Tow advice - new car needed. 2020 expanda 20.64

[Lachy83]

Hi guys,
Firstly hoping everyone is safe and well during this challenging time, and not to bored at home.

I am a new member to the group having recently purchased our first van and awaiting to take delivery on expanda 20.64.

I was awaiting my new work car and hoping to negotiate a vehicle to tow. However I have needed up with a Hyundai Sante Fe Elite, at least it will tow the Boat.

My wife also has a work car being a Kia Sportage which doesn’t help at all.

We are a family of 6 and try to get away as much as we can mostly off grid camping. Mostly to lakes / rivers to fish or ski.

Being that we 90% of the time we take a boat aswell we take 2 cars.

As we will have to buy a 3rd vehicle, (well only one we own) purely just to be used for travels, so won’t be used otherwise, I’m considering all options.

I upgraded the Payload on van to max being 600kg. So looking at a vehicle with 3.5T capacity

I’m trying to get my head around the whole weight topic.... I still have to google a few things to understand what things are and mean... abit of a novice.

Im seeking some advice from you, the brains trust about any advice or experience you can offer to help me.

I’d love a LC200 but with what I just spent on the van, I’ve depleted the budget abit. Looking around 30-40k.

Looking at so far:
Ford ranger wildtrak
Ford Ranger XLT
Isuzu DMax

I’ve opted for a Ute as if we take 2 cars we don’t need another 7/8 seater. And it offers a little more flexibility, well from this novice brain.

Any input / discussion would be much appreciated.

cheers

 

[Brente1982]

First off welcome.

I will start off by saying that, as a family of 6, you can count out the dual cabs. The vans weight plus the factory towing/weight ability of the dual cabs you have listed wont work. They may say they can tow 3.5T but by the time you throw 2 adults, and 4 kids (age age and size unknown) you'll be well over the 6T gross combined mass limit of the Rangers and the lower limit of the DMax. Given you've said you'll take 2 cars, you may be able to negate the weight issue.

There's a topic on here about towing and tug weight limits etc. Check it out, its well worth a read.

I'm the owner of a modified Ranger XLT dual cab, and as it stands, my family of 4 plus the caravan I'm ordering (expanda 17.56.2OB) will currently put me over my GCM (gross combined mass). So I'm currently looking at a GVM/GCM (gross vehicle mass/gross combined mass) upgrade to give me a higher engineered limit. With my loaded ranger, in its current form im restricted to towing nothing weighing more than 2.8T or thereabouts. A long way from the 'claimed' 3.5T towing capacity. Its a figure that can generally only be reached if towing with an empty unmodified vehicle. I like many others never thought for a second about weights when i was adding accessory after accessory to the car. Ohwell it is what it is now.

You will find that in stock form, the LC200 will have the same issues, mostly around the payload of the vehicle. With 6 occupants in it you may well be over your vehicles limit even before you factor in the tow-ball weight of the caravan (which i believe for that model is over 250kg)

It is a conundrum more and more of us face and doesn't get any easier with the confusing acronyms used in the industry.

There will be users on here who will suggest one of the higher tow capacity Jeep Grand Cherokees. They are nice vehicles, but not without their fair share of problems. They have a GCM around the same as a popular Dual cab.

Good luck with your research though.