Demco Kar Kaddy SS Tow Dolly Review
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Review of the Demco Kar Kaddy SS Tow Dolly
Today we're gonna be taking a look at Demco's Kar Kaddy SS Tow Dolly with disk brakes.One of the biggest differences between the Kar Kaddy SS and the Kar Kaddy III is that the SS here is foldable so you can easily store it in your garage.It folds here at the tongue. There's a pin that holds it in place, so if you pull the pin, it'll simply swivel over and then you can reinsert the pin.Ensure that you place the lock pin on the bottom before using it.Ramps can also fol up to help minimize space. There's a lever located on the side that allows you to release those to put 'em up and down. There's also a slot here that the ramp slides in to get the click into place.The Kar Kaddy SS is gonna allow you haul your vehicle behind your motor home, and what's really nice about it, comparing it to other systems, it's gonna work with just about every vehicle and you can use multiple vehicles with it.And, unlike a flat tow set up, which requires you to modify your vehicle, install lighting systems, braking systems, and do a lot of complicated research to get all of those components to work together, this is one nice easy package that you just simply hook up to the back of your motor home, drive your vehicle on and secure it properly and you're ready to go.Your vehicle's secured to the Kar Kaddy using the included straps that keep your tires cinched down in between the loading pads.The ratcheting winch ensures that you get a tight fit. And also makes it extremely easy to unload your vehicle.Front loading, you simply pull the lever here, and just give it kind of a quick jolt down.And you've now released your strap.To tighten it, you simply crank it down, like you would any other ratcheting strap.The strap itself drapes over your tire and simply connects to the other side with the included hooks. For additional safety precautions, there are two safety chains that comes included where you could hook it to your frame or your control arms here.
And then, when you're not using 'em, they can store inside the front loading ramp here by just pushing 'em in there.The Kar Kaddy's capable of towing any vehicles up to 4,800 lbs, so it's gonna be great for your Sedans, SUVs and light trucks.And while the Kar Kaddy works with just about every vehicle, it's easiest when used with a front wheel drive vehicle. It does still work four wheel drive and regular drive vehicles, however you may need to disconnect the drive shaft in order to properly tow it behind you. You'll wanna refer to your vehicle's owner's manual to ensure that you're towing properly.And do keep in mind that it is designed for the front wheels to be loaded onto the Kar Kaddy. Not the rear wheels. And when you're ready to unload your vehicle, you simply reverse your steps.
Take off your safety chains, your straps, and then, release the tilt mechanism so you can slowly drive it off backwards.Now that you've got your vehicle off, before you tow it behind your motor home without a vehicle on it, you wanna make sure you put your steer axle pin back in.And flip up your license plate.You also wanna make sure your ramps are in the locked position.Now with the vehicle removes, we'll go over some additional features.It utilizes a two inch coupler, and comes with an included locking pin. It also includes your safety cables and as well as your floor pol electrical connection. As you can see here, it uses disk brakes, which is an upgrade over your traditional drum brakes, as it minimizes the stopping distance, as well as offers a smoother stopping experience.The disk brakes are applied using the surge coupler brake actuator, so whenever you stop, the coupler pushes in, sending pressurized fluid back to your disk brakes, applying the pads.What's nice about this is that there's no brake controller required inside of your motor home so you can just hook it up and it's ready to go, minimizing the amount of components you'll need to install to properly tow your vehicle.On top of our brake actuator, we have a break away switch here. This connects to you hitch, so in the event of a catastrophic disconnect, it will pull the switch, applying the brakes, to help it come to a safe stop.This is a fluid filled brake system. Brake fluid does not come included.
