Will I regret NOT towing a car along?

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Darin

Darin

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 1, 2009
Posts
92
Ok, I'm turning into a post-pig it seems with so many questions. 

We are not planning on towing anything, but will have a scooter on a rack for quick run to the store for milk, fan belts, caulking etc.  :)

We are family of 5, Ages 43,42,18,16,14.  So we can hike around places fair enough.  And we wont be staying anywhere for more than 2 days.  But we are considering buying a lightweight Geo and a tow bar and bringing it along.    We'd buy it and sell it when we get back.  As we are the RV.  But, we didn't really borrow enough funds for that.  We "could" make it happen if it became an obvious necessity.

Pros:  People portability.  Location flexibility.  Emergency vehicle in case we break down. 

Cons:  Not really in the budget.  Backing up would become an "issue".  Something else to worry about.

Thoughts and experiences?
 
Well Darin, your cons are certainly ligit, especially the budget restraints.  But........................ our first rip out we went without a toad and soon regretted it.  Yep, you can get buy without one, no doubt about it.  In our case we wanted to eat at the lodge one night and had to unhook to drive there as it wasn't close enough to walk.  Sometimes you just want to get out and see what is around.  Etc., Etc., Etc.
 
If you're only staying in one place for one or two days, you probably won't miss having a car along. When we traveled without a toad, we really didn't miss it. Now we travel with the toad and I can't imagine not having it along. Kind of "you don't miss what you don't have." Save your budget and traveling toadless. You can always rent a car for a day or two if you're somewhere that you decide you really need one ... less of a budget killer.

Wendy
 
We have been full timing for over a year with out a toad and we wouldn't have it any other way. If you get someplace and you really really need one it would be cheaper to rent a car for a few days.

A toad will lower your gas mileage, make your whole rig slower uphill, difficult to back up, harder to drive in tight situations and take time to hook and unhook. The toad costs money to buy, insure, register, service, install a tow bar and maintain. I have lno problems driving my 39 footer around town. I realize I am in the vast minority, as it seems like every other class A we see driving down the road is towing, but we definitely prefer it this way.
 
kinda depends on what you're gonna do when you get where you're goin'...  we go to mostly western states and do a lot of exploring "off the hiways" so we'd either have to walk which is impossible for some of us or find an AWD, short wheel base, tight turning radius MH or tow the Jeep... we tow the Jeep.
 
We don't tow, nor do we plan to.  We've always called ahead to our destination to "reserve" a car with Enterprise.  That usually  works, but not always.  We try to know where the nearest Wal-Mart will be, so we can go there for emergency supplies.

Diane will follow the rig in her car  if our destination is within a three-hour radius.  That makes things a lot easier - no worries about a rental car.
 
The scooter will take care of "most" emergencies, but, what if you would have to take someone to the hospital? That's 2 people maybe 3. Can you haul a tire on the scooter? Can your wife operate the scooter with 2 people on it if you get hurt or sick? If you are always going to be near civilization and cell service, you probably won't need it.

I'd consider the toad like an insurance policy, hopefully you won't need it, but, what if......
 
Dick Zeiter said:
The scooter will take care of "most" emergencies, but, what if you would have to take someone to the hospital? That's 2 people maybe 3. Can you haul a tire on the scooter? Can your wife operate the scooter with 2 people on it if you get hurt or sick? If you are always going to be near civilization and cell service, you probably won't need it.
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Good point, Dick - but if they aren't going to be boondocking, they could call 911.  That's what we have for a contingency plan......
 
To be honest, if you know where to shop you can get a heck of a deal on a well used car, I've purchased fairly good cars for as little as 300-500 dollars plus some repairs, usually in the same cost bracket  So you can get a decent used car for under 1,000 dollars.

I should add, on one of them the modifications I'd have needed to make it a towed... were the very same things that needed repair.  so that would have been a savings there.

I'm not sure what kind of scooter you will have but if you are planing on a small "Camp ground run-about" vehicle a low cost small pick up might be better than the GEO.. That way you can haul the scooter in the truck bed.  Do remember that your motor home has limits as to how much it can tow, and how much it can carry on the hitch.

As for hauling a car or not.... I prefer to haul, since that way I don't need to fire up the motor home for a run to the store, or church or the post office.
 
You will lose a bundle of money reselling a used car and the tow bar set-up is expensive too. Just attaching the base plates for the tow bar is going to be $300 + labor and you won't get a dime of that back.  For your style of travel, I'd go without the toad. It would be more convenient with it, but it's not worth the high price.
 
Darin,

I assume that based on your family ages you are not full timing but vacationing. Based on that assumption and the relatively few times you would be using a toad, it might be less expensive in the long run to rent a car when you need it. Usually newer model vehicle so more reliable, no monthly payments or insurance costs. Plus another added benefit ( ;) ;D), the kids can't drive rent cars until they're 21.
 
