4-cyl towing thoughts?

You are right, I too missed the current A -Frame. I can't get scientific about it, only anecdotal. We travel often with friends who have an older (and really big!) Coleman pop-up that is 2300 lbs empty. They are towing with a smaller Nissan suv (not sure of model but not dissimilar to your Outback). They have no trouble towing it when we travel together, largely (my friend thinks) because there's very little, if any, wind resistance with the low-profile of the pop-up. I can't imagine his vehicle towing a high-profile trailer, though - there is a tremendous amount of drag with the bulk of the trailer. Before this one, we had an old-style squarish trailer - about the same weight as the 179 (maybe 100# more) and there's some difference with the rpod shape but not much. It's still a bit tall heavy box, albeit a slightly rounded one.

Originally posted by TrailerTrish Ben: My original post is getting lost in all the answers. We HAVE an A-frame (FR Flagstaff T12RB). It weighs 2000# and has two beds (the dinette is deployed full time as a bed). All I’m looking for is something the same weight - R-Pod or similar - for the bathroom. And I don’t want a pop up anymore. I want something that I can easily access if I need to duck in and grab something while we’re on the road. You have no idea what hassle it is with an A-frame to have to pop it up just to go in and get something out of the fridge. We tow the A-Frame just fine with the Outback.  It has not been a struggle towing it up and over the Rockies and the Sierras.  We have been up through Banff and Glacier, out to the Badlands, through Denver and Salt Lake City, over the Sierras a few times, all over Nevada and up through Great Basin NP (We skipped the 10,000 foot campground this time and stayed midway up, not because of the trailer, but because of my AFib-breathing problems.) We do not have a problem towing it.  I wheeze; it doesn’t.  The smaller, older R pods fit the bill. 2000#, the same bed + dinette that we have now, and a mini bathroom. Your 179 is 800 pounds heavier, so it’s really apples and oranges. Our 2000# works just fine for our car, and my original question was just about the wind-loading issue of pulling a shorter popup profile vs moving up to a full height, all other things being equal. Trish

I think that you're asking for more from the Subaru than is feasible. If you want to camp, then it seems to me that you have two options - tent or lightweight pop-up tent trailer (some of them are really nice!). A-Frame won't cut it if you need two beds. R-Pods are too heavy for small suvs. We tow our 179 with a Honda Ridgeline V6 and its not really enough tow capacity. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwFLOBrADBs

I appreciate everybody’s ideas about getting a different TV, but it just ain’t gonna happen. My husband had a perfectly fine six-cylinder Ranger - it was a nice, not uncomfortable, practical country vehicle And it served us well when we lived in the boonies and had a house with all of the projects that that entails. It was fine as trucks go, but it just wasn’t comfortable for road trips. I considered pairing it with a small camper on top or a Scamp fifth wheel, but neither of us wanted anything that spartan for doing any serious driving. For some people, it would’ve been fine, but we wanted real comfort combined with decent gas mileage. We had left the country and moved into a suburban condo and no longer had house projects.The Outback was a great compromise between utility and comfort. We decided to splurge, and we got the first and last car we will ever own with every conceivable option package: leather, remote keyless entry, navigation system, Eye-Sight. Etc. It was a $40,000 car, and we tend to be $20-25,000 car owners. It was a huge splurge, we love it, we’re still making payments on it, and there’s no way we would consider leaving that at home and taking something else on the road. Just ain’t gonna happen. You have to understand, too, that it’s me who wants to do this upgrade, not my husband. He’s happy with the A-frame.   He understands my issues, but I think he’d rather quit doing it all together. The whole camping thing was all my idea in the first place. He wanted to stay in Holiday Inns when we travel. I finally successfully argued the case that every Holiday inn looks like every other one, so when you wake up in the morning you have no idea what state you’re even in. He enjoys the camping, but he’s never dreamed of an RV. I’ve wanted one on my life. I get giddy around RV lots and shows. He turns his nose up.

So if not an R pod or etc, then I am also looking at A-frame mods – there are a lot of ideas on YouTube and Pinterest.

Thanks for all the ideas, but getting a different TV is just not one that’s going to fly.