Can you believe it’s already day 50 on our search for the perfect family caravan! We’re back from our trip to Tasmania and throughout that trip you can bet we were checking out what people were towing and what they were towing with!
Today we’re going to talk about vehicles. I’ve been doing a lot of research and narrowed it down to two vehicles that we’re looking at to tow our new caravan. Already we’ve narrowed down what we need in a family caravan, we’ve covered that in Day 6 after the Caravan and camping show and on Day 30 with what we want in a family caravan.
Currently I drive a Holden Crewman and this just won’t cut it when it comes to towing a caravan. It’s been great for some of our Camping trips like Paradise Valley, but when wanting to move a caravan we need an upgrade. I really like the dual cab of the Holden Crewman. I’ve always found it really useful to just throw things in when we go camping, or for gardening or renovation projects. But when it comes to towing a caravan, I looked really closely into all the major players. I looked into the BT-50, the Ranger and the D-max, basically the big three dual cabs most families like us are using to tow their family caravans around Australia.
After looking into the popular dual cabs I started to pick up some key information on their weights, which we did detail in the last video. Realising what they could tow, their weights and payloads, I started to realise that they’re going to be really tight when it comes to towing a 3 tonne van around Australia. It’s certainly doable, for sure. But when you look at what is known as the gross combined mass (GCM) of the vehicle which is listed in the manufacturers information most of them are around 6 tonne. We need a family van that’s going to be around that three tonnes in weight range, which will add an additional 10% in tow ball weight to the vehicle. So that needs to be subtracted off the gross vehicle mass too! I’m starting to get a little bit technical but here’s the high level summary of what’s going on with when it comes to dual cabs. After getting your ideal dual cab, adding a canopy, a bull bar and winch, maybe extra lighting, drawers, roof racks and a fridge, basically everything most people add to their vehicles, the GCM or gross combined mass is quickly under attack. Add your family and there might not be much left to play with at all.
We’ve worked out that whilst we could get a dual cab, add most of what we want and still tow our van, it’s really going to be close. Add some hills, challenging weather or terrain, and it just seems to tight a risk for it to make sense. We’d rather have some room left over in the allowable weight in case we add some things as we go, get a bigger than expected fridge, add some bikes, a kayak or something else along the way.
There is the possibility of a GVM upgrade out there, where they upgrade your car and you can an engineer certification. But from what I can tell this just upgrades the GVM and isn’t an automatic upgrade to the GCM. I heard mixed stories here but the plates I have seen only mention the GVM as being certified. Still more research to be done there I think.
It’s really important to get the weights right, to ensure your car isn’t damaged, your caravan isn’t damaged and your insurance company and manufacturer warranties will come to the party in the case of a disaster.
So this has been really eye opening stuff for us to research. Thinking about the big picture, my preference for the dual cab was really because I like using my current one. But once I add a canopy, a roof rack and drawers, I can’t really see them ever coming out again anyway. Hence, based on the weight and planned use of the vehicle we are leaning towards a wagon, or full sized/enclosed 4WD vehicle.
There’s two big players in the market when it comes to a wagon or a big four wheel drive and that’s the Toyota Land Cruiser 200 series model and the Land Rover Discovery 4. They’re the two vehicles we’re looking at and with a budget of 50K we are having to look at second hand or used vehicles. You can get a dual cab in that price range new or near new, but these big 4WD’s are in the price range of 110K+ new! Used 4WD it is for our towing adventure.
So we can’t buy new vehicles so we’re really starting to look at around the 2010 to 2012 models. The Toyota Land Cruiser and the Land Rover Discovery would give us up to 6.8 tonnes of GCM or Gross Combined Mass, better payloads and towing capability/power. In short we would have some room on our weights to ensure everything works as best it can, we’re comfortable and the occasional incline or decline won’t bother us on our lap of Australia. Also if I ever need to buy something I can throw it in and know that it’s okay.
It does sound like I’m going a bit over the top with the weights but these are really important things to know as there are real stories out there of cars breaking down on people with insurance, who ultimately wouldn’t pay up. I shared one story in the last video of someone who had an accident, not their fault, and neither insurance company paid up.
So, where are we at? It looks like we will be buying either a Land Rover Discovery or the Toyota Land Cruiser series 200. In addition to all of the above they also offer a better ride, fuel economy, safety and control on our big lap of Australia towing a caravan.