Saturday, Jul 26, 2014 at 15:00
There is lots said about Torque and towing.......
well.
One thing that has been mentioned but needs to be absolutly clear...above all for comfortable towing you need power and plenty of it.
You can not have power without torque.
In the past people mostly towed with big slow reving motors that had to have lots of torque to achieve the power required at the low RPM that the motors where capable of.
Back in the day, no one would entertain any sort of serous towing with other than a big six or a V8, likewise pretty
well all the trucks and commercial vehicles had either big sixes or V8s.
AND it was also a general rule that diesels had lots of torque and petrol motors had lots less.
While a lot of that may still be sort of true...things have changed.
back in the day the HQ holden came with a 253 V8, a little later the XF falcon came with a 4.1 litre six cylinder..both similar capacity both in petrol......both considered pretty fair tow vehicles in the day and there where plenty of em dragging round caravans and horse floats.....the 2.7 litre petrol motor in the 03 hilux produces more power than both those motors in a 4 cylinder........of course it produces marginally less torque, because it is a higher reving motor.
Back in the day, motors had pretty
well fixed performance factors set by fixed physical items like cam & ignition timing and fixed fuel system......thus they had fairly narrow band of performance..if the motor produced lots of power it reved high and had poor low down torque...if it had lots of low down torque if reved poorly and had pretty modest high end power output.
these days with variable valve timimg, and electronic engine managment, engines can drive like a tractor at low revs and exceed what was once expected of racing vehicles for high end power of the past.
In the ute variant and assessed by the same criteriour, the hilux has a higher towing capacity and a greater load carrying capacity then either the HQ 1 tonner and the XF
longreach.
Still many will not consider the petrol hilux a good towng vehicle.....harping on about the lack of torque.
But you will drive the hilux differently.
The same improvements can be found in desel powered vehicles......in the past most trucks on the lighter end of medium rigid had 6 cylinder diesels in them.....these days we are seeing more 4 cylinder common rail motors.....with more power that rev higher but of course have less torque.
then we move onto the gearboxes...in the past people towed in vehicles with 3 speed gearboxes.....they depended on the torque to lug away in higher gears because they would be revving their big fat ring out in lower gears.
Now we have moved thru 4 and 5 speed gearboxes into 6 or even 7 and 8 speed gearboxes that can keep the engine running right at the top of the torque and power curve...so massive low down torque is not as imperative as it was in the past.
people continue to harp on about engine torque and towing......what matters is the total package and how it works.
Now to SUVs.....most of the lighter SUVs like the RAV, Xtrail, CRV and the like are chasing the fuel economy, so they tend to be pretty high geared.
Even lightly loaded you have to give them some hurbs and slip the clutch to get them off the mark.
As far as I know all of them have issues with their clutches.....its common to see RAVs getting new clutches at 50 000 doing nothing but the school and shops run ( we have just sold one at about that).
So as mentioned I would have concerns about any of the light SUVs and towing near capacity.
The concern is not about the power or torque available or the actual ability of the vehicle to tow the load...but more the wear and tear on the transmission.
just some thaughts.
cheers
AnswerID:
536634
Follow Up By: Bigfish - Saturday, Jul 26, 2014 at 16:59
Saturday, Jul 26, 2014 at 16:59
Ford Australia had the 4.1 released here in 1970...about 130hp and 220 torque/lbs..
FollowupID:
820823
Follow Up By: The Bantam - Saturday, Jul 26, 2014 at 22:52
Saturday, Jul 26, 2014 at 22:52
by the 80s and with the aloy head and electronic ignition it did a little bit better than that.
the 3RZ 2.7 litre toyota motor from around 2003 does about 150Hp and around 180ft/lb of torque.
The similar current motor with variable valve timimg does a bit better.
cheers
FollowupID:
820838