4-cyl towing thoughts?

They probably put a class III [2"] receiver on your car.  I did this with my Forester but not with towing in mind; it was for a bike rack.  The hitch as all the capacity you need, it's what it's connected to that complicates the situation.  Bottom line, your Outback doesn't really have the towing capacity to safely manage an R-Pod.

Given my experience, no, the sloped front does not help enough. There is also the air that flows off the top of the tow vehicle and then piles up against the front of the trailer. That is where the air deflector helps. However, it would not be sufficient. Limiting tow speed helps. We just completed a trip of almost 6500 miles, most of which was at 60 mph or lower with rare excursions above that (mostly on downhill runs). Even so, we probably got about 11-12 mpg with our Frontier. When we hit strong headwinds, the mileage was more like 10-11 mpg, especially when combined with uphill climbs.

Where is Bernouilli when you need him? Maybe if I put a wing on top of the Outback I can get some lift off of it to compensate for the drag. Hah!

Ouch! 10-11 mpg. That’s sort of negates the point of a small trailer to me. I was interested in a Born Free Built For Two, but they are built on a Ford F350 chassis and I just found out that they only get about 10 to 11. Ugh. As it is, towing our A-frame drops our mpg from 30+ for the Outback on the freeway (not towing) to about 17. That’s about as low as I think I can stand to go.

I fell in love with the Scamps in the mid-‘70s. They were pitching them to the drivers of small compact cars. I’m a 4-cylinder subcompact girl, so that always appealed to me. Our daily driver is a little Honda Fit and the Outback is mostly for road trips.

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.

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