You will have to fill it and bleed it per the instructions that come included with your Kar Kaddy.Another huge benefit that this system offers that people don't think about is the wear on your vehicle's brakes.So, if you're flat towing your vehicles and you apply the brakes in your motor home, your braking system applies to brakes on your vehicle, wearing down the brake pads. But, this system, you're using the brakes on your Kar Kaddy, saving the brakes on your vehicles.It includes chrome wheels with tires of a standard size of 20575 R14 so you can easily replace these. You can buy replacements here at etrailer.com.The top and back side of the wheel is covered with the fender and mud flap to help keep road debris from flying up under your vehicle.In addition to a braking system, this also has all the necessary lightning you'll need to be DOT compliant in all states. This includes your stop and turn signals as well as your tail lamp signals.Underneath our license plate, you'll have three marker lights, as well as a license plate light to ensure that you don't get any tickets when hauling this down the road.The loading ramps have a textured surface to provide grip when driving up on them. The wheel cradles themselves have stop ramp here at the front as well as one at the back to help keep your wheel centered inside of it, when you're cinching it down.The wheels on the Kar Kaddy also turn to allow the vehicle to track closer behind your motor home.
This is gonna make it easier to maneuver in tight spots.The Kar Kaddy will accept tire spacings between 42 inches, from the inside of our ramps here, and 76 inches to the outside. The total width of our trailer from wheel well to wheel well is gonna be 101 inches. The total length of our trailer from the coupler to the back of the ramp is 133 inches. When not using your trailer, it stays supported at the front, with the included wield tongue jack. What's nice about this is that it makes it really easy to push it around and push it into your garage, fold it up. It really helps out maneuvering it.Many customers on our website compare this to road master's two dolly. And they're similar in a lotta ways. They both have the turning wheels, the tilting ramps for you to drive it on, but there are a few differences. The Kar Kaddy has surge brakes that uses a disc brake system that's hydraulic, where the road master tow dolly uses electric drum brakes.The electrics drum brakes will require you to have an electric brake controller in order for those to operate, whereas our Kar Kaddy doesn't require any of that. You can just hook it up and it's ready to work.The road master tow dolly also has a lower carrying capacity of 4,380 lbs, while the Kar Kaddy can haul something up to 4,800 lbs. the Kar Kaddy also has a tongue jack with a wheel on it to make it easier to maneuver it around as well as lift it up to get it onto your hitch ball, whereas the road master doesn't have any of that. You're going to have to lift it up and haul it all around by yourself.And lastly, the Road Master is fixed in its position, so it's gonna have the same length no matter what, whereas, our Kar Kaddy can be folded up and easily stored inside your garage.The Kar Kaddy will be shipped to you via freight. It weighs about 615 lbs and does require it to be assembled upon delivery.Now that we've gone over some features, let's show you how to hook it up and get your vehicle loaded.We'll begin here at the front by removing our lock pin. And, releasing our coupler. We can now slide it forward. And, lower it down into our two inch hitch ball.It is a two inch coupler, so you wanna make you've got that matched with the two inch ball. You also wanna make sure that the distance from the ground, to the top of your ball is about 18 inches and is the recommended height for the manufacturer. Now, we've got our coupler set on our ball, we can close our latch and reinsert our pin.Next, you'll need to connect your safety chains. You wanna make sure that you cross your chains from left to right, so here, we've got the left chain. We're going to connect it to the right side of our hitch and we're gonna do just the opposite with our other.Then, we'll connect our four pull connector to our electrical circuit. Now, most RVs, you're gonna have a seven pull connector, so you're likely gonna need an adaptor to bring it down to a four pull. You can pick on up here at etrailer.com.We're gonna go ahead and just connect those together, and then, we'll tie up our slack.And lastly, before we put our vehicle on, we wanna hook up our braking system. Brake away switch cable.You wanna hook that to your hitch as well. You'll wanna take out the locking pins on your winch here. There's one on each side. We'll pull the lever and that'll release our winch so we can pull the slack out here.So, if we have enough, to get our straps ready, we'll drape 'em out this way, we'll prep our other side, just like