A Jeep Wrangler owner is well-endowed with tons of features that set this vehicle apart from the rest of the SUVs available in the market. Be it an off-road drive into the wilderness with your four wheel drive mode, or a casual stroll just outside the city on your two-door Wrangler, this vehicle is ready to serve you on all fronts.
With a supreme degree of towing capability due to its double engines that are initially made for pulling through in off road or helping a friend out by moving their vehicle. Due to its diverse operations, a question has lately been constantly asked by boat owners: can a Jeep Wrangler tow a boat?
The short answer to this question is, YES! Your Wrangler can most certainly tow a boat, but a lot of variable factors are present in this discussion. Two among them decide the majority of the convenience: one is, which model of Wrangler you are using, and the other is the weight of your boat.
This article precisely tells you everything you need to learn about the towing capacity of the prominent Wrangler models so that you can know about your abilities beforehand and proceed smoothly!
Contents
How Does A Wrangler Tow Work?
The older models of Wranglers could tow anything effortlessly, and the modern trim levels enhance these abilities even further with some of their advanced features. Some of these features are described here so that you can better understand how towing works for a Wrangler.
For starters, almost all of the Wrangler trim levels come with sturdy front and rear heavy-duty tow hooks. However, if you want to preserve your powers and tow more efficiently, you can add Trailer Tow and Heavy-Duty Electrical Group to your Wrangler which have some of the most unique features like advanced hitch, harness, powerful alternators and extensive winch control.
Even if your Wrangler doesn’t have an aftermarket kit, you can easily tow your boat with it the old school way. All you need is a Wrangler that is attached to your boat on a trailer with a tow hook and a strong connector between you two. Then put your Wrangler into lower gears or 4WD mode and tow away!
Towing Capacity: Can A Jeep Wrangler Tow A Boat?
We’ve already answered this question briefly, that yes, a Jeep Wrangler can tow a boat. Here we’ll discuss how much the prominent Wrangler models and trim levels can tow without any enhancements so that you can decide upon your endeavor. With this knowledge in mind, you’ll have to measure your boat’s weight and assess it according to the capacity.
Broadly speaking, if you own a Jeep Wrangler or a Wrangler unlimited, then your towing capacity should be around 3,500 pounds, only exception would be the Wrangler 2014-2015 models that are limited to 2,000 pounds.
The rule of thumb is, most Wrangler models with four doors released after 2012 can in general tow up to 3,500 pounds including all the available trim levels. On the other hand, the two door Wranglers can generally tow up to 2,000 pounds with some of the trim levels allowing them to go a bit further than that.
So what you need now is to learn about how much your boat weighs so that you can effortlessly carry out the operation. In the following section we’ve provided information on common boat weights to ease your life in this regard.
Weight Levels Of Popular Boats
For your ease of understanding, we’ve categorized some of the commonly-owned boats into three basic categories so that you can comprehend how much effort your Wrangler is going to have to put in order to tow them convincingly.
Lightweight
In this category, we’ll include boats that weigh below 2,000 pounds, thus causing your Wrangler to stress very little and both two door & four door Wranglers can perform such operations.
Aluminum Fishing Boats
These boats are very lightweight and they weigh around 300 to 500 pounds, making your tow as effortless as it could be.
Skiff Boats
Skiff boats are also very light as their measure is around 300 to 900 pounds.
Sailboats
These boats are measured between 15 to 20 feet and weigh approximately 400 to 800 pounds, categorizing them under this section.
Fiberglass Fishing Boats
Fiberglass boats have a wide range of options to choose from between 1,500 to 2,500 pounds, so make sure to check if they exceed 2,000 pounds because then it would be difficult for certain Wrangler models to tow them.
Medium Weight
Medium weight boats are the ones that weigh between 2,500 to 5,000 pounds. While most of these boats can be towed with Wrangler Unlimited or four door Wranglers, you have to still ensure whether the boats exceed 3,000 pounds for your successful operation.
Bow Rider, Cuddy Cabin, Deck boats, Pontoon boats and Wake boats – all of these medium sized boats weigh around 3,000 to 5,000 pounds which has them categorized under this section. The heavier variants of these boats would demand additional power to drag them along effortlessly.
Heavyweight
Boats given below are two of the most common heavyweight boats that consumers own and these cannot be towed by a Wrangler’s stock pulling capacity. You’ll have to install additional support tools to successfully tow them around.
Sailboats:
These are sized between 20 to 30 feet and their weight category is around 4,000 to 8,000 pounds. So you can understand why your Wrangler should come short while towing them.
Cabin Cruiser:
Cabin cruisers are some of the heaviest boats you can own as you’ve guessed by their significantly large size and they weigh between 12,000 to 16,000 pounds, making them impossible to tow without aftermarket boosting mechanisms.
Thoughts
From our article, we hope you’ve learned a great deal about your Wrangler’s towing capacities as well as the answer to this question: can a Jeep Wrangler tow a boat? While the answer remains yes, from the boat weight classifications you’ll find that it cannot tow all the boats effortlessly due to the maximum limit in towing weight.
It’s not the end of the world though, as you can easily electric tow boosting features and strong trailer hooks that’ll significantly boost your Wrangler’s capability and allow it to tow heavier boats. We wish you all the best with your towing journey and hopefully you’ll make towing work with your existing Wrangler after going through our article.