Thor Forums

[FW28z]

The first place to check is your owner's manual for the vehicle you wish to tow. Most owner's manuals have a section called "Recreational Towing" or similar.

Not all manual-transmission vehicles are 4 wheel towable, but most are. For example, the Mazda Miata cannot be flat towed. And only a few Automatic transmission vehicles can be flat towed.

Again, you will want to check your specific vehicle.

A few vehicles though, such as the Honda Odyssey are in the middle. Honda does not recommend flat towing this vehicle, but many RV'ers have found that it can be towed without issue.

There are quite a few strategies when it comes to towbars. They can cost as little as $200, or be as much as $1,000.

The main difference is whether or not the tow bar is vehicle mounted or motorhome mounted. Motorhome mounted towbars typically have adjustable side arms so that you can attach the vehicle to the motorhome as long as it is "in range".

Vehicle mounted towbars have the more familiar ball hitch attachment to the motorhome, and some of these have adjustable arms, but the least expensive do not.

Which one is right for you depends on your vehicle and budget.

My towbar is made by BlueOx, so I am more familiar with those. BlueOx makes three different types. Here are three towbars that I was considering, as they all can tow within the 5,000lb limit of most motorhomes:

Alpha ($650). This is a motorhome mounted towbar with adjustable arms. It is the one I have. It has a span width of up to 38".

Acclaim ($500). This is a vehicle mounted towbar with a ball hitch, but it has adjustable arms, so you get some advantages of a motorhome mounted towbar. It has a span width of 23~28".

Adventurer ($250). This is also a vehicle mounted towbar with a ball hitch, but with fixed length arms - making it much more difficult to attach to the motorhome. It has a span width of 16~34".

The prices here are on-sale prices from BlueOx. However, I bought my Alpha tow bar from Amazon last year for $530.

Last year, the rep from BlueOx at the Hershey RV show told me the Alpha is the old version of the Aladden, and even though it is only advertised as having a 6,500lb rating, it actually has a 7,500lb rating. I don't know that for sure, but at least the Alpha is rated for heaver loads than the Adventurer or Acclaim (both of which are 5,000lbs).

Also, you may have to buy a drop receiver for the motorhome mounted towbars as they have less of a +/- tolerance than the hitch type towbars, so you potentially will need to add $100 for that.

I showed the span widths of each of the towbars as this is going to be different for different vehicles.

I had originally thought of towing my 2014 Taurus, which has a 17" span width on the baseplate. I ended up though towing a 2002 Grand Am, which has a 24" span width.

If you compare the span widths on the various tow bars, you will see that the Taurus cannot be towed by the Acclaim towbar, as it is not narrow enough.

While I may not tow the Taurus in the future, I may at some point change out my toad as the Grand Am is getting up there in years, and if I bought a less expensive tow bar, I might end up having to buy a new one for the next vehicle.

I was all set to buy the Acclaim, but the span width limitation is what caused me to buy the Alpha.

So you may wish to look to any future changes while selecting the tow components.