Your thoughts on towing this

[BourbonRunner]

Just because you can hook it up and move it doesn't mean you should tow it.

Everyone that made suggestions here is spot on. Stick with ultralight trailers and never do more than 80% of your max tow rating. Pay close attention to your brake wear if you're towing regularly- you'll wear them down and be mindful of bleeding your brakes regularly.

If you're dead set on an Oliver, consider a 3/4 ton. Better to have too much truck than too much trailer.

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[PuddleJumper]

Ok as a person who has towed 7k plus with my mojave. Can you tow it? absolutely. Should you tow at your max or within 500 lbs of it regularly? Probably not. or at least I dont recommend, not that i have a leg to stand on considering the shit i pull. If it was 6000lbs gvwr, I'd say fug it and ball. but 7k and then your easily gonna have a couple hundred pounds of shit and liquids, you may be setting yourself up for sky high egr temps and limp mode. just my two cents. I have a Forest River R-Pod RP-171C variant. Its about 3k and works well. However its a camper so its in for warranty work. I swear campers are the shoddiest built industry imo.

 

[WILDHOBO]

RJinPV and WILDHOBO are spot on. A GVWR of 4000 lbs. would be a good place to start. When narrowing down my trailer search, this forum, and other resources helped. My JTR tows 7000 lbs. so I limited my search to a GVWR of 5000 lbs. My trailer GVWR is 4960 lbs. (dry weight 3042 lbs.) with family and minimal gear loaded in the JTR, and trailer loaded with most of the gear. It tows comfortably, safely, and reliably. The JT is definitely not a towing icon, but it does great as long as I don't ask more than it wants to give.

Very well said.

 

[Broccoli]

Actually only 6,000lbs.

If I had to move that trailer in town I wouldn’t hesitate.

I wouldn’t never own that trailer to tow with the JT.

I wouldn’t never not neither.

 

[ABQJeep1848]

Give yourself bigger margin. We've been pulling an RPod 202 and it's longer, cheaper, tougher, roomier, and has that margin to spare.

 

[Marob419]

This was the perfect size.

 

[Reddog]

I have a 2023 Rubicon Diesel with Tow package. Do you folks think it will be OK to tow this trailer?

As someone who has towed a trailer that was just below max weight for my vehicle I would tell you to get a bigger tow rig or go smaller on the trailer. You will load far more on your rig than you realize and towing at max weight is not much fun unless it’s just around the local area. We all think we can live with it until we experience it for long periods and then it becomes a bad time. I don’t know your intended use of the rig but you will never go wrong with going to an oversized tow rig, especially if you intend to use it for extended periods on long trips. Gladiators are not well suited for towing in my opinion. I tow a 2000 lb boat with mine and its fine but if you decide to proceed, go light on the trailer, because tou will add far more to the base weight than you would ever think. Good luck.

 

[pcrawfordpt]

I have a 2900 pound dry weight trailer, 3500 pounds loaded. I would not want to go much heavier. I have towed it over 10,000 miles without any issues. I have a JTR with lift and run/tow with both a set of 37” and 35” tires. If I’m going to wheel and camp I tow with the 37’s. Just traveling and light off roading I tow with the 35’s. I’m re-geared to 5:13’s. I use only an anti-sway and it tows nicely. I still feel it working in the mountains, but al gauges show normal operating temps. I think if you are running a stock JTR or Max Tow. you could go up in weight a little? My 2 cents.

 

[WILDHOBO]

I have a 2900 pound dry weight trailer, 3500 pounds loaded. I would not want to go much heavier. I have towed it over 10,000 miles without any issues. I have a JTR with lift and run/tow with both a set of 37” and 35” tires. If I’m going to wheel and camp I tow with the 37’s. Just traveling and light off roading I tow with the 35’s. I’m re-geared to 5:13’s. I use only an anti-sway and it tows nicely. I still feel it working in the mountains, but al gauges show normal operating temps. I think if you are running a stock JTR or Max Tow. you could go up in weight a little? My 2 cents.

Very accurate. Very.

 

[Labswine]

That seems awfully heavy for only a 24' trailer. I could see that weight if it were built in the late 60's or up to at least the early 80s when they started making trailers lighter to help with fuel economy and allow the anemic engines of the day to still be able to move it.

Growing up, we had a used 24'Terry with twin axles that was built in 1972 and it was towed with a '74 Chevy Suburban with the 350 cu.in. It was the five of us, a dog and all our stuff in it. I do remember Dad wishing that he'd gotten the 454 cu.in. in the Suburban because it sometimes had issues getting the whole schmegeggie moving but, that's what we had and we went all over the east coast, a LOT of times to the Shenandoah's (my favorite place), and out to Wisconsin to the Dells, once (grew up just west of Philly, where I live now, in the house I grew up in).

