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Old 11-30-2018, 02:10 AM   #1
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
Model: ACE 29.3
State: Texas
Posts: 20
THOR #12364
American Car Dolly

Getting an American Car Dolly, any suggestions on a good vehicle to tow, am considering a VW Jetta, any body have experience with them?

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Old 12-18-2018, 04:23 AM   #2
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
Model: 2019 Gemini 24LP
State: North Dakota
Posts: 8
THOR #7154
I took deliver of mine a few days ago. I am impressed with the quality, Gary and his crew do a nice job building them. I had him custom make one for me just 96 inches wide. I pull a Mini Cooper. My motor home is only 92 inches wide (Gemini on a sprinter chassis and I did not want the extra overhang.
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Old 01-21-2019, 02:54 AM   #3
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
Model: ACE 29.3
State: Texas
Posts: 20
THOR #12364
American Car Dolly

Got the dolly delivered to my house just after the New Year, Gary the owner pulled in with a trailer load and gave me a brief demo of how it works. A few days later I hook up the dolly because we have a trip to Florida planned. The first problem I had was the lights did not work, I’ve wired a lot of trailers so I started checking the 7 pin plug, found three wires in wrong terminals. The next problem I had was my brake controller was indicating a direct short on the blue wire (positive wire to brake solenoid), traced the blue wire, was connected to a ground lug on left fender bracket. During all the wire trouble shooting I found that they had not used any wire splices, they twisted the wires together and wrapped with black tape. I contacted Gary about the problems and he said he was sorry for all my troubles but offered no refund. The dolly is well build, has bigger tires and wheels than other Dolly’s I looked at, pulls great, can’t even tell it is back there. The wheel straps that came with the dolly were a poor design, they rubbed on the struts of the vehicle and were frayed badly first time we took the car off the dolly, we purchased a set at Camping World that were a much better design. All said it is a good product, they just need some QA on the wiring problems.
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Old 01-21-2019, 12:40 PM   #4
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
Model: THOR Chateua 35SF
State: Florida
Posts: 5,850
THOR #11130
Pathetic. To not test the lights before leaving the assembly line would make me wonder about everything else. At least, as an experienced RV owner, you've had excellent training in how to "make chicken salad out of chicken poop".
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Old 01-21-2019, 03:06 PM   #5
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
Model: challenger 37FH
State: Delaware
Posts: 688
THOR #13399
American Tow Dolly

I'm surprised, we bought our dolly back in September they delivered to the campground where we were and demo everything including all lights and brakes,the way he rolled thru the demo I figured it was his routine.,but 2000 miles now working great.
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Old 01-21-2019, 03:13 PM   #6
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
Model: 2016 Thor Outlaw 29H
State: Tennessee
Posts: 668
THOR #13869
I am guessing your American Car Dolly wheels are fixed, vs steerable.
Does the vehicle you are towing have lock steering?
Does American CD recommend the towed vehicle steering to be locked, or strapped?

I have been looking at one with steerable wheels.
They seem they would exert less stress on the towed vehicles steering components, and recommend the steering to be locked.
The only thing about it is, the steerable ones are twice the cost!

Sorry to hear about the poor quality workmanship you experienced.
At least you corrected it on minimal expense to yourselves.
Just think if the straps had let go! OMG!
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Old 01-21-2019, 03:22 PM   #7
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
Model: challenger 37FH
State: Delaware
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THOR #13399
American Tow Dolly

The American Tow Dolly is a swivel plate design,so lock steering wheel,or strap it,swivel plate is less stress on towed vehicle.
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Old 01-21-2019, 04:06 PM   #8
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
Model: ACE 30.1
State: Colorado
Posts: 388
THOR #5190
We pulled a Mini Cooper S for two years with an American Car Dolly. Overall the experience was positive. The dolly is substantial and held up well over the time we had it.

Only issue we had was that we bought the brake controller and it was always too sensitive, even when the gain was all the way down. At low speeds the brakes would grab and on gravel campground roads they would lock up. I had a Tekonsha brake controller from when we pulled a trailer, and installed that in our motorhome instead. That allowed me to control the settings from the driver's seat and turn it off when we were in campgrounds. Not sure why the ACD controller was so sensitive, perhaps the Mini was too light.

One other thing you might consider is getting the heavy duty straps in place of the standard ones. We thought the standard straps were wearing and upgraded to the heavy duty ones after the first season. They did much better.

Last spring we decided we would rather pull 4-down and traded the Mini for a 2017 Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk. It took me two hours to sell the dolly. The guy who bought it had an ACD for a number of years and had sold it. Then he regretted it and had been in the market for a replacement for several months.
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Old 01-22-2019, 02:26 AM   #9
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
Model: ACE 29.3
State: Texas
Posts: 20
THOR #12364
Update of Car Dolly.

We have pulled the ACD about 2000 miles in last few weeks, once we got all the bugs worked out it has been no problem at all. The straps we got from CW have been so much easier to install than the ones we got from ACD. We have learned a few lessons on using a car dolly, make sure every thing is lined up straight when you load the car ie motorhome, dolly and car. Don’t try to move the motorhome and car dolly with just one strap on.

On the lighter side I have to share a scary moment we had with the car dolly. We have the rear camera set up on our ACE, we kept watching the car in the camera when we left on our first trip with the car in tow just making sure it was pulling okay. On the second day of our trip we had stayed the night at a Walmart parking lot in Shreveport, we decided to stop and get breakfast at a Cracker Barrell, while exiting the freeway I looked at the camera and the car was gone. I had a sick feeling in my stomach all of a sudden, I told the wife “look the car is gone” she said what, the car dolly is gone too” about that time I completed my exit of the highway and the car reappeared. We forgot that when you turn the turn signal on the camera changes to the side view, what a scare, we had a good laugh.
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