Dolly towing a 2022 SV+ LEAF

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wenglish

New member
Joined
Feb 20, 2022
Messages
3
Hello everyone, this is my first post (I believe).

I'm hoping to dolly-tow a 2022 SV+. I was under the impression from the owner's manual that towing the LEAF with the front wheels off the ground was acceptable, with no distance limitation.

However, when looking into renting a dolly from U-Haul, their website says the LEAF is not dolly-towable, but no reason given.

Has anybody dolly-towed a LEAF, and if so can you provide any input please? Bonus points if you can suggest items that should be on a pre-towing checklist (like: turn car ON, put car in NEUTRAL, parking brake OFF, turn car OFF).

Thanks.
 
Not sure if this helps but I dolly towed my 13 (gen 1) with no issues. Front wheels on the dolly and car off. I rented a tow dolly from u haul but they told me it would not work with my tacoma then I told him he misunderstood me and I was towing a VW then was able to rent the dolly. Keep us posted.
 
I also towed a 2013 SV from CO to IA using a U-haul trailer. I borrowed a friend's SUV since I didn't have a vehicle capable of towing that load.

Check to make sure your towing vehicle can handle the towing weight. It takes a pretty sizeable vehicle to tow another car using a dolly.

You might also want to check if U-haul allows you to tow the car using a drive-on trailer. Those usually have trailer brakes so they can be towed with more vehicles than a dolly setup. The price isn't bad either, last time I checked.
 
Thanks for the input so far. Hoping to hear from owners of more recent models in case something has changed.

To clarify, my goal is to tow the LEAF behind a 24' motorhome, which has a 7500 lb tow capacity as well as about 7000 lbs difference between GVW and GCVW. So it has the capacity. We would then use the LEAF for day trips from the campsite, and charge it overnight at the campsite.

I had looked at renting a drive-on trailer rather than a dolly - the prices are $55 & $45 per day respectively so that's not a huge difference, but that will increase the total vehicle length for the campsite. Also ultimately I would hopefully purchase rather than rent, and storing a dolly in the same parking space where we park the motorhome is doable, whereas storing a full size trailer is probably not. But I agree dealing with a trailer is less hassle than dealing with a dolly.

What I really need is an electric street-legal ORV with a small trailer to pull it on, but that's probably a discussion for another time/place :-(
 
The LEAF is a heavy car, but it has low rolling resistance so it tows easily on a dolly. Also, the LEAF is wider than most small or midsize cars so be careful when making sharp turns. I towed my 2011 across the Phoenix metro area with a U-Haul tow dolly and don't remember any questions/concerns raised by the folks behind the counter. The ones with electric parking brakes (2011/2012 and Generation 2) need to have parking brake released by following instructions in the owner manual and/or roadside assistance manual (which can be obtained on Nissan Publications web site). I towed mine with the electric parking brake released and it in Park thinking that the front wheels would not need to move enough to cause problems. It might be better to put the car in neutral (so the parking pawl is not engaged) by following instructions in the manuals.
 
Good point on the roadside assistance manual, I will check it out in case there are steps beyond simply pushing the button to release the parking brake.
 
The Leaf is 100% dolly towable. The rear wheels are just free spinning, so as long as the fronts are off the ground and the parking brake is OFF, pull it as much as you like.
 
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