We have 5 kids so we got rid of our cummins diesel Mega Cab Truck for a diesel Ford Excursion. It's a nice vehicle and tows awesome but it breaks all the time. It leaves us stranded most every time we tow with it or at the very least, the check engine light comes on. Our warranty went up while we were on vacation and it cost us over $5,000 in repairs. I think we ended up having some other unrelated repair work done and in the end, we had to get a loan for it all. Now we have a car payment. We're planning a big road trip from AZ to NY and my hubby is shopping for an old beater big block suburban. It may break but it's easier and cheaper to repair. Does anyone have any experience with this? Any advice for us? We have a toy hauler that we tow but no toys. Just 5 kids...LOL Thank you!
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We tow a 2-horse trailer, not a camper, so I'm not sure if the comparison is valid. My husband has 2001 Chevy Tahoe with over 225K miles -- and it's still going strong. Seats 8 and tows like a dream though New England mountains and hills (OK, so they're not the Rockies -- we still have mountains!), along back roads and on the highway. The 2 horses alone weigh about 3000 pounds, not counting the weight of the trailer itself.
Hope this helps.
dont do a chevy my dad used to tow boats all of the time and he constantly had to work on the tranny on his chevy. the trannys get to hot when towing I did tow a big uhaul trailer from basically kansas city to wichita excpet a little further bout another 80 miles with no problem in a dodge. check into the dodges with tow packages.
We have a Dodge Diesel 2500 truck. It is 4 door. We use it to tow our camper (travel trailer). But it has 6 seats total if you put up the center consol, not sure that would work with 5 kids :)
We have a 30 foot bumper pull that we tow with an old suburban, which is also hubby's work vehicle. Never had problems with it in the year that we've had it.
my husband has a gmc safari van that he has added "coolers" to, i call it the frankensafari, you open the hood and theres weird coolers mounted here and there. he says they help the van not have to work so hard pulling the trailer. we have a old pop-up trailer and a 15 foot fishing boat that he pulls -not at the same time ;) unfortunately, he is taking his nap right now and i cant ask what cools what. i want to guess a tranny cooler and an oil cooler. when he wakes up i'll get the details and edit this answer. your husband might want to put some of these coolers on the suburban to help.