I have a 27' Vantage Sonic SN220VBR and tow it with my Overland. I have the BlueOx WDH/sway and Tekonsha brake controller. My trailer is ~4,750 lbs and with all our stuff that we want or need I'm figgering around 5,100 lbs. Tongue weight unloaded is 420 lbs and I figger with all the stuff in the front pass through it's probably around 520 or so lbs. It's dual axle and has a bump out. I think it's pretty light with all it has for it's size. And when we travel, it's just me and the Bride.

My Overland has absolutely zero issues getting it moving or stopped and that BlueOx works beautifully keeping it all under control, even when getting passed like I was standing still by a Semi. I don't drive over 65 MPH on the interstate.

As others have said, go with something lighter than that, and something that will accommodate your family, and all the stuff you want or need to take with you staying within your tow ratings, with a safety margin.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Don't forget the book's chart with frontage numbers. Wind matters, drag matters.

I'm really curious - do JT owners realize there's a book? Is it a boomer thing, millennial thing, genz thing - reading the book? ?

Or is it that they don't like what the book says, would rather ignore it and their desire to pull much more because the books is "stupid" so they try to get higher weights validated here? Is that it? ?

Anyway, it's all in the book. Please read it - and believe it. Only crazy people pull in traffic for any distance at or above their tow rating. People with no regard for themselves or others, but only how they are viewed, tow over ratings. It looks cool, but it's not.
It's been done - short distances, off-peak traffic, slower speeds - so it "can" pull it, but........ as the fellow explained - not a habit, etc.

The RV people who have towed for decades would rip some of us to shreds with what we tow or claim is "ok". I've checked out RV sites looking for tow equipment and see what some say to those coming in with bigger rigs behind their trucks than they should be towing. Ouch.

Anyway, as said - stay UNDER your rating.
You can drag it along, but you are sharing a highway with a lot of other people - some good drivers, some not so good, and what happens when you have to do something other than go straight? You crash and burn.
There's a truck salvage yard between me and Des Moines - you should see some of the stuff, including campers and RVs, that get hauled into that place.

I know it's a macho thing - people don't like to admit that they tow safely or don't tow maximum weights - it's looked down upon by certain others, but...............


My JT's rating is 6,000 pounds.
I tow 5,000 and I've decided I really don't want to be over that by much, if any at all.
I MIGHT go 5,500 - but only short runs and only if I can keep the speed down and stay off I80 east here.
5,000 of that 6,000 is fine, not bad at all, but if I had to make some maneuver to avoid something - could I?


Not towing related, but something to think about - a young fellow was driving stupid (not drunk, no drugs) and ended up crossing the center line and killed my father in the other lane.
I was pissed, furious, at times wanted to throttle that kid, wanted every penny he ever made for his whole life.
Then, I met him - his family, and his pastor..
And I realized there wasn't anything I could say to him or do to him that would be any worse than what that young guy was doing to himself. There wasn't any punishment I could add to make it any worse than what he was dealing with already.
He took down all of his social media posts, all of his pictures of his partying and carrying on with friends. He scrubbed his fb account. His pastor said that it was like flipping a switch, the guy was wanting to be more involved in what he could to do help others all of a sudden instead of showing how fun he was.

Please please tow safely. Always think of the what-ifs, those situations where you have no control over what others do, or animals on the road, what if you had to swerve, stop, or avoid something. How would you feel................if some action you took trying to take it a bit farther than you should take it ended up in a bad way.
I have witnessed families torn apart. (my brothers don't speak to each other much after all of that, one has really retreated and is still full of anger.
Yeah, it's an extreme - likely? No, but...........
Always tow safely. Stay UNDER limits.

Yeah, weird, thinking of people i don't even know and will likely never ever meet - but that's just me, I guess.

 

[Rottwheeler]

Have a look at the smaller Lance travel trailers. We tow a 1575 that's ~4000 lbs. With a weight distribution hitch, the JTR will pull it anywhere. Their trailers are very well made.

 

[gladtohave]

?is what I think of your idea of pulling that with any gladiator .

 

[Blueiyz]

Would these weights be sufficient to tow

Hitch Weight	498 lbs
Dry Weight	3435 lbs

 

[WILDHOBO]

Would these weights be sufficient to tow

Hitch Weight	498 lbs
Dry Weight	3435 lbs

Depending on how much weight you add, that’s well within reason. Make sure you have a brake controller and trailer brakes, but no need for a complicated brake controller install. The Curt Echo plugs in inline and requires no installation. I’ve been using it for years and couldn’t be happier.

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