Once you’re parked somewhere in a 35-foot school bus, you realize pretty quickly that you need a way to get around town without firing up the big rig every time you need milk. Towing a smaller vehicle behind your skoolie is how most full-timers solve that problem, but the method you choose matters a lot more than I expected when I first started looking into it.
There are three main ways to tow a vehicle behind a converted bus: flat towing (four wheels down), using a tow dolly, or loading onto a flatbed trailer. Flat towing is the most popular for skoolie owners because it’s the simplest once set up and doesn’t add a heavy trailer to the equation. But not every vehicle can be flat towed, and the wrong setup can destroy a transmission in a few hundred miles. Your tow method depends on what vehicle you’re towing, how much your bus can pull, and how much money you want to spend on equipment. There’s also the option of skipping the car entirely and carrying a motorcycle, scooter, or e-bike on the back of the bus instead.
Flat Towing (Four Wheels Down)
Flat towing is when the car rolls behind the bus on all four of its own wheels, connected by a tow bar. No trailer involved. No ramps. Just the car trailing behind the bus like a really big dog on a leash. People also call it dinghy towing or four-down towing — all the same thing.
I spent a ridiculous amount of time reading about this before I felt like I actually understood the equipment involved. First, you need a tow bar — the A-frame or telescoping arm that connects the two vehicles. Blue Ox and Roadmaster make the most popular ones, running $500 to $1,500 depending on the weight rating. Second, you need a baseplate kit specific to your car that bolts to the frame and gives the tow bar something to attach to. Baseplates run $300 to $600.
Then there’s supplemental braking, which is the one people try to skip. Don’t. Most states require the towed vehicle to have its own braking system, and even where it’s not required by law, stopping a 30,000-pound bus plus a 4,000-pound car is a lot to ask of the bus’s brakes alone. Portable systems like the Blue Ox Patriot sit inside the towed car and apply the brakes when the bus brakes. These run $300 to $1,200.
You also need safety cables, tow bar wiring for the taillights, and a breakaway system that applies the car’s brakes automatically if it separates from the bus. Not optional in most states, and not optional in my mind regardless.
All in, a complete flat tow setup costs $1,500 to $3,500. Not cheap upfront. But once it’s installed, connecting the car takes about 10 minutes and you’re rolling.
Using a Tow Dolly
A tow dolly is a small two-wheeled trailer that holds the front wheels of the car off the ground while the rear wheels roll on the pavement. You see these all the time with U-Haul rentals, and some bus owners use them as their primary tow method.
The appeal is that a tow dolly works with front-wheel drive cars that can’t be flat towed. Since the front wheels are off the ground, the drivetrain isn’t spinning while you drive. So if you’ve got a Honda Civic or a Toyota Corolla that you love and don’t want to trade for a Jeep, a dolly gets the job done.
Dollies cost $1,000 to $2,500 to buy, or you can rent from U-Haul for about $50 a day. For a full-timer, buying makes way more sense. Here’s the thing though — you have to load and strap down the car every single time. Drive the front wheels up the ramps, center it, ratchet strap both wheels down, hook up the safety chains, plug in the lights. It’s 20 to 30 minutes of physical work each time.
And then there’s the storage problem. When you’re parked and using the car, you’ve got an empty tow dolly sitting somewhere. Where do you put that? It doesn’t fold up. It’s a small trailer just hanging out, taking up a parking space or sitting behind your bus looking like abandoned equipment. I talked to a couple at a campground in Tennessee who used a dolly for about six months before switching to a flat tow setup, and the storage issue was their main complaint. They said every time they unloaded the car, they’d have this awkward little trailer they had to figure out where to stash.
The other downside is weight. A tow dolly weighs 500 to 800 pounds empty. Add the front end of a car and you’re pulling an extra 2,500 to 3,500 pounds. That eats into fuel economy and puts real tongue weight on your hitch.
One thing the dolly does well is that it works with almost any drivetrain. AWD, automatic, whatever — if the drive wheels are off the ground, nothing gets damaged. It’s the brute-force solution, and sometimes brute force is fine.
