Towing with Cherokee XJ
 

I have recently purchased a travel trailer of 22 ft and 3700 lbs. Does anyone have experience in towing such a mobile home trailer with a stock Cherokee (4.0 liter engine)? Thanks.
Derrold

i pulled a 16 foot low boy with a 93 ford explorer on it i pulled it for about a hour it did ok but my trans starting acting a little funny afterwards no slipping just not acting the same i have a 89 xj

it's not going to do it safely.

I wouldn't pull that large of a trailer especially up or down any canyons

3700 dry weight? Figure 4200-4400 loaded, easily. That's a stout load for an XJ. No matter what the "rated" capacity is, SUVs aren't good tow vehicles...especially unibody ones. You need 15% of the weight of the vehicle on the hitch to keep sway manageable. That means over 600 pounds on your ball mount. That's a lot of dead weight for an SUV. And weight distributing hitches are a PITA...and I'm not too sure they do any real good.

i wasnt any where near 4400 pounds i think it weighed 3700 or there abouts and it did scare me something serious and i dont have any serious hills texas is flat where im at lol

Haha sorry should have looked at your location before I through a Utah problem in the mix:pinch:

here is my advice dont do it. i pulled a 25' tandem axle flat bed with some plate steel (roughly 4000lb total weight). lets just say i kept like 6 cars distance and stopping the dang thing was hard(no brake controller which was my bad), lots of loss in power, and i felt the steering to be sloppy and the jeeps front end to just "glide" around. I have been towing for a LONG time and have towed everything from a bike trailer to a 40' 5th wheel to a full lowboy with a cat d5 dozer on it.


the cherokee only weighs at MOST 3000lbs right? so now your pulling a dry 3700lb trailer/wet 4400lb trailer behind a unibody vehicle which most likely has people in it as well. With out air bags you are going to be on your bump stops and you will NEED a brake controller. The engine will be able to handle it yes. would i recommend it on the road no. plus the aw4 will heat up REALLY quick on you, or you will go thru a clutch on the ax-15 after a few hauls

I just wrapped up a road trip through Oregon & Northern Cal with my '92 XJ, pulling a 19' Fleetwood pop-up trailer that weighs 2610 lbs dry. With the wife & son, plus the XJ being crammed full of stuff, the Jeep was pulling a pretty heavy load. Oregon & North Cal = LOTS of HILLS.

This XJ did not come with a towing package. So before the trip I added a trans cooler, upgraded the fan clutch, and put in a 3-row rad, along with a few other tasks.

Frankly, she did much better than I expected. But a few notes for your consideration:

* Even with the trailer brakes, there were a couple of times I wasn't sure she would stop on a steep downhill road.
* Don't even THINK about towing such a trailer at freeway speeds without an anti-sway device. Dirty air from a semi could be catastrophic.
* Trying to maintain anything over about 40 mph on uphill grades was REALLY tough on the cooling system, despite the upgrades I did. You WILL go slow...

So, as usual, YMMV. But MY experience on THIS trip with THIS trailer is making me reconsider the XJ as a tow vehicle for anything over about 2K total trailer weight. You will surely find that trying to depend on your XJ to adequately tow almost TWICE that weight is a dangerous prospect.

I have pulled a similar sized/weight boat behind several different vehicles, the lightest being a 4x4 Long Bed Ford Ranger with 31" tires and an off road package. It was doable, but not fun.

Keeping in mind that a boat is more aerodynamic than a travel trailer, I would suggest that the Cherokee not be your main tow vehicle for that size camper.
You could pull it one time at a slow pace if you needed to, but it is too light and the wheelbase is too short to safely pull that trailer at highway speeds.

bad idea. i had to pull one of these for work! its 30' long..... it sucked. i almost **** myself like 10x!!!! http://www.funrapid.net/pixhost/trsi...s/74178572.jpg

Pulling won't be the problem.. Stopping will be

Go for it, here's a vid of a compact car pulling a trailer that size up hill, it's not even breaking a sweat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=http:...?v=e_Xygo2054Q

I pulled my 21 foot camper a couple miles and will never do it again with my XJ it can pull it but stopping is the issue. I usually use my pickup to pull it but had to get to my house and the wife had the truck. The trailer has electric brakes but i did not have the brake unit in my XJ to operate them but i do have it in my truck. I still would not pull it anywhere far even with the brake unit. Brake system is too small to stop it.

Yee-Haw!!!

Just like a roller coaster, except for the pain!:D