Which mid-sized 4x4 is best for hauling a trailer?
WE TAKE SIX OF THE BEST MEDIUM/LARGE 4WD WAGONS AND HITCH THEM TO A ’VAN TO FIND THE BEST TOW-HAULER OF THE BUNCH.
THE Medium-to-large 4WD wagon segment has seen a raft of primarily ute-based newcomers join the party in the past five years, and with it a boost in towing capacity.
Not so long ago, 2500kg was the maximum towing limit for wagons like the Toyota Prado (and still is), but with these newcomers arrived a boosted towing capacity – around 3000kg is the new norm. Relatively new kids on the block, Ford Everest, Holden Trailblazer, Mitsubishi Pajero Sport and Toyota Fortuner, joined a just-updated Isuzu MU-X and recently renovated Toyota Prado to round-out our half-dozen wagons.
While a solid tow vehicle, the Mitsubishi Pajero misses out mostly because it’s been around essentially unchanged for nine years. In fact, it hasn’t been a fresh-sheet design since before Sydney hosted the Olympics.
The Prado has the lowest towing capacity here, at 2500kg, followed by the Fortuner at 2800kg and rest of the group at 3000kg (except Pajero Sport, with its pub-bragging rights of ‘best’ capacity at 3100kg, just 100kg more than the others). One figure often missing in towing specs is the towball download maximum – in the case of all of the wagons here, it’s the industry standard 10 per cent of towing capacity.
WE TOOK each of the vehicles, towing the tandem-axle ’van, on a test loop covering slightly more than 100km, taking in the lower Blue Mountains and the north-western Sydney Basin. We had a wide variety of road conditions to give the wagons a towing workout, from a freeway to secondary tarmac and even a bit of dirt thrown in for good measure. Speed was capped at 100km/h (instead of the statutory freeway limit of 110km/h) as we felt this was as high a speed as you’d want to go when towing.
In an ideal world we would have tested these vehicles with a caravan right on the limit of their towing capacities. To be consistent, we had to tow the same ’van that would be legal across all the six vehicles, and that meant it had to be legal behind the Toyota Prado, with its 2500kg capacity – and also use a ’van that had a legal theoretical payload. Using a 2499kg unladen caravan isn’t realistic when the typical tandem-axle ’van has a payload of 400kg. We used a full-height tandem ’van weighing slightly less than 2100kg and with 180kg on the towball. That’s plenty enough to sort things out.
You don’t go towing to win drag races, but a standing-start acceleration test is a good way of comparing the vehicles’ relative flat-out performance. We used sister magazine Wheels’ Driftbox to accurately record the standing start to 60km/h and 80km/h figures. Unfortunately, it poured for the test week, so the acceleration tests were marred by loss of traction off the line due to a soaked surface. However, given that these are not high-performance cars where every tenth can make a difference, our figures are still representative of their comparative all-out performance.
While all-out acceleration figures give you part of the towing performance puzzle, how the wagons slug it out climbing hills is another big chunk of the picture. The hillclimb test on a freeway hill started as a shallow climb then gradually became steep, approximately 1:5 gradient. Speed was settled at exactly 80km/h on the Driftbox at the beginning of the rise, then full throttle was applied at a set marker point. The results were very interesting, showing how in some cases gearing can, to some degree, make up for a lack of torque. Tank-to-tank fills gave us accurate fuel consumption figures. Rounding out the considerations was wheelbase and rear axle-to-towball point measurements, front and rear body height measurement changes with/without a ’van – plus the all-important kerb weight, payload and Gross Combined Mass figures.
It’s typical to tow a trailer right on a vehicle’s maximum limit and load it up with every kilogram available of the vehicle’s payload, but it’s worth noting how much payload or towing capacity you lose with the maximum GCM of some of these vehicles (GCM is the maximum total weight – including occupants, gear, fuel, water, everything – allowed for vehicle and trailer together).
We didn’t need to use a Weight Distribution Hitch (WDH) – these wagons had a relatively light 180kg on the towball, and all had front body lift measurements within an acceptable range. We also wanted to be able to feel if towing changed the wagons’ ride and stability, which is next to impossible to achieve when using a WDH.
We fitted a Hayman Reese break-away brakes remote battery monitor to each wagon to keep things legal (it’s a unique NSW towing requirement for towing trailers with break-away brakes fitted). The break-away battery monitor plugs into a 12v accessory port (or USB port) on the dash and wirelessly monitors the breakaway battery on board the caravan.
Towing mirrors (other than the fixed Clearview type) are either door-mounted or clipped onto the side mirrors. We used Ora’s Rossa units with the optional magnetic door-mounted bracing.
The 2183kg Jayco at tare weight (that is, with water tanks and gas bottle empty and no other payload on board) weighed 180kg on the towball.