Help with Towing Capacity 2025

HardcoreBassin reply :

So, due to some lifestyle changes, I'm giving up my truck to get an SUV for my wife. Since our other vehicle is an unreliable 2006 Kia Sorento, I need to be sure that the new lease can tow my boat. I've never had anything other than my truck to tow, so I'm nervous about getting an SUV with too low of a towing capacity. I have a 2016 Crestliner Storm 1700 with a 20hp 4 stroke Mercury. The dry weight of the boat is 670lbs. Motor is about 120lbs. Plus electronics, gear and gas estimated at about 200lbs. Not positive about the weight of the trailer, but I'd say it is only about 250lbs or so. So the total that I'm coming up with for weight is about 1240lbs.

The vehicle in question is a Jeep Patriot. It is rated at a max 2,000lb towing capacity with max payload of 1,230lbs. From what I understand, I should be OK on the payload because the majority of the weight of the boat and trailer is carried by the trailer axle, not the hitch. But is a 2,000lb towing capacity enough for me? Will the payload be too much on the boat launch?

Thanks in advance!

-Dale

A-Jay reply :

This may help ~

http://www.jeep.com/en/jeep-capabilities/towing/#Patriot3Tab*

This chart is meant to serve as a quick and easy reference guide on how to properly equip your Jeep vehicle for towing.

For specific details, discuss your plans with your Jeep dealer, who will help you select the right equipment to meet your specifications.

A-Jay

fishnkamp reply :

I looked up your boat to find out a little more. Unfortunately I could not find the exact boat you have. Make sure the exact hull weight because if you underestimate this you could be in trouble. The only boat on their website that came close to your estimate was a Storm 1700. If your specs are correct I would advise you to be carefull. I have a friend that has a Jeep Patriot and he does pull a boat with it. His boat is a 16 jon with a full deck and two seats. It is an electric only boat. My concern is about braking. I know you will have enough power to get it moving, it is the stopping that concerns me. The other thing is that vehicle has a short wheelbase and your trailer will have a longer one so making turns while backing up may get hairy. Like you, I always use a truck. I had to utilize my wife Ford Escape one time. Making my 18 foot Lowe go, where I wanted it to, go was a major problem. I will never use it again. Almost all of the Jeeps have that same towing capacity until you look at Jeep Grand Cherokee. You might want to look at a Chevy Equinox. It has a longer wheelbase and can handle up to 3500 with the V6.

gimruis reply :

I tow my Ranger RT178 with a 2010 Ford Escape V6 and it works OK but I will be upgrading to a full size truck in the next month here. I am sick of just trying to pull around the boat with a smaller SUV. It works fine but having a larger size vehicle with a bigger engine would make it so much easier.

Hardcore Bassin, I would say that you CAN do it with the Patriot but why would you want to? Don't undersize yourself. Get something big enough and something that you don't have to put any doubts in there about.

fishnkamp reply :

I checked with my friend Ed. He owns a Jeep Liberty with the v6. He owns two boats. One is a 16 foot jon boat totally decked inside. It has electric trolling motors and 5 batteries. He does pull that boat but his other boat is a 18 foot Ranger and he says it is not safe to pull it. He has tried and said the breaks were undersized and the shorter wheelbase was not that good either. His Liberty can tow 3500. So I would be VERY careful in my choice.

HardcoreBassin reply :

Thanks for the replies here everyone. You all brought up some good points. There are larger vehicles on our list of ones to look at, like the GMC Acadia, Chevy Equinox, Nissan Pathfinder, Ford Explorer. The Jeep Patriot seems to be very budget friendly, but I wouldn't want to sacrifice safety or possible vehicle damage by hauling my boat. I completely overlooked the braking side of it.

On 9/8/2016 at 11:50 PM, fishnkamp said:

I looked up your boat to find out a little more. Unfortunately I could not find the exact boat you have. Make sure the exact hull weight because if you underestimate this you could be in trouble. The only boat on their website that came close to your estimate was a Storm 1700. If your specs are correct I would advise you to be carefull. I have a friend that has a Jeep Patriot and he does pull a boat with it. His boat is a 16 jon with a full deck and two seats. It is an electric only boat. My concern is about braking. I know you will have enough power to get it moving, it is the stopping that concerns me. The other thing is that vehicle has a short wheelbase and your trailer will have a longer one so making turns while backing up may get hairy. Like you, I always use a truck. I had to utilize my wife Ford Escape one time. Making my 18 foot Lowe go, where I wanted it to, go was a major problem. I will never use it again. Almost all of the Jeeps have that same towing capacity until you look at Jeep Grand Cherokee. You might want to look at a Chevy Equinox. It has a longer wheelbase and can handle up to 3500 with the V6.

