outback_dave

Dinosaur national monument is totally worth it. Great star gazing, nice little hikes, cold river. The last night it got smokey and was that way all the way back to Denver. Other than a dead battery when we were about to leave, no problems with the car. But I managed to make it to steamboat to get to an advanced auto parts and they replaced the battery for free!

Yep, we made it. It was harder at rabbit ears, and 40 west of steamboat is hillier than I thought.

the trailer is a coleman cedar, 995#, 2 adults one kid. with the trailer tongue and people, i'm figuring that we have about 350# left, we travel pretty light and since we have the trailer, quite a bit of gear went away. i'm getting the cooler in now, but need some more hose in the morning. This was also the only orientation that would allow to get the cooler mounted tight to the radiator. the plan is to go from Denver to Dinosaur national monument. the route is 70 to 9 then 40. that should remove all the crazy hills. i plan on going a bit slow, and stay in 3rd while on 70.

Any advice on driving? Such as when you hit an incline drop it out of drive and go to 3rd? Keep it there till you are down? Or really stay out of drive the whole time?

man, installing the hitch was a real PITA, but it's in. Electrical works so long as you have the head lights on.

So I've checked with the owners manual. It's 1000# towing capacity. It's a gvwr of 4555. The trailer has a tongue weight of 125, weight of the car is 3500, the the weight of two adults and a child, some camping gear will put us with in a few hundred pounds of the gvwr. I've got new front brake pads as well. Rotors are pretty new too. Consulted with the dealer as well, seems to check out.

i've got a hitch coming in to groove, so i will take a look at it when it comes in tomorrow. I may ask my regular mechanic to handle the cooler.

I think the transmission cooler is a cheap insurance policy. The engine is pretty tough as it is, but the automatic transmissions are a bit fragile I guess. I would have gone with manual, but my wife refuses to learn to drive one. do you find that a hitch being an easy DIY job? I think I would have no issue mounting it, wiring always baffles me though. Transmission cooler looks simple too. i'm guessing that it will require draining the fluid then topping it off.

I put a message in another thread, but I figured this deserved it's own thread. There seem to be a lot of opinions here, such as towing at all with this would require a transmission cooler. I'm looking to pull a 995# popup trailer, no trailer brakes, i'm within the parameters of the owners manual. anyone ever had issues with such a light trailer? going through I-70 through Colorado and then up north to Dinosaur nation monument.

New to the forum, but been looking for a while. i have a 04 base model. I just found myself with a 995 pound Coleman trailer. does anyone see any issue with taking this into the Colorado mountains?