We decided that it was time to trade in Meepels (Laurie's 2010 Honda Fit Sport) for an additional tow vehicle. Subacca is doing great but we also didn't want him to be pulling everything by himself all the time. Additionally, we wanted the ability to not have to move so many thing from the trailer to the car each time we set up. Currently, due to Subacca's tongue weight capacity of 200 lb, we have to drive with a lot of items in the trailer. Because the entire inside of the trailer is our bed, this means that we have a lot to move when we arrive before we can crawl into bed. After a long day of driving, moving our entire camp off of our bed is the last thing that we want to do. So we started researching.
Dominic looked into a few different options. Our main criteria were: ability to tow at least 6,000 lbs, 4X4, and below 50,000 miles. We discussed diesel versus gas engines. We considered: Chevy Silverado, Ford Expedition, the all new Dodge Ram 1500 Laramie, Land Rover Discovery, Jeep Grand Cherokee Trail Hawk, Overland and High Altitude editions, and the BMW X5. We settled on a gas engine after discussing the potential of not being able to readily find diesel when far from civilization. We narrowed down to an SUV after thinking about the ability to store more things away from the elements than in a pick up and being able to sleep inside it if the weather was really bad when we arrived somewhere and we didn't want to move from the vehicle to the trailer. Sleeping in an SUV is also a good backup option if we have to put the trailer in a shop, to save money and hassle on a hotel.
After careful consideration we settled on the Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland and found a 2015 with 31,000 miles on it that was about 600 miles away from us. The price was great and they offered us 100% of what we were asking for Meepels. We were very excited at how beautiful and new this vehicle looked. The one previous owner had taken such good care of it. We worked everything out over the phone and email. We decided to pick it up on Saturday and left the house as soon as the dealership and bank opened and we could confirm that everyone was ready for us to pickup that day. We drove for 6 hours, took the car for a test drive to make sure that it was in the advertised condition, finished up the last of the paperwork, cleaned out Meepels and loaded up our new-to-us Jeep, soon to be named. Our neighbor, Mama Lisa, fed the adventure pups while we drove back home in our sweet new ride. The drive home was a million times more comfortable than our ride down.
This car has everything we were looking for and a few extras that are icing on the cake. We got a panoramic sunroof, heated and cooled front seats and heated rear seats for the adventure pups, a heated steering wheel and mirrors in case we get stuck in the cold unexpectedly, an adjustable suspension for different terrain as well as adjustable ride height; this Jeep is simply amazing and we both feel so blessed to be able to have a car this nice. We work hard and are strict with ourselves so that we can have an opportunity like this. We were lucky to find one this nice though.
We did run into an issue however, from the factory the Jeep is set up to tow by the four way connection only. It has a class four hitch with a four way and seven way connector but according to forums they don't activate the seven way at the factory. The solution is to go to a dealership and pay $85-200 to have them re-flash the computer. We had this service done and now the Jeep is ready to pull the T@G wherever we ask! We are glad that it was a simple fix, though disappointed that they are selling an under-functioning tow package.
We like to name our cars, trailers, and bikes and would love to hear your input and suggestions. Please comment with your suggestions for a name for the Jeep. Currently we have Subacca, the 2011 Subaru Impreza WRX and our T@G trailer who is also yet to be named. Our bikes are named Mountain Badger and Mountain Goat. Laurie's nickname is Single Speed Superhero. Thank you for your help and continued support of Create Your Own Adventure!
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