Yea I goofed up while typing. Too many things on the brain right now. I have the Storm 1700 with a 20hp merc 4stroke.

J Francho reply :

I towed a similar boat with a Cherokee, back in the 90s. I'm not comfortable recommending you tow with the Patriot. Can you go up a bit in size?

HardcoreBassin reply :

On 9/9/2016 at 10:24 PM, J Francho said:

I towed a similar boat with a Cherokee, back in the 90s. I'm not comfortable recommending you tow with the Patriot. Can you go up a bit in size?

We definitely can. There is a lot of compromise that will have to happen here. We need something big enough to tow safely, but my wife (the primary driver) does not want to be driving a huge SUV. I'm hoping the pricing for a Ford Explorer or Nissan Pathfinder work out how I want them to. They both, at least on paper, look like they will do the job safely and effectively.

I'm hoping this will only be for a year or so until I can sell our 2nd vehicle and get another truck.

J Francho reply :

You don't need to go much bigger - the boat doesn't weigh a ton, but you want some measure of control.

Josh Smith reply :

The Patriot will do it. Not ideal, but it'll be fine.

My parents towed a 1/2 ton camper with a Chevy Citation, and later a Cherokee with a 4cyl and 83hp. That Same Cherokee later became mine and I towed a boat larger than yours with it.

The main issue isn't power but rather frame size of the tow vehicle vs the towed vehicle. Theoretically, I could have towed a largish travel trailer with my CJ5. Realistically, the wheelbase was too short.

If you move up in boat size at all, you'll have to move up in vehicle size. If you tow long distances on a regular basis, a larger tow vehicle is a good idea.

Josh

Bass Turd reply :

Your tow vehicle will last longer (brakes, transmission, not to mention fuel economy) if you are towing comfortably in it's weght range vs maxing it out.

Josh Smith reply :

I wonder if you could retrofit surge brakes to that boat trailer? They would ease the tow vehicle's braking system, no matter which you're using.

Josh

fishnkamp reply :

If he has the trailer I think he has ( Crestliner and Lowe use the same brand trailer made specifically for them) it may get expensive to upgrade. This is due to the swing away tongue that most of these come with. The parts were different for the standard trailer with a break away tongue and the trailers that had a breakaway tongue and breaks.

J Francho reply :

I'm not sure the boat weighs enough to benefit from them. I disabled mine on my Bullet because it made almost no difference.

Hog Basser reply :

Look at it this way, get something with a little better towing capacity and you will likely save money on gas and brake replacement for not having to have the pedals pegged to the floor all the time while towing. This goes double if you're driving up and down hills at all. I have a Yukon XL and pull tandem axle trailers with a heavy 21ft speedboat and a tritoon all the time and it can sure burn a lot of gas going up hills, but it would be worse with something that has less power and brake power. Safety is the main thing. Some smaller engines would have trouble going up any decent hill with a trailer and could slow down so much as to make it unsafe in traffic. The flip side of that is coming back down the hill and the brakes being able to handle the load. I wouldn't feel safe with a vehicle any smaller for sure on those boats. Always good to know you have a little extra power and safety when towing.

Further North reply :

I tow a Crestliner CMV 1850 with a 2014 Ford Escape with the 2.0 liter motor and the factory tow package. It gets up to about 2,800 lbs. with a full load and a full tank of gas.

Works fine, a few thousand miles a year including at least one trip to Canada.

The Escape...with the factory tow package...is rated at 3,500 lbs...I'd not try my boat with a vehicle rated for 2,000 lbs.

Adding a hitch to an Escape without the factory tow package will not get you the same tow rating.

Ray K reply :

I wouldn't sell the newer Ford Escapes short for your application. The Escape with the 2.0 EcoBoost motor and factory towing package is rated at 3500 lbs. I tow my Nitro Z7 Sport at about 3200 lbs with it and it does a fine job although I do realize that I'm pushing its capacity. Since your rig weighs only a little over 1/2 of the rated capacity I think you would be fine towing with an Escape. An extra bonus is the 28-30 MPG you'll get when the boat isn't being towed. You'll probably get close to 20 MPG with your boat in tow. Good luck with your choice.

papajoe222 reply :

I wouldn't be comfortable towing with the Patriot and the Nissan Pathfinder is a poor choice for a number of reasons. Toyota and Honda both make nice, mid-size SUVs with more than enough towing capacity. I've been towing my Tracker TX with a Honda Pilot for the last 10yrs.

You also may want to consider something used, especially if you only plan on keeping it a year or so. That, or waiting until the 17's have been out a while and finding a new 16.

HardcoreBassin reply :

Anything that has a "tow package" I'm not concerned with. My concern is anything with a high enough towing capacity, but no tow package. For example, I found a good deal on a 2011 Ford Explorer. Standard, they have a towing capacity of about 5000lbs, which is more than enough. But without the towing package, will it safely brake while towing my boat?

