Best Vehicle to Buy to Pull a Small Bass Boat...

[Moose1am]

Was your transmission a manual or an automatic?

How many miles did you haul your boat with that truck before the transmission went out on the vehile?

I am curious to know the answers to these questions. I may be in the market for a new vehicle someday in the future and want to know more about your experience with your vehicle.



Regards,

Moose1am

[Stonewall2002]

It was an 1999 Automatic Ford Ranger. I loved the truck but it just didnt have the giddy-ap and go I needed. Pulled my boat twice. Once from the guy I bought it from in New Albany to my home in Valley Station, and once to Taylorsville lake and back. One morning I went out to go to work and the truck wouldnt go into second, just stayed in first. Traded it in as-is to the dralership for the Trailblazer, they even came to my house to tow it away. Other than tires and brakes the Trailblazer has been great.

Keep on chuckin'

[bassman409]

Please buy one from our "BIG 3", Chevy, Ford or Dodge. I have owned nothing but GMC and Dodge trucks and they are great. Not sure what the big deal is about foreign cars and trucks... Anyone can find ours at about the same price and quality. Try one, you will like it..........

[Topwater2004]

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Jun-15-06 AT 02:44PM (EST)[/font][p]Toyota's are made in Princeton, Indiana.

Making Tundra, Sequoia and Sienna vehicles.

All are nice vehicles to me, except for gas mileage they are top of the line.

I bought the Jeep because;

A. I was impressed with the technology behind the new V-8.
B. I was impressed with the state of the are auto-4WD system.
C. A very good friend is the sales manager, and I was able to afford it over the Sequoia and 4Runner Toyota's.

If I hadn't liked the Jeep, I probably would have gotten the 4Runner, but it only offered a V-6 at the time.

topwater.

[Slowretrieve]

I had a 2001 Jeep Cherokee, not the Grand, with an inline six and automatic. It pulled my '01 Tracker Pro185 okay, but it was sluggish in the hill country. I don't know what you should get, but that model may pull your boat okay. I got 24 MPG without the boat and about 18 MPG with it. My son has one, but his is a 2000. He said he gets 16 mph on the highway without anything in tow. Don't know what the difference might be. They appear to be rigged the same.
Now I pull with an '04 Ranger 4X4 with the 4.0 engine. It hardly knows the boat is back there and on a recent trip to Cherokee Lake in TN I averaged 19 mpg with the boat in tow. Maybe an Explorer would be a good deal. The Rangers I've had (five and counting) have all been reliable.

[raporter]

The quality of the big three has improved tremendously. Got a 2003 silverado Z71 that is the best vehicle I have ever owned, not one thing has gone wrong with it. Also have a Jimmy with 214000 miles and still in excellent shape.

[Moose1am]

OK thanks. I was thinking it was probably an automatic transmission. I have a manual transmission which I think has less to go wrong with, except when my wife and daughter tried to learn to drive a standard shift. LOL You could hear the gears grinding for miles away. :(.

We had a 1990 Dodge Grand Caravan that had an automatic transmission. It had the Dodge Towing Package which included an larger transmission and transmission cooler and oil cooler etc. The literature said all the stuff was beefed up to help haul stuff.

One our first long trip pulling a Williamsburg Coleman Popup Camper though the Smokey Mountain Area the engine would only allow us to go about 40 mph up the steep grades. I could floor the accelerator and the engine would not allow us to go any faster. We got back home and took the Caravan to the dealer and he said that this was a feature that protected the Transmission in case something went wrong with the transmission. It took us forever to get though the mountains of Eastern TN and to Pigeon Forge, TN. The dealer made some changes to the transmission after we took it in and that fixed the problem. The next trip to the mountains the Caravan shot right up the mountain grades pulling our camper. Not sure exactly what they did but it happened to a lot of those Caravan transmission. That vehicle is suspect is still running.

Regards,

Moose1am

[bassman409]

Thank you raporter,,,,, I thought I was the only one that still supports our BIG 3............ Of course they have improved their quality ever since the jap cars came out saying they were superior to any of ours...... They got a lot of press then but it didn't faze me, whenever I think of a truck I think Chevy or Ford, never toyota or nissan???????

[Celten]

Personally, I firmly believe that what makes this country great is the free market, competition, and so on. It forces companies to evolve or die and makes people try harder than they otherwise would. That said, my old employer shipped my job, and many others, to the Philippines to save money (resulting in a grossly inferior product, I might add...AND they were making me train those in the Philippines to take MY job, hence my referring to it as my "old employer"), so I do often have issues with non-US goods. Ultimately, though, I think some competition is a good thing.
Wouldn't give up my Bass Tracker for anything, though. (I have to admit, however, that a lot of my reels are Japanese. Never really thought about that until now.)

[bassman409]

It is impossible to just buy American made goods anymore. I think every vehicle has some part made from somewhere else. My big thing is even though some vehicles are made here, Toyota, you are still supporting corporate Japan with a purchase, I would rather support corporate America...It was good to get competition, I think it made our Big 3 a whole lot better. I personally never even think of looking at a toyota, nissan or any other foreign named vehicle when I look for new cars and trucks.. And my job of 22 years went to Mexico in 1998, RCA, now known as Thomson... I'm done...........

[Celten]

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Jun-23-06 AT 09:19AM (EST)[/font][p]I do agree with your point about it being better to support corporate America instead of corporate Japan (in spite of my Sufrequently despising corporate America...though that probably applies to corporate Anywhere). And my condolences about your job. It's rough.

[Chris_Carlyle]

Ford F150, nuff said.