that.Your license plate is up. You'll wanna put that down. You'll pull the counter pit on the bottom. And then, you can release it there. Now, we can tilt our ramps down by pulling the lever here. That'll release it. You may need to use a little assistance to get it down, but it doesn't take much.And one last thing before we drive our vehicle on, we wanna retract our jack by pulling the pin and twisting it, keeping it up off the ground. We can now pull our vehicle on and when we do, the tilting ramps will automatically snap back into place, bringing it nice and level.Now that you're on the ramps, you wanna make sure you put your vehicle back in park and set the parking brake on it. And we can get out and I'll strap our wheels.The winches are adjustable here. They can slide back and forth so you can make sure that you get it centered in the middle of the wheel. We're gonna take our straps and drape those over our tire. We're probably gonna need a little more slack than this, so just like we did before, we can push that to pull some slack out.We'll bring it over our tire.You can then hook each side onto your ramps there and let me just crank it down, making sure to keep it in the center of the tire.You'll wanna make sure that you crank it down until it starts to come flat up against here.And you can fold it up and reinsert your lock pin.We'll do the same thing on the other side.If thee straps don't fit around your tired, Demco will exchange them for free. They'll just need to send in your straps that come with it, for the size that you need to fit your tires.Next, we'll take our safety chains. Those can be stowed underneath your front loading stops. We'll pull those out, and you wanna attach this to your frame. Now, our frame's got a under-shield on it. Our sub frame does. So, we'll be attaching it to the lower control arms.So, we're just going to wrap that around.You wanna make that you give yourself a little slack to account for suspension travel and then just hook it in on itself. We'll do the same thing on the other side.Not that we've got our vehicle fully strapped to our Kar Kaddy, you'll wanna prepare your vehicle. You can find information on dolly towing your vehicle in your owner's manual.One of the things that a manufacturer recommends is that your steering wheel be locked. Our steering wheel doesn't lock on our particular vehicle we have here. So, if that's the case on your vehicle, you may need club here to keep your steering wheel in the same position.You can pick up a club here at etrailer.com.Once you got your vehicle set up per your vehicle's owner's manual, we can release the parking brake that we set earlier and now we're ready to tow it.And that completes our look at Demco's Kar Kaddy SS Two Dolly with disk brakes.
Marshall O.
7/10/2021
Just got my Kaddy assembled. My assistant spilled a sizable amount of brake fluid when connecting the coupler. I estimate 3 or 4 ounces. I can see the resavouir is low and I can easily fill it. Do you recommend I bleed the brakes after filling?? 2. When I pull my front wheel drive car on the dolly, I put it in park. Do I leave it in park while towing or should I put it in neutral after strapping down the tires?
Jon G.
7/12/2021
I would definitely bleed the brakes if you haven't done so yet. I don't think you need to add fluid though if you're just topping it off. I would refer to the owner's manual on what you need to do for towing your vehicle with a dolly. Placing it in neutral sounds like the go-to solution (and it typically is) but sometimes the manufacturer will have specific steps you need to take so it's always best to look at the manual.
Kim R.
10/16/2019
I am currently in a pull-in RV spot with my Kar Kaddy attached and car unloaded. I know I cannot back up while my car is loaded but can I back out of my 40ft parking space while the dolly is still connected to my RV? Or do I need to disconnect, back up, reconnect and then load my vehicle? Thank you in advance for your time.
Victoria B.
11/8/2019
If your Kar Kaddy has hydraulic disc brakes that are activated by a surge coupler without a reverse lockout, such as the Kar Kaddy SS # DM9713045, then you would not want to keep the dolly connected to your RV while you are backing out of your parking spot. Backing up with the dolly connected would engage the surge coupler's master cylinder, applying the brakes on the dolly. You would want to disconnect the dolly, back up your RV, reconnect the dolly, and then load your vehicle.
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Roger T.
10/1/2019
Excellent instruction video. This specific video certainly assisted me in determining which dolly to purchase. Nice work eTrailer!
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Jim
2/7/2023
Most front wheel drive cars have the parking brake on rear wheels. I don’t think you would want to set the parking brake as instructed in video unless you want your toad on fire.