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How much weight can I tow?


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I just purchased a 19ft Shasta Motorhome with the 22re and an auto trans. it's set up for towing. I was curious about how much wieght I can tow with it? My 86' 4Runner will tow 3500lbs. Can the motorhome tow that much ?

Any help would be appreciated. I want to be able to tow my 8 ft. utlility trailer with my two Honda trail 70s, and gear, in it. The combo might hit 1500lbs fully loaded.

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Couple of questions. What exactly does "it's set up for towing" mean. Having a trailer hitch doesn't mean "it's set up for towing". The weak link here is the tranny. toys with the OD auto have over heating issues just towing themselves around.

I would like also to tow a light trailer with my 21 ft sunrader, but, I doubt it will be more than five or six hundred pounds,trailer included. Some on this board or the yahoo group say NO WAY, don't do it. Others say maybe, something light. Atleast yours is a little shorter than mine, which helps some.

If you do decide to tow, the first thing you need to do is install a tranny temp gauge. There is quite a bit of stuff on the board about how to do it. You will also need the biggest tranny cooler you can find.

Another question is where are you? I would guess that you might fair OK in flat areas. You would have a much tougher time trying to climb the rockies.

The bottom line here is if you should tow anything, it really isn't much. If you had an 18 footer with a manual tranny and weren't in any big hurry, 1500 lbs might be doable. But, with the auto, I think you are really pushing it. That 4 runner weighs quite a bit less than the toy house. 3500 lbs less? I don't know, but, I'd guess that was fairly close. Also, the 4 runner slips through the air just a bit more easily than the billboard like toyhouse. And, I would guess that the aforementioned 4runner with 3500 towing rating is a 5 speed. I could be wrong, but, I suspect not.

So, whatever you do, try it gradually and watch that temp gauge really carefully.

Good Luck

pete

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Thanks for the help, I live in Wesstern Washington and do a lot of traveling in the cascades, in other words, lots of hills. I will not attempt to tow the trailer over the cascades. I will have the trans fluid changed and have a guage hooked up. the hitch is mounted to brackets that go clear back past the waste tanks. We took the motothome out for a trial run over the weekend and had a good time. Had trouble figuring out how the fridge works though. I'm not sure if this RV even has a tranny cooler. I will check into that today.

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  • 2 years later...
I just purchased a 19ft Shasta Motorhome with the 22re and an auto trans. it's set up for towing. I was curious about how much wieght I can tow with it? My 86' 4Runner will tow 3500lbs. Can the motorhome tow that much ?

Any help would be appreciated. I want to be able to tow my 8 ft. utlility trailer with my two Honda trail 70s, and gear, in it. The combo might hit 1500lbs fully loaded.

It can tow that much - IF you take the camper off!

These things are maxed out - my Itasca Spirit owner's manual specifically says no towing. If ou look at the chassis, engine & transmission, you can see that just the factory rig is maxing things out. Yes peopke do it. But it is just overloading the engine & transmission even more - and would hate to see what might happen if One is coming down a hill and needs to stop and or deal with a curve (add some traction issues - like rain, snow, just to make it interesting).

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  • 2 months later...

I purchased my toy from a retired engineer that without a doubt knew every inch and spec for each part on the motorhome. The 21ft camper towed a Geo Metro for thousands of miles with no problems, however. Later when he and his wife decided to tow a trailer with two scooters they decided to reinforce the rear end for towing (because of tongue weight from the trailer). A welding shop performed the job and rated the receiver at 2,000 pounds.
I can only guess from what I saw that their trailer fully loaded weighed in close at 1,200 pounds max. That is the weight I personally plan not to exceed.

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I think others that say they tow a lot of weight are very lucky or maybe they don't mind transmission overhauls brake jobs etc. I know I would never buy a used one with a hitch on it. Got to remember these things are right on the edge and you have to be able to stop that extra 1500#

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ELECTRIC TRAILER BRAKES. My trailer weighs around 900 lb, I pull it over the Rockies (slowly). Temp gauge, large trannie cooler are a must.

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