An honest answer

If it is a diesel, probably less than you. :)
Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 Motorhome (which, at 6 tonns, uses less than you, even with the boat behind).

mac3,
We have a D-max 3 litre diesel & tow a 2tonne van. most days we get 16L/100K @ 90-95-100kph. tail wind is a bit better. A big head wind we get around 17L/100K. If you knew my other half, you would know not much is left at home.

Gday
Long down hills in angel gear , loads of fun , out of control eeeehaaa with a bit of luck the car will stay in front of the van..not sure what will happen at mac3

Sorry David , totally un called for jocularity

When you are in van you are enclosed not unlike any room at home. Under canvas in any configuration puts at one with nature and you meet so many nice people in this beautiful country of ours.

My Brother in Law would be close to what you want. We recently travelled around Aus with him and his 200 series diesel, 23 foot Van and Tinnie on roof with outboard on the draw bar of the van.

He was averaging 22 to 23 litres/100ks. We weren't travelling fast, probably doing around 85 to 95 kpH depending on the roads.

Me with a smaller 18 foot 6 van, no tinnie and a BT50 got around 14 to 16 Litres/100ks.

You people make me feel better.

We have a 100 series, 2005 4.2TD auto which has a new tare at 2850 and normally sitting around 3300 for a week long trip. Yes; we have a GVM upgrade to 3700Kg. We get around 13Lt/100 on the highway, 15Lt/100 on dirt and 17Lt/100 on easy sand (fraser etc). Last Simpson was 23Lt/100. The CSR towing a T-van was 24Lt/100. That's with 285 tyres and all the camping gear including an RTT to "help" with the aerodynamics. Mostly driving was at around 5 KPH under the limits. Not as adventurous on dirt, sand and especially not in the deserts. The Madigan was mostly at 20 KPH and as expected, we used up a bit extra for those places.

No tinny on the roof though.

Phil

Mac3,
I have to say that your figures for fuel usage are excellent for a v8 petrol.
I use 1/3 more fuel to diesels with a carby 6 80 series.
Keep in mind that petrol engine servicing & parts are far less in cost than diesel.
I would be more than happy with your set up. I'd even ditch the lpg for a long range fuel tank with those figures.
I'm guessing without towing you would have to be getting around the 15-16l/per 100km or even less?
Having said the above, if you decide to sell it for a diesel, make sure you sell privately and ensure you list for top dollar. It will sell fast.



Cheers

G'day,
We have a 2002 V8 petrol 100 series pulling a near 3ton van and average 21-24ltrs per 100.
Cheers.
baz

To join the diesel / petrol debate.

Recently we did a 2 week corner country trip in our diesel Prado 90 with 4 adults. Accompanying us was a 200 petrol with two adults. We had a roof rack, they had nothing up top.

We did 16ltr per 100Km whereas the 200 consumed 27 ltr/100

The 200 is a 4.5 Ltr V8 petrol whereas the 90 is a 3ltr 4 cylinder diesel.
Different engines sizes but the comparison is relevant. The 4 cylinder should be working a lot harder hence use more fuel than normal whereas the 200 should be just cruising along...

The figure quoted here make me feel better about my old 80 series diesel after market turbo.
Normal driving is 12.7 l/100, on a trip towing 1.7t vista crossover we got 17.4 l/100, little difference between off road or highway, more governed by the speed we do. Usually sit on about 95 for best economy.

Hi David, Janet and I just travelled 5000ks over Xmas, Sydney to SA, across to Kangaroo Island and back. We have a roof top tent and the back of the Patrol was fairly well packed including a 65 Kg fridge. Average fuel cost per litre was $1.18 and 12.3 litrers per hundred overall. Not bad for a Patrol GU 4.2TDi weighing in at about 2800kg.
We keep our speed down when no one is behind us so we expect reasonable fuel figures. Now we are a year or so from retirement, we are thinking about a van, with that comes worse fuel consumption, something that is hard to accept after the reasonable fuel figures we get now. When we used our Off Road box trailer when the kids were younger, the fuel figures were around 16.6 Litres per hundred with the trailer adding only 500kg to the load. We can only imaging the fuel premium we will have to pay if we add two tonne with a van, thats if the poor old Patrol can tow it at all. regards, Michael

BTW Sahara what? 100 series, 200 etc Sahara is only a variant but what of?

