One of the recommendations was to use a Class A or Class C RV and tow a smaller vehicle (called a Toad in RV lingo) for local transportation after setting up camp. But way back in the days when I was a strapping young guy interested in learning the ways of automotive things (1960’s & 70’s) we were cautioned to never tow a vehicle with an automatic transmission very far or at highway speeds, even in neutral. Doing so would certainly cause an early, and most likely catastrophic, demise of said transmission. The only safe way to tow one would be on a trailer, dolly, or disconnect the drive shaft.
Nowadays it’s not at all uncommon to see an RV with a trailing Toad rolling on all four wheels happily motoring along to wherever they may be headed, seemingly without a care in the world. So, what’s going on here? Do all of these Toads have manual transmissions? If not, was what we were told back in the day total hokum? Are these RVers happily disconnecting then reconnecting drive shafts on a regular basis? Are modern automatic transmissions vastly improved and not subject to the same stresses as in days of yore? What’s the Straight Dope?
For the record, I currently have a small (16’) camper (Cherokee Wolf Pup) that I tow behind my regular duty pickup truck which works for me and my wife for now. But I’ll be retiring in a couple of years and might consider switching to a Class C RV for extended trips during my early retirement years. My wife’s car is a 2005 Chevy Equinox with all wheel drive that I would probably use for the Toad if it can be towed wheels down without having to fool with drive shafts. Does anybody here have any experience they would like to share, or should I take this question to a dedicated RV forum (where the people are not nearly as nice/intelligent as the Dopers and may actually foam at the mouth over such a question)?
Thanks in advance for any expertise you care to share. SC
The last two pickups I’ve owned had a “Neutral/Tow” setting on the transmission. According to the manual, once in this mode you can tow the truck to your heart’s content. I would assume many of the vehicles you see behind Class A or C RVs have the same option.
Weirdly enough, the instruction manual also insists that, once the Neutral option is engaged, I return the shift selector to Park before towing. I’m puzzled by this, but since I have no reason to tow them it’s a moot point.
I’ve been curious about that myself. In fact, I used to see cars being towed behind RV’s with all 4 wheels on the ground years and years ago. Back in the era you describe I was a automotive mechanic by trade and we were always told the same thing you described. In my tow truck days, if a car was towed much distance it was done only with the rear end up and the front wheels on the ground or you could tow with the front end up as long as the rear wheels were on dollies.
Cars were mostly all rear wheel drive in those days too.
After seeing that suggestion, i did a little research. This has some interesting info in it. Add brakes to the towed vehicle? Pull fuses? Etc.
The article says your vehicle’s owners manual should tell you whether it’s towable or not. There’s a list you can get, but the list isn’t 100% accurate, and it can change from one model year to the next.
The blog post, while mostly about the author’s experience buying a Smart to use as his toad (which probably is the best use case for a Smart car) it does mention " Some people flat tow automatic equipped cars, with aftermarket equipment to pump the transmission fluid in the “toad” (as the towed vehicle is called) to protect it during the towing process."
Like Mallard, I also drove a wrecker “in the day”.
Standard, or manual transmissions, did not care if they were being towed with the rear tire in the air, or “flat” towed, with all four tires on the ground. Just make sure that the transmission is in neutral. Some automatic equipped cars needed to be towed backwards with the rear tire in the air or with the rear tires placed on a dolly since they only had an engine driven oil pump. These could be towed like a manual if the engine was running & the transmission was in neutral. For the obvious safety reasons no one did/does this. Some automatic transmissions of that time had two oil pumps, one engine driven & one connected to the rear shaft which drove the drive shaft. Those rigs could be towed like a standard transmission equipped rig. Just make sure that the transmission is in neutral. All of these were rear wheel drive.
When front wheel drive cars came out, all of them could be towed with the front end in the air. Yet if one wants to flat tow their car, a manual transmission is what they want. I used to flat tow my 5 speed VW Rabbit Pickup behind my service truck.
A tow dolly is fairly easy to use & can be used on all front wheel drive rigs.
Now if it is all wheel drive or four wheel drive, check with the manufacturer. Some do not like to be flat towed any distance +/or at freeway speeds.
When you flat tow, do the miles show up on the toad vehicle’s odometer as well? IOW, if you start a trip with 10,000 miles on the toad and you tow it 1,000 miles, when you get out, does the toad odo read 11,000 miles? I thought that was another reason people didn’t like to do it.
Speaking of towing, here’s a word I learned today: Hubo (aka Hubometer, Hubodometer). Because semis haul and leave and pick up other trailers…and you’d like to know how many miles a trailer has on it. Hubometer - Wikipedia
Thanks for that link! It certainly helps paint a clearer picture of what all’s involved to flat tow a vehicle. Sounds like a lot of hassle and inconvenience to me. And your question about the toad accumulating mileage on the odometer (I’m pretty sure the answer is yes) would be another strike against it in my book. I guess I’ll stick to pulling my little home-away-from-home behind my daily-driver pickup, at least for now. But it’s nice to have the necessary information in case I ever want to revisit that decision. Thanks to all for fighting my ignorance!