Hi From Nova Scotia - towing question

[CalebS]

Hi Everyone,

My name is Caleb and I'm from Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Up until last week my daily driver was a 2002 Nissan Xterra, which I absolutely loved. Unfortunately we wrote it off after hitting an ice patch on one of the local 100 series highways.

While I was trying to find another Xterra (which I couldn't seem to find one I really liked as much) I stumbled across an ad for a 2007 Jeep Patriot at a used car dealer about 400km away. We made the trip one afternoon to see it and arrived just before dark. It was a nice vehicle, drove very well, and had an appealing look to me, so we decided to buy it. In the last few days I've put just over 1000km on it without any surprises.

Now, here's my dilemma. I have no idea whether it is a sport or limited, fd1 or fd2, or whether or not it has the towing package or not.

I didn't find out until after I got it home that it would only have a towing capacity of 1000lbs without the towing package, and 2000lbs with. This concerns me as I have to haul a number of loads of firewood (4'wide x 8' long, 2'high) from my wood lot to our home (about 15kms away) aswell as my daughter-in-law's home (about 100km away). The trailer is very light weight, but I'm concerned that the weight of the dry firewood may be ore than this vehicle can handle.

Has anyone hauled anything similar with or without the towing package?

Many thanks,
Caleb S.

[BondiBlue]

Welcome to the forum! I don't tow, so I can't help ya there.

[renospatriot]

Do you have the 2.0 or the 2.4 liter motor? On the 2.4 the only difference between towing 1,000 and 2,000 pounds is a oil cooler kit which costs about 150.00 and a few hours to install.

[Terasec]

Welcome,
To determine if its fdI or FDII,
FDII comes with tow hooks, trail rated badge on drivers fender, and should say off road next to L on the shifter.
If you have FDII, tow limit is 2000 lbs, if you have FDI, tow limit is 1000 lbs.
To increase tow limit on FDI, you can add oil cooler and higher amp alternator.
Can be done yourself,

[CalebS]

2.4L. Must be an FD1 than. no tow hooks, no trail rated badge, no oil cooler, and does not say off road nest to the low gear and when I hit the 4wd lock it ways 4wd and not off road. Should I assume it's a sport model than?

Does have hitch, wiring, skid plates. So all I need to do is add an oil cooler and I should be good to go for 2000lbs towing capacity?

Anybody have any issues towing that much?

[renospatriot]

that's it. Do you have a two inch receiver or the factory 1 1/4?