Car Trailer vs. Tow Dolly: What’s the Difference?

Car trailers and tow dollies are popular alternatives to transporting your vehicle with a car shipping company. A tow dolly is a two-wheeled towing device that lifts your front tires off the ground. A car trailer (sometimes called a flatbed trailer) carries your entire vehicle during transport. Tow dollies cost about half as much as car trailers but add more wear and tear to your automobile—and are harder to drive.

1. Cost
2. Convenience
3. Risk of damage
4. Wear and tear

Car trailers and tow dollies are tools for towing one of your vehicles behind the other (or behind your moving truck). Think of them like two childhood games: piggyback rides and the human wheelbarrow.

Car trailers are like piggyback rides. You load your entire car into the trailer and piggyback it all the way to your new location. It’s hard on the vehicle doing the towing but relatively pain-free for the car you’re hauling.

Car dollies are like the human wheelbarrow. You load the two front wheels onto a mini-trailer called a dolly while the other two wheels stay on the ground. It’s not quite as hard on the towing vehicle, but both automobiles rack up wear and tear on the trip.

Car trailers are often heftier than dollies. This is important because your towing vehicle has to be heavier than the combined weight of the towed vehicle AND the auto transport trailer or dolly.

We’ll get into other differences below, but you get the idea. A car trailer carries your entire vehicle from one location to another, while a dolly lifts two wheels and leaves two on the ground.

When it comes to both car trailers and tow dollies, there’s no such thing as one-size-fits-all. To find the right fit, you need to know several things about your vehicle, including the following:

• The year, make, and model
• The curb weight
• The clearance between the bumper and the ground of the vehicle you’re towing
• The hitch rating (which indicates how heavy your load can be)
• The drive system (e.g., front-wheel drive, four-wheel drive)

If you aren’t a car person, the process can feel intimidating.

The good news is that most rental companies can help you identify which towing option works best for your situation. Even better, you can get most of the information via a simple Google search. So don’t let the terminology stress you out.

It’s actually pretty easy once you get started.

Actual numbers can be tricky to pin down because of how many variables are at play—both with your vehicles and the towing equipment. But in general, a car trailer is about twice as expensive as a tow dolly.

To illustrate, we asked U-Haul—a popular moving company well-known for consistent pricing—to tell us how much it would cost to rent its car trailers and tow dollies.

Our findings? On average, a car trailer costs approximately $350 per day, while a tow dolly sets you back about $180 per day.

No matter the distance, car trailers typically cost more than tow dollies.

Winner: Tow dolly

Both options come with a bit of a learning curve, but car trailers are easier to handle than tow dollies. In making this determination, we looked at both how difficult it is to connect the trailer or dolly to your tow vehicle—and how easy it is to drive.

We should also point out that you’ll probably need to do this part yourself. Many companies (U-Haul included) won’t help you load your vehicles onto a car trailer or tow dolly for liability reasons. So it’s important to get a sense of how difficult they are to use.

It’s easier to get your car onto a trailer than to hook it up to a tow dolly, pure and simple. For example, U-Haul lists a minimum of 23 steps and reminders to load your car dolly, but only 19 for loading your auto transport trailer.

We say a minimum because a dolly can require quite a bit of trial and error after the initial loading process to ensure it will drive properly. U-Haul also recommends checking your tire straps at every stop—not counting specific checks at 5 and 50 miles.

In the end, it’s simply easier to get four wheels onto a trailer than it is to attach only two to a dolly.

Car trailers are easier to haul than tow dollies. While it takes practice to pull anything behind your vehicle, trailers have two features that make towing easier:

• You can reverse with a trailer, but not with a tow dolly.
• Trailers have brakes, but dollies don’t.

When it comes to both loading/unloading and driving, car trailers are noticeably easier to maneuver than tow dollies.

Winner: Car trailer

From a safety perspective, a tow dolly has a higher potential for problems because there aren’t any brakes (and it can’t go in reverse).

Winner: Car trailer

You’re actually transporting two vehicles plus a trailer or dolly. The trip will be hard on the towing vehicle—and in some cases, it’s also tough on the towed vehicle.

Car trailers are better from a wear-and-tear perspective because the towed vehicle never makes contact with the ground. As a result, your odometer stays dormant, your tires don’t lose any tread, and your drivetrain is unaffected.

However, because trailers weigh more than dollies, they can get close to or even exceed your vehicle’s towing capacity, which adds extra strain.

Depending on the towing equipment you rent, your towing vehicle typically needs to be at least 750 pounds heavier than the combined weight of the car you’re towing and the trailer or dolly.

Don’t stress too much about the weight, though. The company you rent your towing equipment from will usually tell you if you don’t qualify for a trailer.

Winner: Car trailer

When it comes to distance traveled, some methods of transportation are better than others. You wouldn’t take a plane to get across a tiny lake, but you also wouldn’t swim the Atlantic to get from New York to London.

The same logic applies to car trailers and tow dollies.

A tow dolly is ideal for short distances or within the same state because it’s more affordable, and there’s less wear and tear than on a long-distance trip.

Conversely, car trailers are preferable for long distances because they minimize wear and tear on both vehicles.

For example, if you used a tow dolly to travel from Rochester, NY, to Los Angeles, CA, you’d have thousands of extra miles on just the rear tires. That can be inconvenient down the road if you end up making two different appointments to change your tires. It can even cost money if you decide the hassle isn’t worth it and replace all four tires (even though two of them still have a couple thousand miles of tread left).

Both options have their advantages, but neither is a one-size-fits-all solution.

Winner: Tie

Your choice really comes down to cost, convenience, and distance. A tow dolly is the way to go for low costs, small vehicles, and local moves.

A car trailer is the better option if you’re traveling long distances, are nervous about towing a vehicle, and want to minimize the wear and tear on your vehicles.

The cheapest towing method is a tow dolly. Depending on how many days you need to rent one, a car tow dolly is about half as expensive as a car trailer, according to quotes obtained from U-Haul.

Yes, you can often buy a tow bar from your rental truck company. Tow bars come in several sizes and connect to the tow hitch of your towing vehicle.

A U-Haul car tow dolly costs about $180 per day (not including fuel costs). A U-Haul trailer costs about twice as much ($350 per day).

It costs about $1,500 to ship a car in an enclosed trailer, according to Move.org. Costs range from about $820 to ship a small car a few hundred miles to $2,040 to ship a large truck across the country.

Flatbed towing is when you transport a towed car on a flatbed trailer. Flat towing isn’t recommended for vehicles with front-wheel drive.

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