Motorhome Dinghy Towing Guide 2022

What Actually Works for Towing a Dinghy Behind Your Motorhome

I spent eight years running dinghy towing setups across Class A and Class C rigs before I stopped arguing with the forums and just wrote down what the data actually showed. This Motorhome Dinghy Towing Guide 2022 is the result of that, not some marketing piece written by someone who's never had to re-rig a dolly at a rest stop in the rain. A dinghy is the small car you tow behind your motorhome once you reach your destination. The whole point is that you don't have to unpack the RV every time you want to explore the area. Towing it safely means matching three things: the RV's tow rating, the dinghy's approved towing method, and the towing equipment itself. Miss any one of those and you're rolling the dice. Most people skip step one. They look at a tow dolly or base plate kit online and assume it fits. It doesn't always fit. Your coach's GCWR (Gross Combined Weight Rating) is the hard ceiling. Everything on it—fuel, water, cargo, passengers, the dinghy, and the dinghy's tongue weight—has to stay under that number. I've seen owners blow past this by two thousand pounds because they forgot to count the fluid weight in a half-empty potable tank. That's an extra hundred and sixty pounds you didn't plan for.

Flat Towing Versus Dolly Towing

Flat towing, sometimes called dinghy towing in the industry, means all four wheels of the car touch the road. You need a base plate kit, a tow bar, electric or mechanical breaks, and a car that's explicitly approved for flat towing by the manufacturer. Some cars can't be flat towed no matter what hardware you buy. Running a front-wheel drive automatic without the drivetrain disengaged will destroy the transmission in under fifty miles. I learned that the hard way with a 2014 Ford Escape that the manual said was flat-towable if you put the transfer case in neutral—which it doesn't have, by the way. The manual was wrong or I misread it. Doesn't matter. The transmission was totaled and the repair quote was around nine thousand dollars. Dolly towing lifts the front wheels off the ground and leaves the rear wheels rolling. This works for more vehicles because you aren't stressing the driven axle. But dollies add width, reduce maneuverability, and they require a different braking setup. You also need to make sure your RV has a weight distribution hitch rated for the dolly's tongue weight, which is usually heavier than a flat-tow tow bar setup. Trailers are the third option. Full car trailers eliminate all drivetrain concerns but they cost more, they're harder to store, and they eat fuel. If your dinghy is a heavier SUV or a truck, a trailer is often the only legal and safe choice.

Getting the Setup Right

Start by pulling your RV's door jamb sticker and your coach manual. Write down the GCWR and the rear axle weight rating. Then get the dinghy's curb weight from the manufacturer's spec sheet, not the sticker on the driver's door—that sticker shows payload capacity, not total vehicle weight. Add about eighty pounds for a full tank of gas. That's your loaded dinghy weight. Subtract the dinghy's tongue weight from your remaining tow capacity. Tongue weight on a flat tow setup is typically between eighty and one hundred fifty pounds. A dolly adds two hundred to three hundred pounds of tongue weight. Make sure your RV's rear suspension can handle that load without sagging. Air assists or helper springs help, but they don't change the rated capacity. They just manage sag. If your rear axle is already at its limit with the loaded RV, adding a dolly will exceed it regardless of what springs you install. Base plate installation is the next step. Every make and model of motorhome has different frame clearance, bumper geometry, and wiring routing constraints. A bolt-on kit from a reputable manufacturer like Blue Ox, Swish Connect, or Demco will fit most common frames, but I've had to fabricate mounting brackets on three different coaches because the factory holes lined up with structural crossmembers that weren't where the instructions said they would be. Always test-fit before you weld or permanently modify anything.

The Braking System Is Non-Negotiable

Most states require a separate braking system for anything over three thousand pounds. Even where it's not required, you should install one. A proportional brake controller like the Excalibur or GoodRide unit reads your RV's deceleration and applies the dinghy's brakes at the same rate. An electronic breakaway system engages the dinghy's brakes if it ever separates from the tow bar. These are cheap insurance compared to what happens when you're coming down a mountain grade with fifteen thousand pounds of combined weight and the car isn't slowing down with you. I run a proportional controller paired with a breakaway battery on every setup. The breakaway battery needs to be checked every six months. I once found a corroded terminal on a setup I hadn't used in three months. The breakaway system would have failed in an emergency. Replaced the battery and the connector for about twelve dollars total. Do this now instead of after something goes wrong.

