Grand Cherokee as a tow vehicle?

[eli_lilly]

Re: Grand Cherokee as a tow vehicle?

Have you ever run the Overseas Highway on a really windy day? Ever gotten stuck behind someone that broke down and blocked half or all of the road?

I lived in Key Largo for 5 years and received so many tickets it boggled the mind. At one point I had to maintain a spreadsheet to track by month how many points I had left inside the 12, 18, and 36 month limits.

-E

 

[98Shabah]

Re: Grand Cherokee as a tow vehicle?

I've towed our 18' bowrider on a single axle (w/o brakes) a couple times with my wife's '04 GC inline 6cyl (same body style as the '99). The boat/trailer is around 3,000lbs, the GC did a fine job, it always felt stable and fully capable of stopping the load. Gas mileage was really in the toilet (12mpg) because that inline 6 was floored to maintain 60mph topping some hills. I prefer to tow with the 05 crown victoria, more power and a slightly better braking. I really wish we would have gotten the 4.7L HO v8 in the GC!

 

[mlrman]

Re: Grand Cherokee as a tow vehicle?

Our 19 1/2 ft. cuddy cabin @ 3000 lbs. tows fine behind the '04 Jeep Grand Cherokee equipped with only the 4.0 inline six. I do not use overdrive, but it pulls and brakes OK. We can even use AC while keeping temp in normal range.

There is some slight trailer sway, but I am sure that is due to the low tongue weight. My trailer just needs some adjusting, but it's handy in the meantime as I just lift the tongue up by hand to drain every drop of water from the boat, lol.

 

[Triton II]

Re: Grand Cherokee as a tow vehicle?

There is some slight trailer sway, but I am sure that is due to the low tongue weight. My trailer just needs some adjusting, but it's handy in the meantime as I just lift the tongue up by hand to drain every drop of water from the boat, lol.

That's scary! You need a tongue weight about 10% of the total trailer weight to stop getting the sways. An easy way is to move the axle backwards.

I recently saw a utility vehicle fall off the back of a dual axle trailer due to the severe sways the thing had going - the tiedown straps broke and the UV rolled off the back! Fortunately this time no damage was done to either the tow vehicle, the UV or anyone else but it could have been really nasty...

TII

 

[Sunking22]

Re: Grand Cherokee as a tow vehicle?

We have used our 04' GC to pull our 20' bowrider which is about 3000 - 3100lbs but I don't recommend it. It's the V6 model which has a tow capacity of 5000 but towing that boat on a tandem trailer with no brakes hasn't given me a feeling of good confidence. It does ok on highways and flat areas but that engine really whines if it has to go up any real incline. It's obvious that this vehicle is "capable' of some towing but again I wouldn't recommend relying on it for a whole season of boat pulling.

 

[98Shabah]

Re: Grand Cherokee as a tow vehicle?

Our 19 1/2 ft. cuddy cabin @ 3000 lbs. tows fine behind the '04 Jeep Grand Cherokee equipped with only the 4.0 inline six. I do not use overdrive, but it pulls and brakes OK. We can even use AC while keeping temp in normal range.

There is some slight trailer sway, but I am sure that is due to the low tongue weight. My trailer just needs some adjusting, but it's handy in the meantime as I just lift the tongue up by hand to drain every drop of water from the boat, lol.

Are you running an additional transmission cooler on it? I noticed that our '04 inline 6 Laredo has a factory transmission cooler built into the top 1/3 of the AC Condensor, it sure looked big enough to keep it cool (it's bigger than most aftermarket coolers), but I have yet to install a transmission temp gauge to verify that.

 

[Lou C]

Re: Grand Cherokee as a tow vehicle?

I've got 2 Grand Cheorkees....a 98 with the 4.0 Six and an 07 with the Hemi/Quadradrive II..used both to pull the 88 Four Winns...the 98 did OK around town but really needed the trailer brakes I installed after having the boat a couple of years...and I also added Air Lift bags to the rear coils which really helped with stability and the tongue weight...

The 07 is a completely different and superior tow vehicle...the Hemi pulls like the Super Chief and the newer style Chysler 5 speed automatic is far superior to the old style RE trans...finally the brakes on the 05-10 models are much much better than the ones on my 98...I would limit the 98 with the Six to a 18-20 fot boat and 4000 lbs but the 07 with the Hemi I would not be uncomfortable to go to 23 ft or 6000 lbs...