if we decide to do it.

 

[82sbshortbed]

I was thinking tow dolly and disconnect drive shaft from rear end. Wire it up then reconnect when you get to your spot.

 

[80BrownK10]

Thanks for the replies. We have 5 boys, so our family doesn’t fit in smaller SUV’s....thus why I was toying with the idea of towing the suburban.

Haha I was going to say that might work but what if they have more than 2 kids it would be tight to impossible!

 

[SirRobyn0]

I haven't tried it yet. My motorhome does have the frame extensions that were poorly welded on. That was one of the first things we addressed because we do pull a covered trailer with it quite a bit and also will pull our side by side and atv's on a car trailer behind it. The 454 has plenty of power, my big concern will be getting a brake setup for towing the suburban if we decide to do it.

Ya, we had sort of toyed with the idea of getting something we could flat tow, at the time I had a Toyota pickup that I used like a commuter car. I was rear end (it was pretty bad) the truck was totaled and we took the money and bought the Jeep with it. I bought a tow bar and already had tow lights. It was something like 6 - 9 months later we bought a used brake setup for the Jeep. I just couldn't find the spare grand or more at the time for a brake system.

I will say for flat towing vs tow dolly and disconnecting the drive line, tow dolly is definitely the cheapest way to go, but even setting the driveline aside, just the getting the rig on and off the dolly, strapping and chaining it down, which it's always the last thing you do and it's always raining. Practically you cannot back up a tow dolly behind a motorhome mostly because you can't see it and the dolly always wants to articulate itself into a mess. One wrong turn down a dead end road and your in for 1/2 or more of unloading and loading the TV. Even at a gas station someone pulls in front of you and your gonna have to wait. With a flat towed vehicle you can often back it up enough to get around someone on the pumps. In the dead end road scenario it's like 5 minutes to disconnect and reconnect. Yes we still tow dolly the minivan occasionally, but there are SO many pluses to flat towing.