May have the cart before the horse

[TN Wanderer]

Hello Seasoned Winnie Road Warriors,

As the title says, I may have "the cart before the horse" and am experiencing some heartburn and anxiety about where I find myself. Asking for some honest advice.

I have a 2018 View which is powered by the Mercedes Sprinter diesel. I love it and it's all the room I need but I want to be able to scoot around once I reach my camp site and not have to take the rig out to see the world around me.

I've purchased a Mini Cooper 4 wheel drive Countryman which weighs <3200lbs. I plan on modifying the Mini with a 2in lift kit and some all terrain tires so that I can have fun on some reasonable off road excursions. ( I come from the exploring motorcycle community and don't have the off-roading out of my system.)

The 4w drive Mini needs to be trailered and can't be caddied or flat towed so I'm considering the purchase of a 16-18ft aluminum trailer (1400-1600lbs tandem). The total weight of car and trailer will be 4800lbs.

Question: Am I insane and have I bitten off more than I can tow with a Class C rig?
Most rigs pulling cars are Class A rigs. I have a 5000lb hitch and understand I need to balance the trailer so that the hitch weight is <500lbs...but do I have reason to be concerned?

Totally welcome and looking forward to any and all advice.

Thanks in advance.

TN Wanderer

[Tucsontoy]

I tow a couple different ways with my View. Sometime I take my Toyota Prius on a dolly. If I am on an outdoor adventure I have a street legal Polaris General on a trailer. The trailer is a 7'x14 aluminum the weighs 500 pounds and can carry 3,000 pounds. The General is only 1500 so the View does not know it is there. your car is small enough that if you up graded the tires you could most likely get by with a single axle.

[TN Wanderer]

Thanks Tucsontoy for the quick reply.


I haven't bought the trailer yet but looked at the Aluma 7'x14' made for the Polaris General. I'm just leery of towing the Cooper on a two wheel trailer..tandem gives me an extra tire (insurance) in case one tire blows in route. Right now I'm looking at the Sundowner 18ft car trailer. I would like to go with a 16ft trailer but the Mini is 14' long and I want to carry my 80qt Cabela Ice Chest which is about 20> inches wide. Figure I could use the extra space but don't want to do it at the expense of too much weight. I'm new to all this stuff and remember we've got plenty of mountains and valleys in the great state of Tennessee and our sister state NC.


We have the exact same rigs...considering the extra weight of the tandem trailer and Cooper do you think I'm pushing my limits on the View? I've been told the most important part of this challenge is balancing the trailer and making sure the hitch weight is under 500lbs. I can do that with the 18ft trailer by working on positioning the car in the right place on the platform. But I'm still hauling 5000lbs extra weight...albeit on four maintained wheels.


I just don't want to jeopardize my safety and haven't seen that many Class C's towing cars. I'm glad you've given me your perspective and look forward to hearing from others. I plan on talking both to Winne technical as well as Mercedes technical this week but everyone is so afraid to mislead or give consent to something they can't absolutely control, I don't expect to get too far.


Thanks again.


TN Wanderer

[rancherwilli]

We towed Jeep Liberty @4200 lbs behind our 2009 View. We loaded the Jeep which we called the shed with stuff. I’m sure we were near 5000 lbs flat towing. No problems in 30,000miles,,,

[SarahW]

TN Wanderer--I'm far from a towing expert, but to my way of thinking as long as you stay within the limitations of your hitch and have sufficient supplemental brakes you should have no problems. You will likely putt up some steep grades, but then we all do!! Personally I'm more concerned about being able to stop the rig when headed down the grade.

[LarryW]

“I'm just leery of towing the Cooper on a two wheel trailer...”

Me too. I’ve never blown a tire on a two wheeler TT and don’t want to do so.

[Gordon Dewald]

We had our trailer built by InTech trailers. They build a really good trailer at a great price. They will build the trailer to fit your needs.

[LarryW]

They look very off road worthy, Gordon.

[l1v3fr33ord1]

TN Wanderer-

The hitch rating does not tell it all.

The weight ratings for your View are (per brochure):

GCWR 15,250 pounds
CVWR 11,030 pounds
GAWR (front) 4,410 pounds
GAWR (rear) 7,720 pounds

GCWR - GVWR is 4,220 pounds. That means if your View is loaded to its maximum (GVW = GVWR), you can only tow 4,220 pounds and be within the GCWR.

Now, many of the Sprinter-based coaches have "low" OCCC limits, which means you can't put much in them before exceeding GVWR. Have you weighed your View yet with a normal load of "stuff," liquids and passengers aboard? If not, you don't know GVW and so don't know if you are below or above GVWR.

Also, since you plan to tow a trailer, you'll need to get the "fully-loaded" weights-per-axle to ensure the tongue weight will not exceed GAWR on the rear axle.

It's your decision whether or not you want to stay within the weight ratings of your coach. Some do, some don't.

[LarryW]

An overweight RV and an accident make a lawsuit easier for the “hitee.”

[BobC]

Originally Posted by l1v3fr33ord1

TN Wanderer-

The hitch rating does not tell it all.

The weight ratings for your View are (per brochure):

GCWR 15,250 pounds
CVWR 11,030 pounds
GAWR (front) 4,410 pounds
GAWR (rear) 7,720 pounds

GCWR - GVWR is 4,220 pounds. That means if your View is loaded to its maximum (GVW = GVWR), you can only tow 4,220 pounds and be within the GCWR.

Now, many of the Sprinter-based coaches have "low" OCCC limits, which means you can't put much in them before exceeding GVWR. Have you weighed your View yet with a normal load of "stuff," liquids and passengers aboard? If not, you don't know GVW and so don't know if you are below or above GVWR.

Also, since you plan to tow a trailer, you'll need to get the "fully-loaded" weights-per-axle to ensure the tongue weight will not exceed GAWR on the rear axle.

It's your decision whether or not you want to stay within the weight ratings of your coach. Some do, some don't.

Good post, Mark, those with overloaded rigs are a hazard to all of us, not just themselves.

The OP might be be better off satisfying his off-road desires with a much lighter, street-legal quad.

[luvlabs]

One more thing to consider - has anyone come up with a good trailer brake controller for the View/Navion? There is no prewired bundle under the dash that I know of.

The trailer might do better if it had surge brakes. BTW, the tongue weight has to be below 500 lbs.

I think the OP needs to rethink either his toys or the choice of motorhomes to pull them.

[LarryW]

ThanK you, Bob and Mark, for your comments about overweight RVs. Newbies sometimes just don’t understand the danger they are creating to themselves and others.

[nova 42qd]

Originally Posted by LarryW

ThanK you, Bob and Mark, for your comments about overweight RVs. Newbies sometimes just don’t understand the danger they are creating to themselves and others.

Its not just Newbies. Go to any campground and walk around. If you look carefully you will see a lot of people exceeding tow capacities - more than half in my experience.

The problem isn't towing its stopping an overloaded rig.

[creativepart]

Perhaps you already know... your choice of RV + your choice of toad is kind of problematic.

If you had a diesel pusher then no problem
OR
If your toad was a 3000 lb vehicle that could be towed with all for wheels down then no problem.

I'm guessing it's too late to change both of those things, so I guess you're on the right track looking for a light trailer. But my not very good advice is to leave the mini at home, buy a cheap used Fiat 500 with a manual transmission and Flat tow that - then you'd be golden.