J Francho reply :

Towing package usually includes a transmission cooler, along with the other towing hardware. Brakes should be fine.

HardcoreBassin reply :

Thanks for all of your help! We went with a 2011 Explorer.

Further North reply :

Good choice, great truck.

Just curious: It seems as though you were trying to avoid tow packages...is there a reason why?

HardcoreBassin reply :

On 9/14/2016 at 10:23 AM, Further North said:

Good choice, great truck.

Just curious: It seems as though you were trying to avoid tow packages...is there a reason why?

I wanted a tow package, but we were looking for a used vehicle, and unfortunately a lot of them did not have tow packages on them. Most that did had a lot of additional options on them which made the price higher than we wanted to pay. So I was hunting for a vehicle that would be capable without a tow package. I didn't think it would be as difficult to find something as it was. I was used to a truck which you could buy an absolute base model and still have 7500lbs of towing capacity. Thankfully, the Explorer worked out.

J Francho reply :

You can add a transmission cooler. They aren't horribly expensive. I highly recommend you do it.

WRB reply :

The issue isn't towing the boat and trailer it's stopping the both vehicles in a emergency. 2,000 lbs is the minimum 2" ball size hitch class for use with single axle trailers. Your boat and trailer should be set up with about 100-150 lbs of hitch weight to be safe.

As mentioned discuss your towing plans with the dealer, some smaller SUV vehicles void the warranty with towing boats, Honda Pilot for example will not cover towing OK with a Toyota 4 Runner.

Tom

HardcoreBassin reply :

On 9/15/2016 at 12:17 AM, J Francho said:

You can add a transmission cooler. They aren't horribly expensive. I highly recommend you do it.

That's something I'm looking into now and may be something I do in the spring. I'm not HORRIBLY concerned about it right now since I only live about 5 miles from the lake.

J Francho reply :

Then you might not even need it. I tow through rolling hills, long distance. It's a must have.

HardcoreBassin reply :

Yea. That is my thought. Thanks for all of your input on this. It's been really helpful.

J Francho reply :

On 9/15/2016 at 12:28 AM, WRB said:

The issue isn't towing the boat and trailer it's stopping the both vehicles in a emergency. 2,000 lbs is the minimum 2" ball size hitch class for use with single axle trailers. Your boat and trailer should be set up with about 100-150 lbs of hitch weight to be safe.

As mentioned discuss your towing plans with the dealer, some smaller SUV vehicles void the warranty with towing boats, Honda Pilot for example will not cover towing OK with a Toyota 4 Runner.

Tom

He won't have any problem stopping that rig with that vehicle. I towed a similar rig with a bit smaller Cherokee without any issue. The Patriot he originally envisioned, now that might not be too safe.

Further North reply :

On 9/14/2016 at 10:48 PM, HardcoreBassin said:

I wanted a tow package, but we were looking for a used vehicle, and unfortunately a lot of them did not have tow packages on them. Most that did had a lot of additional options on them which made the price higher than we wanted to pay. So I was hunting for a vehicle that would be capable without a tow package. I didn't think it would be as difficult to find something as it was. I was used to a truck which you could buy an absolute base model and still have 7500lbs of towing capacity. Thankfully, the Explorer worked out.

Makes sense, thanks.

On 9/15/2016 at 12:17 AM, J Francho said:

You can add a transmission cooler. They aren't horribly expensive. I highly recommend you do it.

You can, but there's a lot more than that to some towing packages, especially with smaller SUVs.

J Francho reply :

On 9/15/2016 at 8:12 AM, Further North said:

You can, but there's a lot more than that to some towing packages, especially with smaller SUVs.

Oh sure, but the meat and potatoes is the hitch and the cooler. On my truck there is also different brakes, rear strut upgrade, heavier leaf springs, and beefier anti sway bar up front. I also get a nice outlet for lights, on a separate circuit with it's own fuse. I wouldn't call an Explorer a "smaller SUV" either.

Further North reply :

On 9/15/2016 at 8:47 PM, J Francho said:

I wouldn't call an Explorer a "smaller SUV" either.

Me either - poor communication on my part - I meant more like the Escape-sized SUVs.

On the Escape they do some of what was done with your truck, abut also add a sensor to the traction control/ABS system that acts as an anti sway device. It's also on a lot of their bigger vehicles, all the way to the F-Series trucks.

It works amazingly well.

J Francho reply :

I have that too. If disable it, and leave the diff in auto lock, I leave cool posi trails, lol.

Further North reply :

On 9/16/2016 at 2:07 AM, J Francho said:

I have that too. If disable it, and leave the diff in auto lock, I leave cool posi trails, lol.

I remember those...er...watching others do them, of course.

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