2020 Jeep Gladiator Sport Max Tow Unbiased Travel Trailer Towing Review 1200 Mile Trip In The PNW

ladies and gentlemen boys and girls

it's the moment we've all been waiting

for i know finally going to be talking

about

uh towing a travel trailer with a jeep

gladiator

no this is nothing new and i'm sure

there's probably some other videos

on doing just that but i don't think

i've seen one yet

that being said i'm just going to relay

our experience

with towing a travel trailer with the

jeep gladiator

try and keep this somewhat short and to

the point

a travel trailer is a 21 rb

from heartland uh

dry weight is i want to say like 5050

pounds

at whatever accoutrements that they add

to the trailer before you pick it up

and uh i don't know we'll call it

5100 somewheres in there

the jeep itself is a max tow

pretty basic didn't need the rubicon

wanted the extra capacity of the max toe

get kind of the best of both worlds

we're not wheeling in this thing

especially since it's not ours um

but yeah max tow 410 gears

we did change out the tires and wheels

um

approximately 33 inches tall 295's

they are ease which in my opinion

opinion is not ideal

even though it may help for towing for a

little extra security but ease are

extremely heavy

especially when unnecessary so

uh just kind of going over the truck the

max payload or the max

gross weight of the truck itself is

62.50

and we've added some things so you got

the tires and wheels

you got the steps

and we got a front bumper that is

probably 70 pounds heavier than the

stocker if i remember right

so i would say between the tires

tires call it 80 pounds heavier than

stock 70 pounds heavier than stock for

the front bumper

i would say about 70 pounds for the

steps

that all cuts into your payload so just

something to keep in mind

really quickly the front has a inch and

a half spacer

kit lift and the rear

has three quarter inch spacer wanted to

keep somewhat of a stock type ride but

fit these tires a little bit more easily

without looking like they're forced on

there

[Applause]

i did put on fox rubicon shocks their

takeoffs off of ebay

they're really really soft i kind of

like the floaty ride

over the stock shocks on the sports

so i think that is worth it one other

thing that i wanted to touch on is the

brake controller

i think everybody kind of assumed that

this would uh

well i like a lot of people assumed this

would have a factory brake controller in

it

and uh we're halfway through

2020 and there still is no factory brake

controller although there's rumors of it

being available for pre-order

got tired of waiting ended up putting in

a

trusty prodigy p3 which i think is one

of the best brake controllers on earth

if you all haven't seen my other video

that's where i ended up sticking it

works 100 flawlessly

so i guess i'll cut right to the chase

on weights

we did get a chance to scale this

now i did not get a individual weight on

the jeep itself which i'm kind of bummed

out about but it just wasn't convenient

um scaling the truck by itself with the

trailer hooked up

we had hundred and fifty pounds

uh gross weight of the truck is sixty

two fifty so call it a hundred pounds

we were at a quarter tank of fuel three

people on board and one dog

uh to be fair the truck bed was loaded

down full of stuff

um grill

cooler five gallons of fuel

table there was a few other things back

there moral of the story that stuff

could have been moved if need be

from the truck bed into the trailer

uh the gross weight on the trailer

is i believe

seventy four hundred seventy four

hundred and thirty pounds

uh the trailer by itself axles

on the scale was only fifty six hundred

pounds

[Music]

so if you add those two together you

come up with a grand total of eleven

seven

fifty

[Music]

that seems like 61.50 and 56.

115.56

11 750

[Music]

our grand total is 11 750.

