What car should I get to tow a 22-foot caravan around Australia?
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Asked by Ian
We are buying a 22-foot caravan and searching for the right car to tow it around Australia. We are looking at Everest, Discovery, Grand Cherokee and MU-X. Our budget is around $75K so the Discovery would be older model. I am wondering also if we should be concerned about MU-X and Everest being four-cylinder?
Answered by CarsGuide
22 Sep 2021I wouldn’t be concerned about the cylinder configuration of a particular engine. What’s more important is how much power and torque that engine makes, and how towing-friendly that power delivery is. By which we mean how smooth and flexible is the delivery. What you don’t want is a peaky engine that needs to be revved before it delivers the good as that puts a strain on everything and make the vehicle tricky and unpleasant to drive.
The good news is that all the vehicles you’ve nominated have good, solid powerplants that are well suited to towing a caravan. Modern turbo-diesels – especially with an automatic transmission – are ideal for this task.
What you should go for, however, is the vehicle with the highest towing rating. In this case, that’s any of the Grand Cherokee, MU-X or older Discovery, all of which have variants that can handle a towed load of 3.5 tonnes. The Everest is almost as good with 3.1 tonne, but only almost. The problem is that the van you’ve nominated can easily weigh between 2.2 and 2.8 tonnes which, with a 3.1-tonne limit, leaves you very little headroom for water tanks and camping gear. You’d be amazed at how much a fully loaded caravan weighs, so don’t rely on the brochure, load the van and take it to a weighbridge to make sure the vehicle you have can legally tow it.
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