How Much Can Your Vehicle Tow?

"Hi. My name is Gary Godwin and I'm the general manager for Hawley's Camping Center here in Wilmington, North Carolina. On behalf of Expert Village, this is a tape entitled "How to Purchase an RV." Now let's talk about your tow vehicle. This is very, very important for about ninety percent of our buyers because they actually are going to be towing their vehicle from campground to campground, scene to scene, and destination to destination. Now, if you are buying your camper for a resort property, it's not very important because the dealership is going to transport that to you (at an additional charge) and get it there for you so that when you come down for that first weekend. Tow vehicles; how do you figure out what you can pull? Well, it's like looking in Pandora's box; it's really, really tough. My recommendation is that if you have a Ford, you call the Ford manufacturer and ask for an Oasis report. Very simply, what they are going to do is take your VIN number and they are going to print all that out including your tow ratio (and that's very, very important). Now, if you can't get with your manufacturer, then we have these little Tow Vehicle Guides that we use here at the dealership. Very simply, we go through and try to pull out your vehicle, and make sure that we get the right towing for you. Let's be hypothetical, let's say your truck can tow (according to the manual; according to the manufacturer) ten thousand pounds. We like to give a thousand pound head room on that. We call it our safety zone. Why do you need head room? Number one: you are going to put clothes, food, furniture maybe, bikes, water...All kinds of stuff can be added to this camper and we want that thousand pounds for you to be safe. Now, once we've discerned what your accurate tow-vehicle ratio is, then our staff is going to show you what meets your needs in that particular area. So, let's talk about tow vehicles one more time. Call the manufacturer. Be sure and check with your sales person. Make sure we have the right tow vehicle and the right vehicle lined up together."