Philip Lord•27 Mar 2017

FEATURE

Top-10 tow tugs

We pick the best tow vehicles of 2016

When a manufacturer says that their vehicle can tow heavy stuff, it doesn’t mean it’s actually any good at doing it.

You can have a 3500kg towing capacity but if you don’t have the power, stability or touring range it means noth-ing. Being heavy itself is a good start; a weighty trailer won’t push a tow vehicle around as much when the tow vehicle can stand its ground.

A lanky wheelbase and a short rear axle-to-tow ball meas-urement also help to make a tow vehicle more planted.

Large torque figures look good on paper but do not always translate well to heavy hauling ability – it all becomes clear only when you’re actually doing miles with a heavy trailer hitched up.

All vehicles will suck down more fuel when lugging a big, bluff trailer around but if they don’t have a fuel tank big enough to keep the engine fed on some outback transport stages, there’s no point towing with them.

Basically, a big tow capacity means nothing if the rest of the vehicle can’t deliver. With that in mind, here are our tried-and-tested top tow vehicles of 2016…

RAM 2500 Laramie

The big American RAM can ‘only’ tow 3500kg with a 50mm towball tongue (it can tow up to 6989kg with a pintle hook) and it’ll haul every one of those kilograms like it’s not there.

A hefty 3577kg kerb weight and the roughly one-kilometre long wheelbase (that makes U-turns a tiresome back-and-fill effort) make RAM a rock-solid towing platform.

When hill climbing the RAM barely needs half throttle to hold 100km/h with a 3000kg caravan behind and its ex-haust brake pegs speed downhill like no other tow vehicle we’ve tested. Being big and heavy of course means city driving isn’t much fun and the RAM rides like a truck.

Price $139,500

Power/torque: 276kW/1084Nm

Kerb weight: 3577kg

Towing capacity: 350kg/3500kg

Gross Combined Mass: 7990kg

Fuel cons (towing): 20.5L/100km

Touring range (towing, with 50km safety margin): 520km

Toyota LandCruiser 200 Series GXL

The LandCruiser 200 has been the go-to heavy hauler for the last nine years it has been available. The ‘Cruiser’s key strength is its planted feel on the road with just about any-thing hitched up behind it.

It’s pretty heavy, has a long wheelbase and its rear axle-to-coupling measurement is relatively short. Strong perform-ance and lush ride when towing are other pluses.

The negatives are that it is becoming dated (although it did receive a mild 2016 refresh) and the 4.5-litre V8 twin-turbo diesel engine is almost as thirsty as the petrol model when towing.

Price: $88,460

Power/torque: 195kW/650Nm

Kerb weight: 2610kg

Towing capacity: 350kg/3500kg

Gross Combined Mass: 6800kg

Fuel cons (towing): 19.2L/100km

Touring range (towing, with 50km safety margin): 669km

Land Rover Discovery 4 SE SDV6

The big Disco has a solid 2500kg-plus kerb weight to stop any caravan from pushing it around and the air-spring sus-pension not only levels out the ride with a trailer behind but gives a lush ride too.

The sequential twin-turbo 3.0-litre diesel does not lack for power, either, thumping out a sizable chunk of torque so it’s rare that the Disco will run out of puff up a hill.

Only downsides is that if you want to run a WDH Land Rover doesn’t recommend it and you better get in quick - the D4 will be replaced by the 500kg lighter, possibly less towing-capable D5 (though still rated at 3500kg) in July 2017, and dealers are expected to run out of D4 stocks well before that.

Price: $84,595

Power/torque: 183kW/600Nm

Kerb weight: 2558kg

Towing capacity: 350kg/3500kg

Gross Combined Mass: 6740kg

Fuel cons (towing): 18.7L/100km

Touring range (towing, with 50km safety margin): 390km

Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo CRD

One of the few vehicles that has that rare combination of a 3500kg towing capacity and fairly compact city-friendly dimensions, the Grand Cherokee is very solid with a van behind — it’s very stable and predictable in its response to wind buffeting and road surface changes.

The 3.0-litre turbo-diesel V6 doesn’t have to work hard with a heavy trailer behind as it has a large wedge of mid-range torque to keep it steaming up the steepest of hills.

Price: $59,000

Power/torque: 184kW/570Nm

Kerb weight: 2327kg

Towing capacity: 350kg/3500kg

Gross Combined Mass: 6449kg

Fuel cons (towing): 17.2L/100km

Touring range (towing, with 50km safety margin): 493km

Ford Ranger XLT Double Cab

The Ranger ute is an absolute cracker of a tow vehicle with a big tick alongside most of the criteria. The 2015 update blessed Ranger with a new low-inertia turbo among other changes that significantly reduces turbo lag and makes the big ute nicer to tow with than the closely related Mazda BT-50.

