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Old 07-31-2019, 08:09 PM   #1
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Towing with a dolly or four down?

I'm working on a limited budget. I see tow dollies for sale on Craigslist for under $1,000. Retrofitting my 2010 Honda civic to tow four down is going to cost nearly four times more than that.

Are there any mechanical disadvantages to using a tow dolly vs. four down?
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Old 08-01-2019, 03:31 AM   #2
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Years back I towed a jeep four down, now I use a dolly. Each has its pros and cons. With 4 down you are more tied into one car and it seems the cars that can be towed 4 down are becoming harder to find. With a dolly most any front wheel car can be towed. The AWD cars can not however. Yes a dolly sometimes is hard to store at your site, I have yet however not found that to be a problem. It does take a little longer to hook the car up to dolly than the 4 down way. Making sure the car is centered on dolly, hooking up the straps etc. Either way you will need a braking system. The 4 down is a separate system you will need to install each time. The dolly can either have electric brakes or surge brakes. I got the elect. brakes thus needed a brake controller installed in the driver's area of the MH. The electric brakes make the dolly a little lighter and easier to move around.
Good luck.
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Old 08-01-2019, 07:23 AM   #3
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When we were looking to go on the road we pondered the same thing. The decision really came down to my wife pointing out that using a dolly required time everytime you want to move. I figure if I was seasoned enough it would be a 30 minute job no matter what the weather. So 100 degrees or 50 degrees and raining if we were moving I was getting sweaty or wet and climbing under the car, a Mini Cooper Roadster so pretty close to the ground.

We decided 4-down was what we were going to do. I installed the base plate myself and we got a tow bar from craigslist. I didn't bother wiring up the car rather found a lighting system that magnetizes to the trunk and has a remote sending unit that plugs into the RV. (about $250) We had another problem in her original Roadster (our Toad) was an automatic transmission so we traded it for a 6-peed manual transmission car (same car).

We are using an NSA cable driven surge braking system. I just upgraded to one of their ReadyBrute Elite tow bars that puts the surge brake mechanism right into the tow bar. I found a stellar deal on FB marketplace and got it for just over $200 (about $1300 worth of stuff) This required putting the cable into the car which took about a 1/2 day because I needed to find a 1" drill bit since the car has a dual-wall firewall.

That said I can pull out of an RV spot, hook up and be on the road in 5 minutes. Time for me is/was worth the upfront cost.
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