Tahoe towing

Guitar Man

Member
Joined
Jan 21, 2025
Messages
15
Location
Matawan NJ
Hi all. I'm new in this forum and I'm glad to be a part of this community. My question, if anyone can answer it, is that my wife and are thinking about purchasing a 2025 Grand Design Imagine XLS 22MLE. According to the dry weight (UVW) on the unit it states that it is at about 5423 pounds and the GVWR is 6,995 pounds. I expect to tow with a 2022 Chevy Tahoe which can tow 8200 pounds with the towing package and engine presently on the vehicle. Will I be able to tow the unit comfortably with the Tahoe? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
 
The short answer is yes, assuming you have the proper hitch receiver on your vehicle, you can tow this model TT.

The longer answer revolves around what is comfortable. It’s a relative term and is debatable by members in the RV community. What shouldn’t be debatable is that the term “comfort” needs to be coupled with safety. Only you can answer that. I towed our MLE for several years with a 2018 1500 Silverado with a 5.3 liter engine. No special tow package so your Tahoe should do the same. A good WDH that you take the time to set up will help.

That stated, I opted for a 2500HD to pull our little TT. Parked in-between with all these 5ers and Class A folks, I at least wanted a nice size TV.

Good luck and enjoy a nice little unit. It really does a lot of things well.
 
The short answer is yes, assuming you have the proper hitch receiver on your vehicle, you can tow this model TT.

The longer answer revolves around what is comfortable. It’s a relative term and is debatable by members in the RV community. What shouldn’t be debatable is that the term “comfort” needs to be coupled with safety. Only you can answer that. I towed our MLE for several years with a 2018 1500 Silverado with a 5.3 liter engine. No special tow package so your Tahoe should do the same. A good WDH that you take the time to set up will help.

That stated, I opted for a 2500HD to pull our little TT. Parked in-between with all these 5ers and Class A folks, I at least wanted a nice size TV.

Good luck and enjoy a nice little unit. It really does a lot of things well.
Thank you Capt. Bob for the reply. I appreciate your thoughts. Have a great day !
 
I think the big question is what is the remaining cargo carrying capacity on the Tahoe after loading passengers and cargo.

Load up people and cargo that you expect to travel with, and head to a scale…..CAT scale, local quarry, grain elevator, etc….And weigh the Tahoe. If you have 900 lbs difference left between the Tahoe weight and the GVWR listed on the drivers side door area, you should be good to go.

The reason I use 900 lbs. is that is the tongue weight on my 22 MLE ready to camp. It was listed as 704 lbs from the factory floor, and it was 760 lbs coming back from the dealer with full propane tanks and 2 series 24 batteries on the tongue. The 900 lbs include about 1/4 tank of water.

A high quality, fine tuned WDH with integrated sway control would be needed also.
 
We tow our 2600RB with a 2022 Duramax Tahoe using a 12,000 pound Equalizer and it's solid. There is a little twitch occasionally, but I have been in Midwest crosswinds and had an abrupt hard brake (make sure you tune the trailer brakes properly) at highway speed during an atmospheric river to let a pickup slide by on its roof as it shot from the fast lane to the slow lane shoulder, and never any more than that little twitch. And two blowouts at 70 MPH 100 miles apart in South Dakota were a big nothing. 11-12 MPG

Now GM reliability... Can't recommend. Gassers have lifter issues and diesels have oil leaks/consumption issues and the 10 speed with the diesel in particular has a really bad valve body fault they just launched a recall on. If you are buying a used one that new, chances are it has a fault of some sort. Ours had some misrouted harness issues and the dash gave me a grocery list of faults, but amazingly didn't kill us or leave us stranded. Ours got denied lemon law status, even though it was out of service for more than 30 days in 30 months. To be honest, I think we're past the worst of it, but glad we got the extended GM warranty.

We have the RST and i figured for sure I'd be getting smaller wheels, but I like the 22 inchers just fine. Handles stupid well without the trailer. Unfortunately, if you don't get the air suspension, the camber under load is criminal. The idiots didn't design the IRS on a tow vehicle to stay in camber. You add 0.1 degrees of negative camber per 100 pounds of weight on the rear axle, and it starts at -0.5. I got to 30k before a dealer performing a tire rotation noticed belts showing on the inside edge. And I told every dealer I went to we were towing a TT cross country... I had my alignment shop set it up as close to neutral as possible and probably need to flip them on the rims every 15k. There is one aftermarket solution and that is King air shocks, because air bags won't work on IRS. But brakes show more than 80% remaining at 35k with a good 20k towing across the northern part of the country and up and down the west coast.
 
Hi all. I'm new in this forum and I'm glad to be a part of this community. My question, if anyone can answer it, is that my wife and are thinking about purchasing a 2025 Grand Design Imagine XLS 22MLE. According to the dry weight (UVW) on the unit it states that it is at about 5423 pounds and the GVWR is 6,995 pounds. I expect to tow with a 2022 Chevy Tahoe which can tow 8200 pounds with the towing package and engine presently on the vehicle. Will I be able to tow the unit comfortably with the Tahoe? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
We had a 2017 Tahoe and 2022 GD Imagine 22MLE. Loaded our 22MLE weighed 6000-pounds. Also used an Equalizer 10K weight distribution hitch. The 2017 Tahoe(5.3-liter V8) was rated for 8600-pounds tow capacity. We never had a problem with safety or comfort. Only issue ever was towing up Mesa Verde in Colorado in September. The Tahoe transmission got hot so stopped on roadside for about 15-minutes for transmission to cool a little. We never felt uncomfortable or unsafe towing the 22MLE with the Tahoe. We now tow the 22MLE with a 2023 GMC Sierra 5.3-L V8. Primary reason for getting the GMC was all the safety features and cameras, not because the Tahoe was not a good tow vehicle.
 
Hi all. I'm new in this forum and I'm glad to be a part of this community. My question, if anyone can answer it, is that my wife and are thinking about purchasing a 2025 Grand Design Imagine XLS 22MLE. According to the dry weight (UVW) on the unit it states that it is at about 5423 pounds and the GVWR is 6,995 pounds. I expect to tow with a 2022 Chevy Tahoe which can tow 8200 pounds with the towing package and engine presently on the vehicle. Will I be able to tow the unit comfortably with the Tahoe? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
What is the GVWR on the Tahoe door frame? Sales will say X can tow X total weight, but that does not mean it will be safe.
 

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