Using a Flatbed Trailer
A flatbed trailer carries the entire car off the ground — all four wheels loaded on the trailer deck. This is the safest option for the car being towed and the most versatile, because it works with literally any vehicle. AWD, 4WD, automatic, manual, doesn’t matter. If it fits on the trailer, you can tow it.
But here’s why most skoolie people don’t go this route. A flatbed trailer big enough for a car weighs 1,500 to 3,000 pounds empty. Add a car and you’re towing 5,000 to 7,500 pounds. A lot of school buses have towing capacities in the 5,000 to 10,000 pound range, so you might be pushing right up against the limit.
Then there’s the length. Your bus is already 30 to 40 feet. A flatbed adds 16 to 20 more. I read a post from a guy who tried this with a full-size bus and a 16-foot flatbed and said backing up was “genuinely terrifying.” He switched to flat towing after one summer.
A new flatbed car hauler runs $2,500 to $6,000. Used ones go for $1,000 to $3,000, but you need to inspect the axles, tires, lights, and frame carefully.
Where a flatbed does make sense is if you’re towing something that can’t be flat towed or dollied — like a side-by-side UTV or a vehicle you’re moving one time. Some people also use the trailer as extra storage when the car’s not on it. Bikes, kayaks, building materials. That dual-purpose angle is the main reason I’ve seen people justify keeping one around.
Best Vehicles to Flat Tow Behind a Bus
This is where the whole conversation usually starts for people, and honestly it’s where I think it should start. Pick the right tow vehicle first, then figure out the equipment. Going the other direction — falling in love with a car and then trying to figure out how to tow it — usually leads to expensive compromises.
The Jeep Wrangler is the gold standard. Every year, every trim, flat-tow compatible. The transfer case goes into neutral and disconnects the drivetrain completely. No lube pump needed, no driveshaft disconnect, just shift, hook up, and go. I met a guy at a campground who’d towed his JK Wrangler over 40,000 miles behind his bus without a single issue related to the tow setup. The Gladiator is the same story — same transfer case design, flat tow approved.
The Ford Bronco has become a popular choice since it came back, specifically models with the manual transfer case. Same concept as the Wrangler. Check the specific trim level though, because some Bronco Sport models are a different drivetrain entirely and are not flat-tow rated.
On the smaller side, some Honda CR-Vs and Fits with manual transmissions have been flat-tow approved in certain years. The Chevy Colorado works with the right drivetrain configuration. And the Chevy Equinox has shown up on flat-tow guides for some model years, though you’ve got to verify each year individually because GM changes the rules constantly.
Here’s the thing that tripped me up when I was first looking into this. Flat tow compatibility changes year to year, sometimes trim to trim. A 2019 model might be approved and a 2020 might not. The ONLY way to know for sure is to check the owner’s manual for that specific vehicle. Motorhome Magazine publishes an annual dinghy towing guide that lists every approved vehicle by model year, and that’s the resource I kept coming back to.
Even vehicles that are flat-tow approved usually have speed and distance limits for towing. Some say don’t exceed 65 mph. Some have mileage limits before you need to start the engine and idle it to circulate fluids. Read the fine print. Ignoring those limits is how people end up with cooked transmissions.
Hitch Types and Weight Ratings
So here’s where the mechanical side of towing gets important, and I’ll admit this is the section where I had to slow down and really learn the details because getting the hitch wrong is one of those mistakes that can have serious consequences.
School buses typically have a receiver hitch welded or bolted to the rear frame. If yours doesn’t, you can have one fabricated by a welding shop that’s comfortable working with heavy truck frames. This isn’t a job for a trailer hitch shop that mostly works on SUVs.
Hitches are rated by class, and for towing a car behind a bus you’re looking at Class III, IV, or V.
- Class III: 2-inch receiver, rated for 3,500 to 8,000 lbs towing capacity. This handles flat towing most cars but doesn’t leave much margin.
