We'll be picking up our Scamp 13 next month, and we're looking for a towing vehicle. For environmental and economic reasons, we want a used vehicle that's adequate for towing, including in mountain country, but no bigger than necessary. We're wondering if anyone has experience towing a Scamp 13 with a Ford Escape or similar small SUV with a 4-cylinder turbo engine. (I understand that the Hyundai Santa Fe, among others, also is available with a 4-cylinder turbo engine.) There's a 2015 Escape that has such an engine with 245 horsepower. The towing capacity is rated at 2,000 lb, which may be kind of borderline. I'd appreciate any observations about towing a Scamp 13 with one of these small SUVs. (If a small SUV won't work, our likely alternative would be the Honda Pilot, which has a V-6 engine and plenty of towing capacity, but it's a tight fit in our garage.)
Wed, 07/11/2018 - 14:25
#1
Towing with a small SUV like Ford Escape
When we visited Backus, a couple pulled in with a 13 footer being towed with a Ford Escape turbo 4 cylinder. He said he doesn't even know the camper is behind him when being towed. We pull our 13 with a Subaru Forester 4 cylinder. Not a turbo! It does a good job, but I do know it is behind the vehicle.
Anthony Memoli
Anthony, thanks for your helpful comments. It sounds like the Ford Escape with a turbo 4 works well. If you don't mind my asking, how does your Subaru do when towing your trailer uphill?
Robert
We have a Ford Escape Titanium 2.0 turbo with the factory towing package. We just bought a Scamp 13 and had no trouble towing it home over some mildly hilly country - the turbo does a great job. The factory towing package increases the towing capacity to 3500 lbs, mainly because it includes a transmission cooler as part of the package, Self installed towing packages, even those installed by the dealers, don't have the additional transmission cooler, so, if you're interested in the Escape, I would recommend looking for a Titanium 2.0 with the factory installed package. You can tell if you look in front of the normal radiator, on the bottom you'll see an additional radiator for the transmission fluid.
If you're in mountain country, you have to reduce the towing load by 2% for every 1000 ft altitude above 1000 Ft, so going over a 11,000 ft pass will reduce the towing capacity by 20%, knocking it down to 2800 lbs. This still should easily handle the 13 ft. Check the owner's manual of the tow vehicle you're thinking of buying for any similar altitude restrictions.
Bob
Bob, thanks for the comments on your experience towing with a Ford Escape. I'm glad to hear it works well for you. It's good to hear those details about the effect of altitude on towing capacity. We did look at the Escape Titanium version; we liked it and felt that it would meet our towing needs. We came very close to buying one, but in the end we realized that we wanted something with a little more cargo space for our general needs. The Escape had a little less room than the Mazda 5 I've been driving. We ended up buying a used Kia Sorento with a V-6 engine, which has the room we were looking for. Unfortunately the gas mileage won't be as good. It's one of those unavoidable tradeoffs.
Robert
I tow with a 2 liter turbo Lexus nx200t. We recently did a 4,000 mile trip and drove over an 11,000 foot pass without breaking a sweat. We averaged 18mpg for the trip.
As per my knowledge, a towing vehicle should be strong enough and reliable for the process to go smooth. I haven't towed a vehicle yet but a close friend of mine has done this once. Unfortunately, his towing vehicle broke down due to the heavy weight of VW. But thanks to the team of auto transport Sarasota for helping in such a situation, and they towed VW safely to the target location. So towing with the reliable vehicle or getting the help of experienced service as an alternative is of extremely important for the safety of a vehicle.
Hi I have a Santa Fe with a 2000 lb weight towing is anybody
towing a 13 deluxe with that.
Thank you for the help
I have a 2019 Kia Sportage EX that can haul at 2000lb with electric braking system. I would NOT do that though. For a safe experience, especially with mountains you should be at the 75-80% GTW (fully loaded-trailer & STUFF!). It's amazing how much STUFF weighs! With my Scamp Layout 1 bare bones (not a lot added but air conditioner, wishing we could omit the sink and stove as we like dry camping). Thus, I'm looking for a new TV. You would not be your safest towing a Deluxe with a 2K weight towing. The wood cabinets definitely add more to your weight. A lot of research out there confirms this since. Hands down, stay at 75-80% for safety and a more enjoyable towing ride.
darbar
i towed a 16 foot scamp with a honda CRV 1500 lb capacity. your insurance may not like it (or cover you, check with them), but if you magically take your vehicle to europe the towing cap doubles and you don't have to do anything. basically it will tow fine, but the legal fine print in the USA is the issue.
i think you'll be fine
1987 Scamp 16
The trailers in europe are setup much differently, a lot of them are double axle and they have much less tongue weight than the equivalent trailer lenght in the USA. So its not quite an apples to apples comparison. I always thought it was, but there are some interesting videos explaining the differences.
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