Well my Dakota is set up just like your Durango except I changed out the
suspension to Hotchkis, which for sure didn't help the towing capacity. A
few months ago I towed a VW Squareback from San Jose to L.A., which includes
a clime from San Jose to the 5fwy and the nasty grapevine mountain range to
get over. The 4.7L with 3.55 gears and no tow package did just fine for me.
The trailer (U-haul) claimed to weight 2100lbs and the VW is about the same
so I'd guess I was pushing 4300lbs. I used an aftermarket bolt on hitch
from Hitchcrafters here in SoCal. I agree w/ Sam on the 3.91 gears, they'd
be nice in the hills, but they'd slow me down too much with OD off on the
flats. Going up and over the mountains I saw no increased temp in the
engine. The grapevine slowed me down quite a bit, but I was very light
footed not knowing how it would react. If I were planning on towing
regularly I'd get an auxiliary tranny cooler like you said.
If your towing in flat land you will have NO problem. If your trying to
haul over mountains, you might just have to slow down. Just remember all
that gas your saving when your trudging slowly up a steep clime. I got
15mpg on the way from San Jose towing, and normally get 18mpg.
Good luck getting the dealer to "give" you anything but a hard time at this
point.
Oh yeah, no matter what Dodge you tow with, watch those brake rotors.
Jay W
>Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 08:14:38 -0500
>From: Rodney Lewis <rlewis@nicorenergy.com>
>Subject: DML: Towing...Should I smack my salesman?
>
>Well, I finally sorta joined the family yesterday...signed the next 5 years
>of my life away for a 2001 Durango SLT. It's got the 4.7 and 3.55
>gears...this dealer doesn't buy *any* with the 3.92's. They also heavily
>package them so that if you want a 5.9, then you have to pay through the
>nose since it's packaged with the leather interior, et al. Here's the
issue:
>This vehicle was selected as a replacement for my full-size conversion van
>which gets some towing use with a car trailer and my Jeep CJ-7. I'll
>eventually be buying a car trailer instead of renting to haul the Jeep CJ-8
>Scrambler trail beast that I'm building. This Durango didn't have the tow
>package (the higher buck ones did) and in the process of price haggling I
>got the hitch thrown in, but the salesman insists that I don't need the
>tranny cooler (says to just switch off the OD) which I think is a load of
>bunk (I'll install one myself or have it done elsewhere since *I'll* be the
>one paying for a dead trans). He also quoted me the towing capacity which
>turned out to be (as I found out later while reading the owner's manual)
for
>the 3.92 gears, not the 3.55's and said that that was with a 600lb. payload
>(again, wrong according to the manual which allows for only the weight of
>the driver). For those of you that tow, have you found these capacities to
>be hard & fast rules, or is there a fair 'fudge factor' involved? I'm not
>sure what a typical 16' steel tandem axle car hauler weighs, and my guess
>would be that my Scrambler will tip the scales at close to 4500 which by
>itself is over the tow rating...add to that another 160 for my wife & son,
>another 200 or so for tools & such and I think I may be in for some trans
>problems down the road. I'll definitely be expressing my displeasure to the
>salesman since the first words out of my mouth were "It's got to have the
>tow package and AC and I'll be towing very close to the upper limits of the
>Durango's tow rating...probably need a 5.9 but I don't think the 4.7 is too
>far off when properly equipped" and now I have a vehicle that isn't even
>rated high enough to flat tow my Scrambler (no way I'd even consider doing
>that). What are your opinions (feel free to b*tch slap me for believing a
>salesman)? Make him throw in a tranny cooler? Make him pay for a gear swap?
>Make him swap me out for a 5.9 (about a $3-4k price difference due to
>packaging) model?
>
>- -Rodney
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