The Grand Cherokee and the Baseplate

We needed a vehicle that you could tow with all four wheels down. Good Sam Club and Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA) both publish annual towing guides of vehicles that meet the criteria necessary to tow a vehicle without a dolly. Jeep Wranglers are very popular, as are a lot of pickup trucks. We opted for the Jeep Grand Cherokee. It’s a little more forgiving than a Wrangler for everyday driving, at least for us older folks!

So, once we had our Jeep, Harold set about getting it ready to tow. First, he had to install a baseplate. The baseplate is what connects to the tow bar on the coach. It turned out to be an all-day process.

·       Carefully remove the front bumper to keep from damaging the paint. Hmm, the instruction manual did not address disconnecting the parking sensors. 

That pesky connection

·       Remove the tow hooks.

·       Cut off some of the tow hook mounting nuts using an oscillating multi-tool with the proper metal cutting blade inserted.  This step was quite noisy.

·       Slightly modify the baseplate as the holes did not completely line up with the nuts in the frame of our Jeep.  Harold used a rat tail file and some elbow grease to get this task done. I thought he would unpack his adjectives as he ended up test fitting the baseplate four times before the bolts would go in.

Baseplate ready

·       Enlarge the holes in the plastic bumper where the tow hooks went through as the baseplate is larger.

·       Carefully install the bumper making sure to connect the parking sensors.

It’s a little unnerving to see your brand new vehicle without the grill and hood up. It’s even more so when you hear grinding. Please, please, please let that measurement be right…

It's fine...it's fine

In the end, all went well and we are one step closer to getting on the road.