the gross combined on a max tow

gladiator is 12

800 pounds so we do have a little bit of

wiggle room there

thousand pound dish but that doesn't

leave much more room for

getting any trailers that are much

bigger than this

i'm not a facebooker my wife is and i

think she's been on the gladiator page

for quite a while now and

i guess it's routine routinely asked can

i tow this with my jeep gladiator

uh all different kinds of trailers that

she sees posted on there and

the general consensus is for most of the

stuff she sees

the answer is no you're not gonna tow a

9 000 pound 30 foot travel trailer with

a jeep gladiator unless you're crazy

i don't have the hitch installed right

now but i will post a picture of it

we're using the equalizer four point

it's one of the most simple awesome

hitches on earth

the weight distribution is great and the

anti-sway properties of that hitch

are absolutely amazing so i will say

that with our combination and the

approximate

we'll call it 650 to 700 pounds of

tongue weight is what i'm guesstimating

we have six washers in the tilt for the

head of the equalizer hitch

and that puts enough preload on the bars

to keep the jeep

close to unloaded

uh dimensions on the fenders to the

ground

and you know definitely not picking the

rear axle up there's not too much

preload there

i will say that having as much preload

as you can get without jacking the back

of the truck up

helps with the bounce of the soft rear

suspension

we first started with four washers in

the hitch head and

it rode okay but the rear suspension had

a lot of bounce in it

and the only way you would fix that if

you were gonna leave it at four washers

on the hitch head would be to put an

adjustable shock on the back to

control that compression and rebound

neighbor has their lawnmower going i

tell you what if it's not a weed whacker

it's a leaf blower if it's not a leaf

blower it's a lawn mower

if it's not a lawn mower it's an

airplane

the world sure is noisy sometimes so i

think i'm going to go over a couple of

pros and cons

well first let me state the uh

the driving feel of pulling this trailer

which is we'll call it six thousand

pound trailer

it is extremely comfortable going down

the road there's nothing sketchy about

it there's no

pronounced sway um

it rides really good for the weight

uh you don't you do not have to hold

onto the steering wheel with a death

grip

and nor would i ever tow anything like

that and nor should anybody ever have to

deal with anything like that

and yes i have seen people show up at a

campground or wherever they're going

with a trailer

and they were scared to death of what

they were telling

do your homework find somebody

knowledgeable to help you set your stuff

up

and you will be a lot happier in the

long run this

combination tows extremely well

and very safe and stops on a dime

to add along to the driving feel

uh all the other truck and trailer

combinations that we've had before this

one

my wife has never driven it before she's

never towed anything before in her life

and we just got back from a 1200 mile

trip

and i would say the wife drove this trip

500 miles out of those 1200 miles maybe

even half

and she was completely comfortable doing

it of course a little bit nervous

anybody would be

but she did it and she did a fantastic

job i'll try and show a clip uh

of that happening but this combo tows so

well that

even mrs black can drive it down the

freeway this is her first trip

ever of doing stints uh out on the

highway with the trailer on

so very proud of her for that

the transmission eight-speed automatic

while it does hunt around quite a bit

especially in any kind of hills it's

very hilly around here in the pacific

northwest

whether it's washington oregon montana

idaho

you name it all the way wyoming utah all

that stuff there's hills everywhere

so your transmission is constantly

shifting up and down from about

uh fourth to seventh we'll call it

the engine performance there is plenty

of power

i will say this thing likes to rev out

i don't think that this engine may have

been the best choice for a gladiator

especially for something called max tow

the little pentastar v6 i wish it well

um hopefully it survives

the uh i'm not gonna call it torture but

it is obnoxious because the thing likes

to rev out so much

when you're going over a mountain pass

at 50 60 miles an hour

you know it's it's going to be running 4

500 rpms

and uh while it shouldn't in theory hurt

anything it's obnoxious to listen to

i would say of the 1200 miles of this

journey

that um 30 of those 1200 miles were

probably in the 4

000 to 4 500 rpm range

and then uh another 40

of the 1200 miles were in the 3500 rpm

range

and then a little bit of it was probably

in the 2800 rpm range

but you get the idea hills and loads

definitely makes that engine work

there's plenty of power i mean the thing

will probably go 80 miles an hour if you

wanted it to

but you just have to listen to that

engine screaming of course if i had my

druthers

i would skip the diesel and go straight

to a hemi

i think the hemi would do a better job

in the gladiator doing everything that

we've just talked about

it would probably even get better fuel

mileage while towing

[Music]

uh fuel economy so what did we say

11 750 pounds mountain passes

headwinds you name it this 1200 mile

trip i would say that we averaged about

maybe nine miles to the gallon it's

probably closer to 8.8

no i didn't hand calculate it and no i

didn't

map out every fuel load and range and

all those good things because well it

just takes away from the whole

experience of being on vacation

but i will give you a rough estimation

of about 8.8 to 9 miles to the gallon

over 1200 miles in the pacific northwest

i'm sure there's something that i'm

forgetting to tell you guys that i

wanted to say

um if it comes up to me later i'll uh

maybe add my own comments to the comment

section

if you guys have any questions or

concerns about this rig

feel free to post them up and i'll

answer them as best as i can

i'm gonna post up some video of driving

the thing

and you know inside outside from the

dashboard

outside of the jeep climbing some

mountain passes cruising down the

freeway

so if you're really bored check it out

if not

i don't really care uh most of my videos

i don't care what anybody does with them

uh try and put out decent amount of

information but

just kind of do this stuff for fun

[Music]

so we're just at the beginning of white

pass out of uh coming out of packwood

and we haven't hit the steep part yet in

the old gladiator

i'm trying to hold this camera where you

can see the dashboard

and the outside the windshield at the

same time

so that's the first little hill not even

to pass yet

but so far the jeep is doing just fine

plenty of power the screaming engine

does get a little bit annoying every

once in a while but

there's nothing you can do about that

so far we've had no problems going the

speed limit

we're actually going a little bit above

the speed limit right now

there's actually another jeep behind us

that's gonna be probably excited to get

around us

the white pass going up the steep parts

is uh

two lanes same direction so that helps a

lot

so we're i don't know somewhere around

uh

100 miles into this deal maybe if that

and you can see our average miles per

gallon

that's if you can trust the computer

so i'm just trying to kind of let some

of these people buy now

all right 50 miles an hour in here

we're going 50.