A Specific Problem I Ran Into

Last fall I was towing a 2019 Winnebago Travero with a 2020 Honda CR-V on a Blue Ox Alpha5 tow bar. About forty miles into a trip through the Smokies, I noticed the CR-V's left taillight was out. Not dim. Completely dead. I pulled over and traced the wiring. The breakaway battery cable was rubbing against the frame rail and had worn through the insulation. The circuit was intermittently grounding out. Every time the tow bar flexed on a bump, the connection would make and break. The taillight would flash and then die. The fix was straightforward but it required a workaround I didn't find in any manual. I rerouted the breakaway cable along a different path using zip ties and split loom conduit, but the original mounting point for the breakaway battery box was in a spot where vibration would eventually wear through the casing. I ended up relocating the battery box to a clean flat surface on the frame rail with a rubber isolation mount from an old appliance. That stopped the vibration transfer entirely. The taillights have been solid ever since. This isn't a rare issue. Frame rail routing is tight on most coaches and manufacturers rarely account for long-term vibration in that space.

Common Mistakes That People Keep Making

People forget to put the dinghy in neutral before towing. This sounds ridiculous until you've got a manual transmission car with the key out of the ignition and the steering wheel locked. You can't tow it. Period. You either need an add-on auxiliary remote steering release or you accept that this car isn't going anywhere behind your RV. Another mistake is ignoring the dinghy's battery. During flat towing, many modern cars need their 12-volt systems active for the steering lock to disengage and for the transmission to stay in neutral. If the battery is weak, it can die on the highway. I keep a small trickle charger on standby and check the voltage before every trip. Anything below twelve point four volts gets charged before I hook up. And yes, you need to lubricate your tow bar connections. Dry pivots and joints bind under load and create uneven stress on the base plates. Use the grease fitting on the ball joint every five thousand miles or seasonally if you tow less often. It takes five minutes and prevents a lot of expensive problems.

When Flat Towing Is the Wrong Call

Some vehicles simply cannot be flat-towed safely regardless of what aftermarket kit you buy. All-wheel drive systems without a neutral disconnect, certain CVT transmissions, and cars with electric steering locks are common examples. The manufacturer's towing approval is the final authority here, not what some forum thread says works for someone else's identical-looking model. Year-to-year changes in the same model line can alter the answer completely. A 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee could be flat-towable. The 2021 model changed the transfer case design and the recommendation changed with it. If your vehicle isn't approved for flat towing, a dolly or trailer is your only option. Don't try to make it work with clever rigging. I've seen people attempt to flat tow cars that were explicitly not rated for it by chaining up the driveshaft. It "worked" for a while until something broke at fifty-five miles per hour on an interstate exit ramp. That's not a workaround. That's a liability.

Weight Distribution and Sway Control

A properly adjusted weight distribution hitch is essential when towing anything on a dolly or trailer. The goal is level ride height across the entire rig. If the RV's rear end sags even an inch after hooking up, your weight distribution is insufficient or your setup is misconfigured. Adjust the spring bars until the coach sits level and the dinghy tracks straight without lateral wander. Sway control is a separate system that actively resists side-to-side movement. On long RVs with high profile dinghies, crosswinds and passing trucks will induce sway without it. I've had a forty-three-foot Class A get pushed sideways by a semi on a two-lane highway with a small car on a dolly behind it. The sway control unit engaged and kept everything tracking straight. Without it, I'd have had to pull over and wait for the wind to die down, which in the desert Southwest in July is not a reliable strategy.

Maintenance Checklist Before Every Trip

• Check tire pressure on the RV and the dinghy. Cold tires only.
• Inspect all tow bar connections for play or wear.
• Verify the breakaway system battery is charged and the cable is intact.
• Test all lighting: brakes, turns, and running lights.
• Confirm the dinghy is in the correct towing gear position.
• Lubricate pivot points if they haven't been serviced recently.
• Verify that safety chains are crossed under the tow bar and properly attached.

This takes about twelve minutes if you know what you're doing. If you skip it, you're gambling with fifteen thousand pounds of momentum behind you. The Motorhome Dinghy Towing Guide 2022 I'm referencing here doesn't replace reading your owner's manuals, but it covers the practical gaps that the manuals don't always address. The RV Tow Guide database at rvtowguide.com lets you search by vehicle make and model to see which ones are explicitly approved for flat towing, dolly towing, or trailer-only towing. It's updated quarterly and it's the closest thing to an authoritative source that exists. Base plate kits from Blue Ox and Demco both offer fitment guides on their websites, but the online tool will tell you what fits. The manual confirmation from a certified installer is what matters when something goes wrong and you need to prove the installation met manufacturer specifications. There's no single document that covers every possible RV and dinghy combination because the combinations are too numerous. What I've laid out here is the framework that applies to ninety percent of setups. The remaining ten percent usually involves an older coach with a non-standard frame or a vehicle with an unusual drivetrain. For those edge cases, you either need a specialized installer or you need to accept that this particular combination isn't going to work cleanly. Knowing the difference saves you time, money, and a lot of headaches on the road.