Five must-do tow vehicle upgrades

While many tow vehicles do a decent job straight from the showroom, if you’re towing regularly for any distance it’s worth considering various modifications that will improve your tow vehicle’s handling, braking, load-carrying capacity and towing range, not to mention the longevity of its key components.

Beef up the suspension

There are at least two reasons your tow vehicle’s factory suspension may not be up to the task of towing.

New spring/shock tuning is always going to be a compromise, and you can bet that most vehicle engineers were not instructed to make the suspension they were working on the optimum for towing trailers.

While the vehicle might offer a lush ride without a trailer behind, once on the move with a towball download ride can deteriorate. Fore-aft pitching from too-soft suspension or a jittery ride from too firm spring rates can be the result of a suspension poorly designed for towing.

Even though standard shock absorbers wear less quickly than they used to, they're still going to decrease in efficiency over time, especially when towing. They will start to provide less body control, and springs will start to sag with a lot of towing.

So a good tip for any tow vehicle you plan to keep for a while, is to spend some money on heavy-duty springs and shocks, front and rear.

Airbag rear helper springs can improve ride and level-out the tow vehicle’s stance but don’t consider them as the answer to high towball download. Air helper springs do not shift weight onto the front axle like a well set-up weight distribution hitch set-up does.

Upgrade the brakes

Upgrading the brakes on your tow vehicle is one of the easiest ways to enhance your tow vehicle's stopping ability and safety.

Leading brake expert Bendix makes this simple with a number of bolt-on enhancements including its latest Ultimate 4WD Brake Booster Upgrade.

Initially available for ABS and non-ABS versions of the Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series range, with kits for other popular 4WD vehicles available soon, the Bendix Ultimate 4WD Brake Booster Upgrade is designed for vehicles required to tow or carry heavy loads and will increase braking performance by up to 30 per cent.

Designed to be a direct ‘bolt in’ replacement for original equipment (OE), single diaphragm brake boosters, the Bendix Ultimate 4WD Brake Booster Upgrade is ADR compliant and uses dual-diaphragm technology to help reduce pedal effort while significantly decreasing stopping distances.

For even better braking, the Bendix Ultimate 4WD Brake Booster Upgrade can be paired with the Bendix Ultimate 4WD Brake Upgrade kit; available for fitment to all popular modern dual-cab utes as well as 4x4 SUVs like the latest Toyota LandCruiser models and Nissan’s Y61 Patrol.

“The Ultimate 4WD Brake Upgrade Kit is a comprehensive package which includes all the hardware to significantly improve the braking performance of your vehicle,” Bendix Product Manager, Ian Campbell told caravancampingsales.com.au.

“Our Ultimate Brake Rotors are vented and feature diamond-tipped slots that not only ensure consistent stopping power but are better at eliminating dirt build-up in off-road conditions.

“The high carbon material used in their construction, combined with the pillar ventilation technology improve thermal conductivity for consistent performance too,” Campbell explained.

Bendix Ultimate 4WD Brake Pads are in turn specifically designed for the slotted rotors on heavy-duty four-wheel drive vehicles, providing high-temperature stability and fade resistance while reducing brake dust and noise.

When paired with Bendix Ultimate 4WD Braided Brake Hoses (included in the brake upgrade kit), the replacement Bendix pads provide a consistently firm pedal. This is thanks to the fact the Bendix braided hoses are more rigid and expand less under high pedal pressures.

And, to keep the brakes in tip-top condition, the Bendix Ultimate 4WD Brake Upgrade comes with one litre of Bendix heavy duty brake fluid, a can of Bendix Cleanup and a tube of Ceramasil lubricant and a heavy-duty touring case.

Your regular mechanic can fit the Bendix Ultimate 4WD Brake Upgrade Kit. For more information, visit the Bendix website.

Install a transmission cooler

The automatic is the most popular transmission in Australia today, and most tow vehicles will have a self-shifter. When towing -- like most of a tow vehicle’s mechanical and some structural components -- the automatic transmission comes in for additional strain.

The transmission will run hotter when hauling a heavy trailer, and while many modern autos have a transmission cooler, it isn’t necessarily going to be enough for towing.

So high on your list of tow vehicle upgrades is a separate oil-to-air transmission cooler.

While manufacturers are getting better at testing vehicles in scenarios such as towing heavy loads in hot climates like ours, some don’t make it the priority you’d think they would.

Some factory set-ups have a dedicated auto fluid cooling section incorporated into the vehicle’s radiator, but this design is rarely up to the job of keeping transmission fluid temperatures down when towing in hot climates. If your vehicle has this set-up, it’s likely you’ll need to invest in an aftermarket air-to-oil transmission cooler.

While some manufacturers go to the trouble of setting up a separate transmission fluid cooler, it doesn’t necessarily have the cooling capacity it should have for towing either.

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer to this situation; your factory-fresh tow vehicle could have a large transmission fluid cooler that will handle anything thrown at it and still keep the fluid within acceptable range, but it’s more likely it doesn’t.

Vehicles are built to a price, and there’s the risk that the transmission will fail a few years down the track because of too-high fluid temperatures during heavy-duty towing.

Ask a transmission specialist, a transmission cooler supplier or even an owner on a vehicle-specific forum about what transmission cooling capacity is going to work for your vehicle.

Engine oil can also get excessively hot when towing and may need a separate air-to-oil cooler fitted too, although that’s uncommon these days.

Ask your vehicle’s manufacturer if an engine oil cooler is recommend. One may already be fitted as part of the manufacturer’s optional towing pack.

Fit a long-range fuel tank

Towing of course increases fuel consumption and with a long transport stage between towns in the Outback, you can risk running out of fuel.

An aftermarket long-range fuel tank will ease range anxiety, with a number of specialist manufacturers and suppliers providing custom tanks to suit a range of popular tow vehicles.

Upgrade the GVM

Although Gross Combined Mass (the total permitted mass of vehicle and trailer) and maximum towing capacity upgrades have become illegal in most states, you can still get a Gross Vehicle Mass (maximum vehicle weight including payload) upgrade through a number of suspension specialists.

Although you won’t be able to tow a heavier van and load up your vehicle beyond GCM, you can at least allow for often significant towball download (up to 350kg) and still have a reasonable vehicle payload.
While essentially a suspension upgrade (albeit one tested and certified for your vehicle to include the GVM upgrade), you can get around a 300 to 400kg GVM increase.

All the brake upgrade kit information can be found at Bendix.com.au