Having watched people struggle to manually move the dolly, search for a way to store and secure it, it would take bodily harm threats to make me use a dolly. You do miss the interchange of having a co pilot sitting beside you, but I am not sure the trade-off is worth the dolly hassle. Howard and Linda went to a separate drive about as soon as they went full-time.  JMO

-- Edited by 53 Merc on Friday 10th of June 2011 12:00:20 AM

If it were me, I'd opt for driving the car.  When we hit the road, I am going to drive my own vehicle & my husband will drive the truck/5er.  There are many pros & cons to driving/not driving but you should do what works best for you.  As someone else said, if you start driving the car & don't like that arrangement, you can change it.

Cindy T

Richard,

Our situation is different in that we will have a truck and fifth wheel.  But, we will have the Mercury Mariner as our second vehicle.  While our "setup" would allow us to pull the Mariner, it is unlikely that we will do so.

With Jo driving the Mariner and us having some kind of 2-way communication (either cell phones or walkie-talkies) we can travel together and if needed, I could have her "scout out" a route into a fuel stop, rest area, shopping center, etc. by driving into the area herself.  Also, if we had room to park the truck and coach, I could get in with her and help "scout out" the area as well.

The biggest issue that I could see with your setup is that I have heard that the Coopers are pretty proprietary on lubricants and other things.  In many rural areas, it might be difficult to find what you would need because of that.  That you might want to research for availability.

Terry

A couple of years ago we were staying at Oscar Shearer State Park in FL and the couple next to us were flat towing their Mini, so it can definitely be done.  A quick Google search showed that lots of folks are flat towing the manual transmission model with no problems at all BUT... (there's always a BUT!) if you had any kind of driveline problem and it was discovered that you are flat towing against manufacturer's advice then it could void your warranty.  Not sure how long a warranty is in effect on a Mini but I'd think that at 4 years old you're pretty much at the end of it anyway. Remco is considered the best in the flat towing business and here's what they had to say: http://www.remcotowing.com/vehicles

Automatic transmission models are evidently only towable on a tow dolly or trailer.

Assuming yours is a manual transmission model that can be towed it's a tossup whether to tow or drive from an economic standpoint.  A tow bar, base plate and braking system will run in the neighborhood of $2,000.00 or more.  If you instead drive it behind the motorhome for about 5,000 miles a year for 2 years at 30 mpg you'll spend about $1,400.00 in gas assuming $4.00 per gallon.  The only downside being that you won't have a co-pilot in the seat next to you. 

 

RVPAINTER wrote:

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once the plate is attached the warranty is also void as Mini does not allow any alteration to the vehicle.

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Mini cannot enforce the "any alteration of the vehicle" clause since that is allowed by law. They can use it as evidence you were being towed and that voids the warranty.  Subtle difference, but true.  In your case it doesn't matter, but there are many alterations that Mini cannot stop you from making.

Dollies only work for front-wheel drive vehicles, but I think a Mini is front-wheel drive.  Just make sure the dolly and straps are properly sized for the Mini, a friend had major issues with a diesel VW Beetle with a used tow dolly. 

My wife and I are getting ready to go full-time shortly after labor day weekend. We crunched some numbers and you don't have to travel much to see that you could pay for a small car fairly quickly. We will have a Ford F350 to tow our 5th wheel and my wife will drive in front of the caravan with her little Scion X/D (30+mpg). We plan on moving no more than 200 miles a day....then stay at parks for at least a week at a time. During that week we plan on sight-seeing, shopping, hitting the local towns and coffee houses.....so having a little car works perfect for us.

We've already gotten a set of walkie-talkies and did a test run and it works great. Hopefully we will only put 6-to-8,000 miles a year on our truck.

We'll check back after about a year and comment with a bunch of experience under our belts. However....it looks like you got some good info here.

Well, we have been towing a Chevy Trailblazer 4x4 behind our allegro bus for three years now and it works great. I wouldn't want to be in separate vehicles because I do depend on my navigator a lot, plus I like having her with me. I've only been "caught" twice in three years getting into a situation that I had to unhook the car to get out of, so that's not too much of a deal with us. I can unhook in about 3 minutes if I have to so it's no big deal. I just changed to a Dodge Dakota crew cab 4x4. because I carry an inflatable boat and outboard motor with me and that wouldn't all fit in the trailblazer. I agree that the "set up" is expensive. I just finished rigging out the Dodge and with the base plate, M&G braking system, and the lights it was around $1300. We tend to do a lot of desert exploring, and the 4x4 has proved to be an asset more than once. Some of the tow dollys are lighter and easier to manuver around than others, but I still prefer the 4 wheels down setup. JMHO Steve

Steve C wrote:

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Question. Do most state parks and campgrounds that have daily or annual entry fees charge for both vehicles?

We are planning on another 5th wheel and F350/F450 or GMC 3500HD this time out. And we plan to go full-time this time. We drove our last tow vehicle 11,000 miles in 3 months as it was our only vehicle. Although I prefer that my wife be in the tow vehicle with me, it seems to make sense for her to drive her Escape. We plan on having another kayak (non-inflatable this time) and would haul it on top of the Escape.

When we were seriously thinking about a motorhome we were told that her automatic transmission Escape could be towed with all four wheels on the ground. Were we told wrong or right?

Steve

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In some states they charge for each vehicle with a motor at state parks, at others they don't.

Most Escapes can be towed, go to http://www.motorhomemagazine.com and select the Dinghy Towing Guide for the model year to find out.

 

 

-- Edited by bjoyce on Sunday 19th of June 2011 09:20:59 AM

-- Edited by bjoyce on Sunday 19th of June 2011 01:20:07 PM

I wanted to remain silent, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that if the only way I could travel was to have Janet follow me in another vehicle I would have parked this coach long ago. I love sharing all things with Janet and it just is not going to play out the same with the 2 of us in separate vehicles (even if equipped with 2-way headphones). For those that do this and find it to be an acceptable or necessary solution, I congratulate you. Janet and I have had only one vehicle available at our final location ever since 2000. There are maybe 2-3 times per year where it would have been nice to have a separate vehicle (Christmas and anniversary shopping come to mind) but the other 360+ days per year, one vehicle has served us very well.

Funny. We are finding ourselves having this conversation again. We currently have a 5th wheel toyhauler and truck. That has allowed us to take the motorcycle and effectively have 2 vehicles when needed. Reality is that we rarely use them separately. We've been planning to switch to a diesel pusher so we can put the motorcycle on the back and tow my Avalanche which is paid for and we love (the truck isn't quite paid off.)

Fast forward and Johnny has had a couple of surgeries -- one to fuse his right ankle, another to replace his left knee for the 2nd time and a 3rd to fix a broken shin bone which broke above the ankle fusion rod. He was finally feeling up to riding again and went to load the motorcycle in the trailer. It fell over on him and put a big gash in his leg (yes, the most recent surgery one.) Now he's thinking we might best switch to a trike.

Unfortunately, one cannot put a trike on the back of a motorhome safely so we've been talking about whether it's an option to drive 2 vehicles or not. We keep coming back to a "no" for a number of reasons. The primary one being that we just enjoy having the other one right there to share the experience. But a strong 2nd these days is that Johnny just often doesn't feel like driving. If we had 2 vehicles to move that would definitely make this a more stressful than enjoyable experience and we just want to minimize that as much as possible.