towing with a Sedona

Greetings,

Camping Life lists the tow rating for the 2005 Kia Sedona at 3500lbs so at first glance you should be OK.

However, there are a few caveats...

1. You should have trailer brakes.
2. Is 2704lbs the listed "dry" weight of your camper or is it the weight you got when you took it fully loaded to a public scale? Remember, "dry weight" doesn't include a lot of the options that a camper may have (like a full tank or two of propane, the AC unit on the roof, any water you may have in the tank, and all of your other gear). There can be a large difference between the dry weight and the actual weight and the only way to know for sure is to weigh it.
3. The 3500lbs rating for the Sedona is typically only for a vehicle with a driver, one passenger and a full tank of fuel. Any additional weight you add in the van will reduce the amount you can tow.
4. Especially since your van is front wheel drive, then I strongly recommend an aftermarket transmission cooler. FWD is not the greatest for towing and it's easy to do some serious damage to your tranny (read: Expensive!) without too much effort.
5. Check the load range rating on your van's tires. Softer passenger car rated tires (softer for a smoother ride) will not be as good for towing as a light truck rated tire (firmer for more capacity).

Cheers - Jonathan

On Sun, 09 Apr 2006 10:25:32 +0000, Jonathan took a five-minute break from flipping burgers to boot the etch-a-sketch and scribble out:

Yeah, that is all good advice.

I've got a hitch on mine and it works fine for my 2K lbs. tent-trailer, even without hooking up the electric brakes.

I wouldn't go much further out, since the car is front-wheel-drive and that would get really unwieldy at higher weights.

Jonathan,

Thank you for your very informative reply to my posting. The weight stated for the trailer was the dry weight. I totally forgot about the weight of the propane tanks. The trailer has 10 inch electric brakes so I will be getting an electronic braking system along with the hitch set up. The only extras we planed to take were our bikes, golf clubs and summer clothing.

The addition of the transmission cooler is something I will be looking into.

Thanks again, B