What causes wagging?

Tongue to light needs to be 10% of total weight. trailer should be level. Tires should be trailer tires not car tires and they should be inflated to the max pressure listed on the sidewall. The vehicle you are towing with is nearly overloaded so the tires onit must be inflated to the max pressure listed on the sidewall also. This is a very small vehicle to be towing that trailer it can be done but everything must be right or you could have very serious results. BECAREFUL Try to avoid severe cross winds. In this application a sway bar might be a good thing and if the trailer drops the rear of the vehicle down very much you may need an equalizer hitch.

Power is only one part of the tow rating equation. Tires, wheelbase, suspension, stability and braking are all part of the rating. And like you said - lawyers.

Ann… Hi,

Before I bought my trailer, I participated in a very, very lengthy thread at a Subaru owner's forum regarding my intention to tow with my Outback H6. There were some very sage and experienced towers there who advised me NOT to do what I was intending to do with my V6 Outback. But there were just as many who said go ahead and do it, based on specs on paper and not real world conditions. Bigbill and SusieQ are very correct in that, if you tow with this vehicle and trailer combination, EVERYTHING must be right or you may experience some real drama along the way: that is, balance, tires, weight and especially speed. Other things to consider are the health of your transmission: so outside temperature and severity of grades can be a lethal blow to your transmission, especially if you do not have an auxiliary cooler for it. I would also be concerned with absolute tongue weight. The manufacturer may have a limit on that and for a car frame it's even more important than the overall weight of what you're pulling. Some manufacturers, like Subaru, strictly forbid the use of weight distributing hitches; the frame simply can't take it over time. And braking: do you have working electric brakes on the Shasta? I ended up with an '03 Jeep Grand Cherokee, with a 4.7L HO V8, I picked up locally for about $5K, in fantastic mechanical condition.

If you plan on short trips, on flat grade at very slow speeds, then you might test your Shasta/Juke combination… but in my humble opinion, it's not a towing vehicle for anything, except a bike rack.

Ann… then definitely keep your Juke… it's a fun looking car and probably very useful too.  Maybe work toward a dedicated towing vehicle… or go into a sharing arrangement with a friend (a good friend!).  Getting my Jeep was the farthest thing from my mind!… but if I wanted the trailer, I knew I had to do it.  You can get something very solid, like an older, but well loved truck.  Insurance shouldn't be too much on such a vehicle.  Even a truck with modest power (like a 4+ liter V6) will at least give you the truck frame, the wheel base/stance that you need for towing.  If your towing demands are modest in terms of how far you travel, weather and grade… something like that will work very well.  If you increase your towing demands to traveling into the mountains in the heat of the summer, you can add a transmission cooler to your engine… that's a pretty simple thing to do and not pricey at all.  You also want a transmission where you can either select a gear or a switch to defeat the transmission's torque converter ('overdrive off switch').  That way you can lock into a lower gear for the grades, without the automatic transmission "hunting" for gears (excessive shifting, equals a lot more heat build up in the transmission).  

We want to see you enjoy that Shasta Compact, but also get there with minimal drama :-)

I do plan to go to the mountains, I live in SC and HATE the summer heat & humidity, I also joined "Women on the Fly" and hope to head westward at some point for one of the fly fishing get togethers - truly an adventure! I will look into finding another tow vehicle but the idea of that addition to possessions is not enticing. I'm in downsizing mode! I will say that my Juke does allow me to go into a sport mode that has some extra turbo power as well as letting me shift manually. I did that the entire first trip. I kept it out of 6th gear overdrive and really paid attention to my shifting and rpms. I grew up driving a manual transmission, as a matter of fact this is my first automatic ever and I'm as vintage as my little Shasta!
My sister says I went over to the dark side  when I went automatic. She could be right! She is still driving a manual, maybe the last American ever who didn't HAVE to have one!

Thanks all, I do plan to tow safely, I've seen too many tragedies in my day, many with trailers, not to be careful. This is a wonderful forum.

Happy Glamping!