tow vehicles for the Newbies

mandy and jason · Newbie

tow vehicles for the Newbies

Vic · Guru

G'Day Mandy and Jason and welcome. I'm not too offay with caravans of that weight, but seems you would need a fairly powerful vehicle which I guess the Landcruiser is. I did see a warning on another forum about utes needing to be well loaded when towing to give stability to the van as apparently lightly or unloaded utes have been in a lot of accidents caused by the van moving the rear of the tug making it uncontrolable.

Others with more experience in this area may wish to comment. Hope you manage to find the right combination whatever it is,

mandy and jason · Newbie

thanks for the advice. the bike and kayak should be enough to weigh the back down . thanks for the advise

briche · Guru

Hi guys, we went thru this whole exercise when we were looking for a tow vehicle for our Roadstar van. It's 2250 kg and after all the pro's and con's we decided that a 100 series land cruiser was what we wanted. This decision came after doing exactly what you are doing now. We have found that our 4.2 ltr, turbo charger does the job very well. It pulls our van easily with a bit in reserve for those long hauls up the side of mountains. I know there are different ideas on auto or man change but I have to say that the auto box in our cruiser is first class especially going through the changes as we climb those hills. I cannot speak highly enough of our cruiser with apologies to the Nissian owners. Trust you enjoy your journey. We are and we have only just started Happy travels Brian & Cheryl

Cruising Granny · Guru

That would be my recommendation. I wish I had turbo, but I manage with the manual gearbox.
Just had the diesel injectors replaced today. After 320,000 the original injectors have been replaced. They were a bit hollow so I think I'll get better economy and a bit more grunt.

glassies · Guru

hubby too is lookin at what to do with our set up we are going to turn our camper into a fifth wheeler its currently a winnebago on the back of
a ford trader truck ,we are looking at nissan navara twin cab ,weve been given instructions to join the caravan forum on here to get instructions
as to what is best and its looking like the nissan is a well owned car and everybody is realy pleased with its outcome for towing
and driving.

I personaly have always like the nissans alwayd did, we had an old landrover once but the noise of them old things drove me mad
a whine i the gearbox as you were driving along, great car but way too noisy for a long distance drive so we came back
and bought a nissan partol (that was with previous partner) but my hubby hes pretty keen on the nissan twin cab.
so we shall see.

Smokeydk · Guru

The later Pajeros could tow that oK....just watch the towball weight on what ever you decide to get

signwilson · Senior Member

stick with the cruiser great vehicles easy to get parts if needed I love my 100 series 4.2 turbo great vehicle not a toy

Cupie · Guru

If you can get hold of one of the last of the 4.2 TD Patrols you won't go wrong.

A real truck (Tug) with a real heavy duty engine and real transmission.

signwilson · Senior Member

Stay away from jeeps they are monocog and have no chassis from past experience they break around the towbar mounting mine did within 40,000klms

Cruising Granny · Guru

To go off topic, (what's new) the avatar of Mandy and Jason makes one of their dogs look like a very savage, teeth flashing mongrel, if scrolled with a quick glimpse, but on second look it's a frisbee or similar.

Stay away from Jeeps. My research shows they're gas-guzzling not up to any big towing jobs. Okay for boats and trailers.

jules47 · The Happy Helper

Hey, your right CG - that's what I thought it was when I first came on - then realised what it really was.
Might be time to change my avatar - I get bored with the old pics, and like to put new ones up.
Don't we meander on this site??????????????????? (and no one tells us to "get back on track") - well not seriously anyway.