this corner kind of sucks because it

takes all your momentum away

right where you need it most

if any of you are familiar with white

pass

heading eastbound you'll you'll know

this hill

i would guess i'm not even a half

throttle

so our old truck and trailer coming up

this hill

it's a six liter power stroke with a 13

000 pound trailer

you had to drive it for all it's worth

but you couldn't floor it

but you definitely wanted to keep your

momentum up

this combination is much more manageable

so i'm actually backing out of the

throttle again

so

much to my surprise i don't think

there's anybody behind us

and our fuel computer is down to 8.9

which in all things considered i don't

think that's too terribly bad so far

and if i do say so myself

i don't think this hill seems quite as

bad in this jeep and this trailer

compared to our old fifth wheel

but in all seriousness we're comparing

uh

about twenty one thousand pounds to what

i would guesstimate

at this time to be probably around

eleven thousand

if we get a chance on this trip to find

some scales we'll

try and get on there and see what our at

least see what our total weight is

down to 8.6

so we can make it to the top of the pass

and keep it

at eight or better i'd say that's pretty

good

and i'm guessing by the time we close to

the bottom it'll probably come back up

into the nines

we'll check that out here in a bit so we

made it over the top of white pass

could you see big cliffs

[Applause]

yeah i'm not sure how high we are right

now but that's way down there

that's way down there

so now we're gonna drive and coast down

the

coast down the what would be the east

side of white pass on highway 12.

this hitch is working absolutely

fantastic

isaac and i did run that hitch up to six

washers on the tilt

preloads this thing quite a bit more or

a lot level

tape measurements are nice and uh having

those bars pre-loaded a bit

more helps with the bounce and the rear

suspension with the tongue weight

hi dexter

try not to get squished

[Music]

show the effects of drafting and how it

affects

towing an rv and

some people don't like doing it some

people do like doing it

our jeep has adaptive cruise control on

it so we just turned that guy on

and let it pick its deal behind whatever

trucks in front of us but

the jeep does not get very good gas

mileage towing

it's shaped like a brick of course and

then we've got a huge wall behind us so

on this trip of 1200 miles we've had

like a high

of 10 miles to the gallon and a low of

eight miles to the gallon

and we've been kind of well call the

average right in between there

but if you can stay behind a truck like

this and you don't mind it

these roads are pretty clean so it's not

like we're getting sandblasted

you can gain a lot of range and a lot of

[Music]

miles per gallon back if you just cruise

you can only go so fast on a jeep

gladiator it

just doesn't have the aerodynamics

or uh the fuel efficiency to pull any

faster than about

60 to 65 there's a there's even a huge

difference from 60 to 65.

one of the questions that i get asked a

lot is why a jeep gladiator

and that is a good question so the big

thing

we've had a couple different uh diesels

um another gas f-150

um the realistic reason is why a jeep

gladiator

is uh well none of us wants to drive a

full-size truck around here as a daily

driver

i just don't need it um the last couple

full strides

the last couple full-size trucks that we

had honestly they just spent

uh most of their years sitting in the

backyard only being used as a tow truck

and that's fine for some people that

want to have that kind of money tied up

into a rig that's just sitting there but

we wanted something that would be a

little bit more uh you know

daily user but still be able to tow this

trailer around

on occasional trips

between this the ford ranger uh

chevy colorado and not even really the

tacoma because the tacoma doesn't have a

high enough tow rating

um i would say our second choice

probably would have been the ranger

i'm kind of regretting not trying the

ranger um

i like the concept of the ranger i like

the concept of the ecoboost and yes i

have driven them before

and the ecoboost drives much like a

diesel does

so if you don't like high revving stuff

and and whining engines that are

screaming all the time

that might have been a better option but

um overall we went with the gladiator

because i had a good tow rating

for what we were wanting to do with it

it uh

rides pretty good as a daily driver and

it does what we do

uh use it for

these vehicles are mainly used for my

wife's business

so me getting to drive it on occasion is

just

a perk of that operation

so to be all completely fair your towing

experience might well be a whole lot

better and a whole lot nicer with a

bigger truck with a more powerful engine

uh you know if i had to pick to have a

vehicle just laying around in the

backyard

it probably would be an ecoboost f-150

that being said

i would love to sample a gladiator with

a hammy in it

we could possibly entertain checking out

a gladiator with the three little

three liter uh eco diesel in it

um but i would prefer to kind of stay

away from diesels after

owning two or three of them in a row so

yeah we kind of just chose the

jeep gladiator as a fun all-around

vehicle

that could tow this trailer on occasion

but that's not its primary duty by any

means

it does do it extremely well and very

safely