Jeep Enthusiast Forums banner

Camping Trailers for Patriot?

9K views 9 replies 5 participants last post by  fortuneer 
#1 ·
Is anyone towing a camping trailer? We have a trail rated Patriot and I am looking at trailers for this summer.

I am sort of leaning towards the off-road trailers or towards an aluminum one

http://www.livinlite.com/VRV-overview.php

I see Jeep has an off road one as well:

http://www.mopar.com/accessories/camper_trailers.html

We don't have the hitch installed yet and am thinking of just having the dealer do it. Hubby can do it no sweat but he has a million things to do.

So, looking for experience on towing a trailer with the Patriot or threads. I searched first but didn't see any...
 
#2 ·
i've installed a hitch on a patriot before. the hitch took about 10 minutes, it was the wiring harness that took a little more time. it just runs up to the front of the car to the battery, and then plugs into the harness for the tailight bulbs. overall it took about an hour.

if it were me, i would be upset that my wife paid a dealer probably 2-3 hours of labor what i could have easily done myself, just sayin :D
 
#3 ·
Totally understanding that! But, if you were someone who had to do EVERYTHING because you COULD and you were constantly overwhelmed, Wife sometimes has to play stress manager and time manager to said husband or he gets vewwy, vewwy grouchy! LOL

Did you cut it out too? (again, something hubby could all do himself!)
 
#5 ·
I cant say much about the towing of a camper because we have a Tundra for that but I can say a little about the towing in general. I tow both a jetski and a 14 foot boat with mine. At different times of course. I am staying just under or just over the 1000 lbs limit without a cooler. The patriot tows them both fine. Now onto the hitch. I did mine in about 4 hours by myself in my driveway. Yes I cut the back out. I agree the hitch can be installed in 10 minutes but it is the rest off the stuff that takes the time. If you have the money and you're hubby doesn't have the time then pay to have it done. Anyway it want a bad job.
 

Attachments

#6 ·
whatever hitch my buddy got for his patriot did not have to have the bumper cut. and it also seemed like it was easer than the average patriot wiring harness, as i didn't have to drill into the car. only 1 wire ran to the front of the engine bay to the battery for power. that wire was fused and ran to the back of the car to a relay box. then it had a plug-n-play harness that plugged into the sockets for the rear tail light bulbs to turn the relay on and off and power the trailer.

if you get chrysler's OEM hitch on their website, it comes with a template that you print out to put onto your bumper so that you can cut it yourself.
 
#7 ·
only 2011 models need the bumper cover cut out. i ordered all my stuff from etrailer using a drawtite hitch. i think the smaller cut out is much cleaner looking than the big cut out the mopar template gives you. Also you can only get the 1 1/4 sq with the mopar hitch.
 
#9 ·
i kind of like the larger arc hole that the mopar hitch gives you. also, it looks like the factory hitch is up a little higher than the drawtite hitch. i wish it was a class III though. even though it can only tow 1k-2k lbs, things like baskets and other accessories are normally fit a class III hitch, so it would just allow more freedom to what we can put back there.

compass:



patriot:

 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top