I hate to stir up this hornets' nest

[hermenator01]

The towing limit is set by the vehicles manufacturer. Length of the vehicle, weight, drive train, legality etc. and cannot be changed no mather what you do !!!
Herman. CRT.lic.

[smilycook]

Are you planning to pull a 19ft with your minivan? Once you put water, gear, and options in a 19 you will be closing in on at least 3000lbs which seems a little too close for comfort in my opinion. There are just too many big mountains and passes in the northwest to skimp on a tow vehicle. My advice is trade in your minivan for a 4runner or change to the 17ft. We plan on pulling our 17B arriving in April with our 4runner.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by hermenator01

The towing limit is set by the vehicles manufacturer. Length of the vehicle, weight, drive train, legality etc. and cannot be changed no mather what you do !!!.

Well, actually you can change all of those aspects of the vehicle, but most people won't (especially wheelbase). The biggest problem is that without extensive knowledge of the factors which constrain capacity, you won't know whether or not the changes have actually increased the vehicle's capability... there might still be a "weak link" limiting to the same value.

I like to understand my vehicle's limitations, and may make changes to improve its performance, but I know that I don't have the authority to change its rated limits.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by smilycook

Are you planning to pull a 19ft with your minivan? Once you put water, gear, and options in a 19 you will be closing in on at least 3000lbs which seems a little too close for comfort in my opinion. There are just too many big mountains and passes in the northwest to skimp on a tow vehicle.

I have a Toyota Sienna, which we use to tow our widebody non-Escape 17-foot trailer which typically weighs 3000 lb loaded. It has no difficulty in the Rocky Mountains or anything else between Edmonton and Vancouver. I would still consider a 19' at about the limit, because it seems likely to weigh even more than that loaded for travel, but that's just a guess.

A 4Runner has a strong frame and lots of drivetrain and axle capacity, but is likely less stable than a Sienna as a tug... there is no perfect answer to the tug question.

[nealmccarter]

Originally Posted by smilycook

Are you planning to pull a 19ft with your minivan? Once you put water, gear, and options in a 19 you will be closing in on at least 3000lbs which seems a little too close for comfort in my opinion. There are just too many big mountains and passes in the northwest to skimp on a tow vehicle. My advice is trade in your minivan for a 4runner or change to the 17ft. We plan on pulling our 17B arriving in April with our 4runner.

Yup. Going with the van for now. We travel light enough, and a new TV is not really in the cards.

[hillary]

You know, having spent a lot of time staring at the trailer weights in the real world thread on the fgrv forum, it seems like a loaded 19 is only a couple hundred pounds different than a loaded 17B, and some 17Bs were heavier than some of the 19s. I think as long as you really watched the stuff you load, especially what and who are in the van, and actually weighed at a scale to check your trailer and tongue weight it would probably be fine. How many miles are on your Sienna? One thing to know, at least in our manual for our 2006, is that the AT fluid never needs changing (according to Toyota) unless you tow, and then it should be changed every 60000 miles. We've probably towed 1000 or 1500 miles at most, and are at about 74000 miles on our Sienna, but plan on getting an AT flush sometime early next year before we do any trips.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by DeadEyeDan

I'm not in a hurry, but I like to have plenty of power for pulling hills and passing when neccessary. I do not like towing at or near capacity.

I realize this is from a week ago...

I understand both the desire not to push any limits and the preference for sufficient power, but having plenty of power and towing near capacity are not closely related. Power is only one aspect which affects towing limits, and so one vehicle can easily be a slug when towing half its rated trailer limit, while another vehicle has piles of power to spare when fully loaded.

For an extreme example, the big rigs on the highways routinely tow 30 tons, so at 20 tons they are nowhere near their limit... but you can out-accelerate them and out-climb them in a rusty old Yugo, because their 500 horsepower isn't much against 30 tons (including the 10-ton truck). My Sienna and 3000 lb trailer (86% of trailer limit, plus stuff in the van almost to the GVWR) is still much faster than those big rigs.

Staying with Escape-suited tugs, a Chrysler minivan and a Jeep Wrangler come with the same engine (so they have the same power) and weigh about the same, but the short Wrangler is only rated for 2000 pounds of trailer while the minivan (suitably equipped) is rated for 3500 pounds of trailer. The Wrangler would be near its limit with a 15' but have plenty of power; the minivan with the same trailer would be at only half its limit but have no power advantage (although it would be more stable).

[smilycook]

Brian, Here is an interesting thread about a dodge minivan pulling a 19ft escape. Basically people were not recommending the pulling of a 19ft with a dodge minivan with a tow rating of 3600lbs.
http://www.escapeforum.org/forums/f1...an-1674-2.html

From the real trailer weights on the FGRV forum escape 19s are coming at 3305,3400, and 3740 at the axle.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by smilycook

From the real trailer weights on the FGRV forum escape 19s are coming at 3305,3400, and 3740 at the axle.

Those "real world" weights are a useful information source, but Frederick never intended them to be some authoritative reference. They are a small sample of the people he happened to encounter at meets, which are good real-world examples but certainly not the whole range of possibilities. The discussion earlier was about towing a 3000 pound 19', and that would be fine with a Sienna (if the tongue weight is kept acceptable).

The actual 19' axle weights listed are 2670, 2920, 3305, 3620, and 3740... but of course what matters more are the total weights which range from 3130 to 3980... all in pounds. If Neal doesn't max out the options, and doesn't have a cast-iron cooking pot collection, there's no reason he cannot be at the light end of that range.

Originally Posted by smilycook

Brian, Here is an interesting thread about a dodge minivan pulling a 19ft escape. Basically people were not recommending the pulling of a 19ft with a dodge minivan with a tow rating of 3600lbs.
http://www.escapeforum.org/forums/f1...an-1674-2.html.

The subject van in this thread has less power than any recent Sienna - what year is yours, Neal?

I am not advocating exceeding any limit of the tow vehicle, and right from the first post that owner explained that in combination with the passenger load, he believed that he had nowhere near 3600 pounds of trailer capacity (due to the GCWR limit). A second-generation Sienna has 3500 pounds of trailer capacity, in addition to about half a ton of in-van payload.

Although I just skimmed the old topic, it appears to have been an entirely hypothetical discussion, with no actual experience with the performance of the proposed vehicle combination. My Sienna, on the other hand, has been over the Rockies, the length of the Coquihalla Highway, and the length of the Crowsnest Highway with our trailer, which has the frontal area of an Escape 19' and 3000 pounds of weight. It's not the perfect tow vehicle, but I see no reason to dismiss it as an option.

[nealmccarter]

Originally Posted by Brian B-P

The subject van in this thread has less power than any recent Sienna - what year is yours, Neal?

I am not advocating exceeding any limit of the tow vehicle, and right from the first post that owner explained that in combination with the passenger load, he believed that he had nowhere near 3600 pounds of trailer capacity (due to the GCWR limit). A second-generation Sienna has 3500 pounds of trailer capacity, in addition to about half a ton of in-van payload.

My Sienna is a 2007 with the 266-horsepower 3.5-liter V6 that replaced the previous 215-horsepower 3.3-liter V6 engine and produces 245 lb-ft of torque at 4700 rpm.

From my experience pulling our pop-up trailer (2050 lbs dry weight) engine power should not be an issue. It should have more than enough torque to handle the extra 460 lbs in dry weight.