- Class IV: 2-inch receiver, rated for 10,000 lbs. The sweet spot for most skoolie towing setups.
- Class V: 2.5-inch receiver, rated for 12,000+ lbs. Overkill for flat towing a car but necessary if you’re pulling a loaded flatbed trailer.
The hitch rating is only part of the equation though. Your bus has its own towing capacity determined by the chassis manufacturer, and that’s the number that actually matters. A Class V hitch bolted to a bus that’s only rated to tow 7,000 pounds doesn’t give you 12,000 pounds of towing capacity. The weakest link in the chain is your limit.
Tongue weight is the other number to watch. That’s the downward force the tow bar or trailer puts on the hitch. For flat towing, tongue weight is relatively low — usually a few hundred pounds — because the car’s weight is mostly on its own wheels. For a dolly or flatbed, tongue weight goes up significantly, sometimes 500 to 1,200 pounds. Too much tongue weight overloads the rear axle. Too little and the towed vehicle can start swaying.
I came across a post from a bus owner who had his hitch fail because the shop welded it to the bumper instead of the frame. The bumper ripped right off. Safety chains caught the car, but he said the sound alone took ten years off his life. Always verify the hitch is welded or bolted to the frame rails, not the bumper.
What About Motorcycles, Scooters, and Bikes?
Alright so this is the option that honestly appeals to me the most, and it’s way more common in the bus life community than I expected when I first started looking into towing.
Instead of dragging a 4,000-pound car behind the bus, you bolt a motorcycle carrier or a small platform to the back and carry something light. A Honda Ruckus weighs 190 pounds. A Vespa is 250 to 350. A Honda Grom is about 230. An e-bike is 40 to 70 pounds. Compare that to the complexity of a full flat tow setup and you start to see why people go this route.
The simplest option is a hitch-mounted motorcycle carrier. These slide into a standard 2-inch receiver, hold 400 to 600 pounds, and cost $100 to $400. Load the scooter up a ramp, strap it down, done in five minutes. You can remove the carrier when you don’t need it.
Some people weld a custom platform onto the rear of the bus instead. I saw a build where the owners had fabricated a steel deck behind their flat nose bus — big enough for a scooter plus a couple of cargo bins. They bolted it to the frame, not the bumper, and it looked like it had been there from the factory. The scooter came off in under a minute and they used it for every grocery run and every time they wanted to explore a new town.
Now the obvious limitation — a scooter isn’t a car. You can’t carry four bags of groceries, a kid, and a dog on a Honda Ruckus. You can’t drive it on the interstate. You can’t use it in the rain without getting soaked. And if you’re parked somewhere rural where the nearest store is 20 miles away, a 50cc scooter that tops out at 35 mph isn’t going to cut it.
The middle ground I keep seeing people land on is a small motorcycle. A Honda Grom, Kawasaki Z125, or a used Honda CB300 gives you highway capability up to 55 or 60 mph, decent range, and they’re still light enough for a hitch carrier. Insurance on a small motorcycle runs $100 to $200 a year. Hard to beat that.
And then there’s e-bikes, which have kind of exploded in the bus life community. No insurance. No registration. No gas. Charges off your solar setup. A decent e-bike gets 20 to 50 miles per charge and you can carry it inside the bus or strap it to the back. Two e-bikes for a couple still weighs less and costs less than a single motorcycle carrier setup.
After spending way too much time researching all of this, here’s where I landed. If you’re moving the bus every few weeks and you end up in spread-out areas, tow a car. A flat tow Wrangler is the proven setup and there’s a reason it shows up in every bus life forum. If you’re more stationary and your daily trips are short, a scooter or motorcycle on the back saves you thousands and a ton of complexity. And if your needs are really simple, a couple of e-bikes might be the smartest move of all.
Whatever you choose, do the math on weight ratings before you buy anything. Know what your bus can tow, know what your hitch is rated for, and make sure everything is properly secured. The last thing you want is to learn these lessons at 55 mph.