The Ranger’s inline five-cylinder produces the right num-ber of Newton-metres at the right time — thanks in part to a six-speed auto with a good spread of ratios — to flatten most hills and engine braking is excellent. Its dual-cab wheel base and fairly short rear-axle to tow hitch meas-urements give it generally confidence-inspiring towing dy-namics.

Price: $55,415

Power/torque: 147kW/470Nm

Kerb weight: 2159kg

Towing capacity: 350kg/3500kg

Gross Combined Mass: 6000kg

Fuel cons (towing): 18.6L/100km

Touring range (towing, with 50km safety margin): 380km

Mazda BT-50 XTR Dual Cab

The Ranger’s mechanical twin, the BT-50 has a really stable towing platform, barely moving at all when a trailer is hitched up and the in-line five-cylinder turbo-diesel per-forms well.

While its firmer suspension quells movement better than the Ranger, the engine has more turbo lag off the line and doesn’t seem as smooth as the near-identical Ford inline five. The BT-50 easily pegs speed downhill with its strong engine braking.

Price: $49,700

Power/torque: 147kW/470Nm

Kerb weight: 2105kg

Towing capacity: 350kg/3500kg

Gross Combined Mass: 6000kg

Fuel cons (towing): 18.7L/100km

Touring range (towing, with 50km safety margin): 378km

Toyota LandCruiser GXL 76 Series

Even though it’s an old-timer, the LandCruiser wagon (and its cab-chassis derivatives) was made with the ability to tow large, heavy loads.

No fancy-pants gear in this truck: live axles, all-coil suspen-sion and a separate chassis, plus a chest-thumping V8 turbo-diesel and short gearing.

The Cruiser’s rear suspension barely dips with a heavy trailer dropped onto the back, and is a stable towing rig. Its engine seems well capable of taking on the extra weight of a heavy van but once you get up to touring speed the turbo-diesel V8 does struggle on steeper hills.

Price: $61,990

Power/torque: 151kW/430Nm

Kerb weight: 2265kg

Towing capacity: 350kg/3500kg

Gross Combined Mass: 6560kg

Fuel cons (towing): 15.9L/100km

Touring range (towing, with 50km safety margin): 767km

Volkswagen Amarok TDI400 Core

If there’s a strict definition of a good tow vehicle, it’s ‘There’s no substitute for cubic inches’. However, the Amarok seems to pick up this rule, have a good look at it and chuck it out the window.

Its 2.0-litre, four-cylinder twin turbo-diesel performs like something with a lot more cylinder displacement. The quiet, torque-laden free-revving engine isn’t so good at engine braking though, while the Amarok doesn’t move around at all with a heavy trailer and has the best ride quality of the utes here whether towing or not.

The new V6 model looks even more promising as a tow hauler after a short drive towing a 2500kg trailer at the overseas launch.

Price: $42,990

Power/torque: 132kW/400Nm

Kerb weight: 2020kg

Towing capacity: 300kg/3000kg

Gross Combined Mass: 5550kg

Fuel cons (towing) 13.2L/100km

Touring range (towing, with 50km safety margin) 556km

Isuzu MU-X LS-T

The off-road MU-X wagon punches above its weight as a heavy trailer hauler. Its specification sheet doesn’t make it look anything special but once you hitch up a heavy trailer you soon see it was born to tow.

It just feels planted on the road, and engine braking is very good. Performance up hills is better than the torque and power figures would suggest and the MU-X is pretty light on fuel when towing as well — a good thing, given its small-ish 65L tank.

The front gets a bit of float happening on rough roads but the MU-X is the best of the ute-based SUVs out there for long-distance, heavy-duty towing.

Price $53,500

Power/torque: 130kW/380Nm

Kerb weight: 2060kg

Towing capacity: 300kg/3000kg

Gross Combined Mass: 5750kg

Fuel cons (towing): 12.9L/100km

Touring range (towing, with 50km safety margin): 454km

Holden Commodore SV6 Sportwagon

The Sportwagon’s towing capacity might be on the lighter side than the heavy-hitters here but it’s the only 2WD car that can tow as well up to 2100kg.

The Holden is an excellent tow vehicle, with its wheels and tow coupling point all well spaced to keep it planted on the road and a plenty of power and torque from its petrol V6 to keep 100km/h within reach up steep hills.

When you drop 200kg worth of coupling onto the Commo-dore’s towbar it does drop a lot but Holden’s 2100kg tow-ing kit includes a Weight Distribution Hitch anyway. With the WDH fitted the Holden only occasionally gets unsettled by large trucks passing on the freeway.

Get in quick though; there’s only about 10 months to go before the Sportwagon is no more.

Price: $41,490

Power/torque: 210kW/350Nm

Kerb weight: 1776kg

Towing capacity: 210kg/2100kg

Gross Combined Mass: 4365kg

Fuel cons (towing): 15.5L/100km

Touring range (towing, with 50km safety margin): 408km

Top-10 tow tugs

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