The scooter is a Yamaha Zuma 50.  Apparently bored to a 70 (we're borrowing it). So, it's only 200 lbs.  The rack to hold it is in the 50lb range. I think the hitch can take that.  The whole thing is a once and done deal.  We'll be selling the RV when we get back in Oct to try to recover some of the expense. Renting an RV for a month was over $6,000, and with generator use, and runing an exra 6/7 days, we'd be pushing $7,000.  I bought this unit for $8500.  If I don't have to spend a bunch of money on it, I'll lowball the sale and dump it for about $5,000 to move it quick.  The kids and the wife I suspect will try to talk me into keeping it.  I just don't see the need to keep a behemoth around that we won't use often, and drops in value every year.

After considering the cost of the trip, and unexpected cost that will raise their ugly head, we wont be doing a tow car.  Although, we did just buy a pretty sweet '90 Accord LX for my daughter for $800!  But, as it is, this beast of an RV on hills has enough of it's own weight to pull.  And it's still not loaded with our "stuff". 

Perhaps when I'm older, I get a big ole diesel unit and tow a smart car behind it! :)

 
I think you have made the right choice to travel without the toad.  Moving every two days, you would get really tired of hooking and unhooking it, and being unable to back up makes tight gas stations a bit nerve wracking.  A toad becomes more essential when you are doing longer stays, and you want to use the RV as a base.  If you are just stopping overnight, or two nights, you don't put  too many roots down, so you can up and visit in the RV if you have to.

BTW, if you paid $8500 for the RV, you are not going to get much more depreciation.

Rankjo
 
My family has put in over 35 nights in our RV since we purchased in october, including a cross country trip for 3 weeks, and we do not pull a toad.  I have occasionally thought to myself (hey, it would be nice to have a car right now), but 99% of the time, we plan ahead and are fine.  We rarely stay anywhere for more than 2-3 days, and we always carry bicycles and will ride to a store in a pinch to pick something up.

If I were planning on staying anywhere for an extended period, I would probably rent a car.

Someday we'll breakdown and buy a tow dolly or a car than can be towed 4-down, but for now we are fine without.
 
We usually put more miles on the toad than on the coach. We love to explore and use the coach as a base with a lot of traveling around in the toad. This is a wonderful and beautiful country and lets see it all. What we remember about our trips is not the campgrounds, but the out of way places we visited in the toad.
 
To add to Lindsay's comment, if you take identical trips without a toad and with one, you'll be amazed at how much you missed without the toad.  The first trip to Alaska was without one and when we back the second time we realized how much we had missed on the first trip.  And then there's the ease of going shopping, to the laundromat, emergencies, etc.

ArdraF
 
ArdraF said:
To add to Lindsay's comment, if you take identical trips without a toad and with one, you'll be amazed at how much you missed without the toad.  The first trip to Alaska was without one and when we back the second time we realized how much we had missed on the first trip.  And then there's the ease of going shopping, to the laundromat, emergencies, etc.ArdraF
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Doesn't a lot of that depend on how large your RV is? And if you full-time?

BTW, I even found something useful by having a large overhang in a small RV.    I can sometimes park in a fairly  small parking lot space as long if there's nothing in the rear.    If  wheels were near the end of the RV, sometimes I would not be able to back up as much, such as over a ditch or whatever.

My RV is small enough to be used for many things, but nevertheless, if I am at a RV park I would rather leave it all hoooked up and rent a car if staying there for more than a day or so. I certinly would prefer that to towing a car everywhere making almost all short stops on the way a lot more difficult.

-Don- SF, CA​



 
Doesn't a lot of that depend on how large your RV is? And if you full-time?
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Don, not really.  I'm thinking of one road above Homer AK that wouldn't have been suitable for any RV unless it was a small van.  It had absolutely stunning views that we missed on our first trip without a toad.  You know both the SF and the Lake Tahoe areas well.  Think of all the places just in those two areas where driving an RV either isn't realistic or is just plain foolhardy.  You sure can't go down Lombard Street in an RV!

We're not fulltimers.  We just like to roam around, for example, after dinner.  You know, check out the town and see what there is to see.  Also, if we go out to dinner, it's much easier with a car.  Aside from the hassle of unhooking and hooking utilities, most restaurant parking lots can't accomodate even a small motorhome.  In many cases the streets are too narrow or have overhanging tree branches that make checking out residential areas in an RV impossible.  Yes, when we had Class Cs with long overhangs (and no toad) we often parked out at the edge of a shopping center parking lot with the rear out over a grassy median.  But we also encountered some places where we couldn't even do that because the grassy median was too high and the overhang too low.  I guess what I'm saying is you can't count on always having things the way you would wish.

Finally, after a couple of medical emergencies, we want a toad we can use in a hurry or for numerous doctor visits if necessary.

ArdraF
 
ArdraF said:
You sure can't go down Lombard Street in an RV!
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When we visit cities that we are going to stay in for more than a day or two, we rent a car.

On our last trip to Canada, we rented a car in  Spokane,  WA,    Edmonton, AB    &  Surrey,  BC (near Vancouver).

There are advantages and disadvantages of every possible method of RVing. We just would rather  not bother with a toad and rent a car at some places even if it costs some $.

-Don- SSF, CA​

 
There are advantages and disadvantages of every possible method of RVing. We just would rather not bother with a toad and rent a car at some places
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So true!  And we would rather not bother with renting cars which probably would be much more frequently for us because of the way we do things.  As they say, to each his or her own!  ;)

ArdraF
 
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