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Tow Vehicles


lenny

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I had a question for you, technomadia, about your towing vehical the Jeep Liberty Cdr. Is it as fuel efficient as I read? and as powerful on the hills as a v6 would be? Part of my new trailer purchase is also a economical tow vehical and I am debating between the Liberty Cdr and the Rav4 v6. Do you have anything to share or things to be causiouse of with the Liberty? I have to buy used as they only made them in Canada in 2005/2006 and are hard to find. Any info would be great

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Yes, the Liberty CRDs were only made in 2005 and 2006, so they are rather difficult to come by (and even then, they were a limited run - under 7000 total made I think).

 

When not towing, we get about 24-26 mpg, and when towing the Oliver, we've been getting between ~16-18 it seems (we're in mountain country right now - so we don't have a good enough survey yet to know for sure - plus we're carrying far more than we normally would until we put Chris' paramotor into storage in CA.) This is only slightly less mileage than we had when towing our former Tab.

 

We had a 2004 Jeep Liberty v6 prior to this that we towed our Tab with.. and the CRD definitely has the power equivalency of the v6. It has more towing power than the v6 had - more torque. And we seem to be doing just fine with mountains and such. With the v6 Liberty, we were getting about 20 while not towing, and about 12-13 while towing (I believe, that was over a year ago that we switched vehicles.)

 

 

Some of the deciding factors for us in switching from the Liberty v6 to the CRD included:

 

- At the time, diesel was less expensive than gas

- About 50% better gas mileage for us (which even at current pricing of diesel vs gas, still works out better financially)

- The ability to run biodiesel without conversion, which gives green points and some isolation from potential peak oil crisis.

- Better towing capacity

- Larger gas tank between the 2004 vs 2006 Liberty model - which means less stopping

 

Some of the downsides of the CRD is that because it is so rare, most Jeep mechanics have never seen one, and parts are not readily stocked for it. We've had two times when we had the CRD in for either regular maintenance or warranty service where it took over a week to get back. One case was also a factor of a really bad dealership that has now gone out of business.

 

And well, the engine is a lot louder than the gas version was.

 

- Cherie

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thanks verymuch. I thought you had changed as some pictures showed a silver one and now a blue one. The comparison is helpful. Jeep now makes a 3.0l deisel in the higher series of Suv so you should have less strange looks but parts may still be a problem. This insight does make me think twice about the CRD but up here Deisels are regular and lots of good mechanics to work on them just the part thing and then finding one at a reasonable price. the last two I looked at were still 30000. The biodeisel bit is interesting, is it regularrly avaliable yet? do you have any sites that I can reserch about it? Thanks for your info.

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I use biodiesel.org to find Biodiesel locations - we don't get it all of the time, but it's nice when we can find it. There's also a Jeep CRD forum somewhere out there - I don't have a link handy. But Google should be able to find it for ya.

 

 

We found our Jeep CRD for 17,900 US last year, with just about 16k miles on it.

 

- Cherie

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DougI, the estimates looks good to me. When we pull the fifty plus miles each way to the lake with our 4 cylinder Nissan Pickup, that is the way we pull it. For longer trips we pull with the Jeep.

Dunno about the difference in weight. It pulls so well that I have no worries with pulling it.

I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth 08' Oliver Legacy Elite HULL NUMBER 0003(sold)

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Mountainborn, what is the tow rating on your Jeep?

 

I think I saw where the Wrangler's are rated at 3,500 pounds, the same as my RAV4. Is that correct? Maybe I'll b okay. Maybe Robert is over estimating the weight of our trailer? I sure hope so. Or, maybe the 2,400 pounds on the Oliver web site is wrong?

 

This is a mystery that deserves some illumination. I thought all RV's had to be weighed so the weight can be put on the title and on the vehicle.

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Doug - I noticed you mentioned that you are getting a 4 to 7 pin adaptor for your trailer hookup. This is NOT a good idea - you really will want a real 7 pin jack.

 

A 4 pin jack does not provide power to the Oliver's electric brakes, and it does not provide any power to charge the Oliver's battery while in motion.

 

All it will give you is turn signals and brake lights.

 

Without the Oliver's electric brakes connected to a brake controller, you may actually be illegal towing your trailer.

 

I suggest you look into this, and have any trailer shop wire up a real 7 pin jack for you.

 

Cheers,

 

- Chris

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Thanks for the tip Chris. I'll be sure to get a real 7 pin hookup so I can use the brakes.

 

Did you get an UVW for your Oliver? Our trailers should weigh about the same as yours and Cherie's, except for the twin bed option on ours. I'm concerned about the estimated UVW Robert gave us of 3,400#.

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