Getting Ready to Tow

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an RV or an interest in RVing!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

jasper

Active member
Joined
May 18, 2010
Posts
35
After 12 years and 2 motor homes, we've decided it's time to start towing a vehicle.  We hope to retire in the next year or so and will be traveling more.  We're looking at a 2013 Jeep Wrangler as the tow vehicle, a ReadyBrute Elite tow bar with the built in surge brake, and a currie base plate.  Anybody out there have this set up and if so are you happy with it?

Also, I would need to remove the tow bar when at home so the motor home will fit in my garage.  I only have about 1 1/2 feet in the front and 1 foot in the back to get around the rig when it's in the garage.  Is removing the tow bar a big deal?

Thanks,

Jon 
 
I would also like to know if this is not a good set up and what one might recommend.  From my research, I like the simplicity of the ReadyBrute Elite with the surge brake but I'm not sure this is the best braking system and tow bar out there.

Thanks,

Jon
 
We use the Ready Brute Elite to tow our "99" Jeep Wrangler and it works excellent. Hook up and unhook is easy, and I can unpin it and take it off the motorhome by myself. The braking system on the Ready Brute works really well once the initial set up is made, and we've found that we haven't had to readjust anything after that, simply hook up and go.
 
Thanks for the feedback.  I haven't read anything bad about this system yet and is the least expensive set up I've found so far.

Jon
 
Back in the day, surge-type systems got a bad rep because they deteriorated in performance as they aged, probably due to a variety of mechanical factors (stretching cables, friction on moving parts, accumulated dirt, etc.). I see nothing but praise for the Ready Brake surge system online, but most comments come from those who recently bought it. I have no idea if there is a longer term maintenance issue or not, or how it compares to inertial systems or proportional effort systems in terms of long term reliability.

Dennis: How long have you been using yours, and how many miles/year?  I'm not disputing that yours works well - just trying to gather some meaningful data.
 
Gary RV Roamer said:
Dennis: How long have you been using yours, and how many miles/year?  I'm not disputing that yours works well - just trying to gather some meaningful data.

Gary, we've had ours not quite two years, and probably have no more than about 4000 miles on it. So far, so good. I know what you mean about bad reps on surge brakes; When we were considering the Ready Brute, my mind kept going back to the days when I would take the pick up down and hook up one of those 1 yard cement trailers to pour a little concrete. Every stop sign was the same...the big surge brake spring on the tongue would slam into it's stop and you would feel the hard stop, then the release all the way through the truck. They've come a long way since then in the case of the Ready Brute in my opinion. All the hardware is well protected, the stopping is very smooth, and the workmanship on the towbar itself is very nice. I believe there are several people on the Forum that have been using them for quite a while.
 
All U-Haul trailers all come with surge brakes and they seem to work well enough too. Of course, they do get some maintenance (if somebody complains, anyway).

Like you, I remember my boat trailers with surge units and while they were better than no brake at all, they were crude, noisy, jerky and inconsistent in their application. I don't see or hear anything like that these days.
 
I, also, use the Ready Brute Elite to tow an '04 Wrangler.  Others have discussed the braking capabilities and I agree it works well.  As for removing the tow bar from the MH, once the toad is unhitched, the towbar will fold up somewhat out of the way.  But, if full removal is needed it's about the same as any towbar, no big deal.
 
Thanks to all for the replys. I'm thinking the ReadyBrute Elite is probably the way we'll go.

Jon
 

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
134,550
Posts
1,431,347
Members
140,125
Latest member
Schwabelectric
Back
Top Bottom