Fred Fauth

Thanks so much for these replies! George - thanks for the encouragement! We definitely want to be safe and think it through - we are planning our trip for Fall of 2016. Chris - We are planning to buy the vehicle and trailer at roughly the same time - obviously vehicle first so we can haul the trailer when we buy it! We are currently thinking of buying it in the April to May 2016 time frame so that we can take the trailer on a few short trips before venturing on our cross-country adventure. We don't need the new vehicle just yet, but our minivan is approaching its last legs and as our kids are hitting the pre-teen years, we are hoping to have something bigger for all of us, even for regular around-town driving. So it sounds like we are on to a reasonably good plan from your advice... that is encouraging as we really like the NV a lot. Fred

Hello all, This is my first time here. And I am brand new to the concept of RV'ing, other than seeing friends do it. My wife and I have 5 kids (ages 10, 10, 10, 9, and 7) - 4 boys and 1 girl. We are considering RV'ing for the next few years to see the country. We are also in a place where we need to replace our 9 year old minivan with a new vehicle in the next year or so. Our first choice right now is the Nissan NV Passenger 3500 SL. With the 8700 lb. towing capacity, we are thinking that we can tow a pretty big RV that could sleep 7 people. I noticed that you can get an optional Class IV weight-distributing hitch with the SL 3500, and it seems like that is what we would need. Here is my questions: 1) Does the plan sound reasonable for our situation? 2) What is the maximum dry weight for an RV we should be looking at? Our plan would be to leave 7 seats in the NV passenger van and take out the rest. 3) I noticed that the NV has a tongue weight limit of 870 lbs. Some RVs distribute 12-14% of their weight onto the tongue, so for a 6,000 - 7,000 lb. RV, we could be exceeding the tongue weight. Is the 870 lb. tongue weight an absolute limit? Or is that increased by the weight-distributing class IV hitch? Would it be better to get a non-factory hitch? 4) We would like to take the RV cross-country, which definitely means some mountainous terrain along the way. What is everyone's experience towing that much weight up hills with a car full of 7 people? Will we be OK with this plan or are we not thinking about this the right way? Thanks so much for any advice you can offer. We like the looks of the NV reasonably well enough and its utility seems fantastic for our purposes. If you have experience towing a big RV, I'd love to hear your setup. Thanks, Fred