It’s time to pimp your tow-ride! Modifying your tow vehicle is an incredibly important piece of the puzzle if you are choosing to live full-time on the road. I’d like to start off this post with a disclaimer… ALWAYS check your manufacturers tow capacity ratings and parameters. If you go outside of what the manufacturer recommends you are playing with fire. Additionally, your truck/tow vehicle may have some cool gadgets built-in. For instance, our truck has exhaust brakes, ability to disable to the rear sensors, electric towing brakes, and a whole slew of sensors/monitors.
Below are a few tips and gadgets we’ve incorporated to make our towing life a much more pleasant experience.
- Air Lift Air Bags– we installed these to help balance out our truck when under tow. When I first bought the setup I thought I would have to stand outside looking at the truck and trailer and manually adjust the air bags to level out the unit. To my pleasant surprise the system automatically adjusts things and keeps everything level, even while driving! The compressor does make some funny noises when you first hook up.
- TPMS– also known as a Tire Pressure Monitoring System. This is a MUST have gadget. We blew out a tire coming over the pass between Mt Shasta, CA and Ashland, OR. Having the TPMS saved us big time! Having a 40’ trailer means that the rigs tires are roughly 30’ back from the driver’s seat. Additionally you don’t feel a blown tire the same way you would on your vehicle. The TPMS alerted us immediately and we pulled over. One of the other perks is that the system tells you sudden fluctuations in heat/cool. This is great info when monitoring your breaking system.
- Back Up Camera– we’ve recently installed a camera to the back of our rig. Super easy installation as it connects to the wiring in your back up lights. The system connects wirelessly. Now when backing up my wife no longer needs to be in 2 places at once. I can see everything in the back and she just monitors my blind side.
- Cell Phone Booster– much of the US is far from the likes of a cell phone tower. This was the first gadget we bought prior to kicking out. We run our GPS off our cell phone as well as Pandora and Yelp. Needing directions and being cut off from a connection is not a fun experience.
- Noise Cancelling Headphones– I still have a full-time job that requires a lot of phone calls. Imagine traveling with 2 kids and 2 dogs… there’s the potential for a lot of noise. TheBoom noise cancelling headset is a game changer! They develop headsets for jet pilots. The technology is pretty awesome (their customer service sucks though).
- CoPilot app– my wife is an amazing co-pilot. She manages everything our family needs when under tow. The one thing she isn’t the greatest at is reading a map. Growing up in Hawaii… you either go towards the mountain or the ocean. Neither of these geographic sites helps in the middle of the US. CoPilot is a bit spendy (for an app) but totally worth the money! You can put in your custom parameters (height of rig, width, length, weight, etc) and it will plot routes that are safest for you. After taking one wrong turn (prior to having this app) put us on the Oakland bridge… ultimately putting us in downtown San Francisco on Super Bowl Sunday (when the Super Bowl was in San Fran). Let’s just say it was an enlightening experience. Learn from my mistakes and Get the app!
I hope these gadgets and tips help you. We didn’t get all of them at one time… over the past 12 months we’ve gradually added them to our repertoire. If you have any questions… comment below and I’d be happy to respond/support.