Hi David,
We had a 200 series TD towing a 2.5 ton off road 18ft van. Averaged between 18 and 22 litres per 100 traveling at around 90 to 95 klms. Sold the 200 series now have 3 litre Dmax same van averages 14 to 16 litres per 100 At the end of the day it uses what it uses I don't worry about it any more, rather enjoy the scenery than looking at the fuel guage.
Regards
Ken

Seeing as how you asked.
I have a 1991 HZJ 75 Landcruiser ute. I guess it is now a HDJ75 since I fitted a Toyota 1HD-FT turbo engine to it. It drags our 22' 2800 kg ATM van around no worries including our recently completed 6 month lap of the block. Without the van we have in years gone by done trips such as the CSR, GRR etc.
I know that with the van in tow and our little tinnie on the roof I can get just shy of 400 k's from the 80 liter auxiliary tank and a bit more from the main 90 liter tank. Without the van or boat I get a bit further.
How many mpg kpl lp/100k's? No idea. Work it out yourselves if at all interested. Personally I have a trip to enjoy rather than calculating my fuel consumption. When one of the tanks is empty I switch over and call into the next servo.

Cheers
Pop

Mac3

Almost all diesel 4x4 towing 2.5 ton will use about16 to 18 l/100 km.

So your consumption figures towing less weight would be about right.

So there is not that much difference .



cheers

Well I thought the subject would have been done to death like 'what is the best tow vehicle' but maybe this had to be said!!
No one is right or wrong just an innocent question thanks everyone.
David and Michele

Rg Colorado, bullbar, racks, fridge, dual batteries, tray loaded with canopy and towing 3 tonne van uses around 15 - 18 lph, wheels are also 50mm oversize so makes it a bit thirstier.

If you want to tow, you need a diesel. Diesel fuel has more energy per litre and diesels produce the high torque needed for towing.
Petrol engines just suck fuel at an exponential rate when they are driven fast or are heavily loaded.

People who own big V8 4WD's don't care about fuel consumption - they regard heavy fuel consumption as just part of the price to pay for high levels of luxury and comfort.

The missus and I took a 3 litre diesel Mercedes dual-wheel luxury motorhome from Perth to Darwin and despite sitting on around 90kmh most of the time, the fuel consumption was 16L/100km for the 5000+km trip. The advertised fuel consumption was 13L/100km.

As a previous poster mentioned, if you haul "X" amount of tonnes around, you will use virtually the same amount of fuel for the same driving style, regardless of the size of engine used - if the total gross weight is the same.

A little engine works hard, a big engine works easy, and the big engine has a longer life.

The only time a major difference appears, is when you compare different fuel types.

The old joke about big petrol engines being unable to pass any servo without stopping, applies just as much as it ever did.

Cheers, Ron.

There has been a lot of detrol vs diesel discussion over the years, and there is no doubt that a diesel will use less fuel. Modern petrol engines are very good. I used to have a NL Pajero riunning on gas & petrol - mainly on gas. I now have a diesel Pajero and absolutely love it, but it is dearer to run and own that the old NL. Yes - it is economical, but until recently diesel was a ridiculous price. I calculated that whileever the price of LPG was less than 60 % of diesel, LPG was cheaper to use. On top of that maintenance is considerably cheaper.

Regarding range, petrol or gas will not go anywhere near diesel. I have managed over 1200 km form the standard (88L) tank of diesel and the fuel light had only just come on. That was on flat country and driving at teh legal speeds (GPS, not the inaccurate speedo). The gas system I had only had 60L useable and I could get 450 km from it under similar circumstances, but gas is much cheaper unless you live where I do (Cooma) and it is a case of BOHICA (Bend Over, Here It COmes Again). Filling in the capital cities is so much cheaper.

We travelled around the block 3 times on gas, and used 2 tanks of petrol on each trip. Where I knew that there was no gas, I used to leave the gas tank full and drive on petrol. I also had a jerry can which I only filled when I was in a scarce area, and used it as soon as possible to minimise hazards. I also had arranged the power to the petrol pump to be isolated when it was on gas. This way, I was able to run to empty or nearly so on petrol and not damage the petrol pump. I was able to get gas in most places, even though it was awfully expensive. In a few places it was cheaper to run on petrol rather than gas. Overall, my NL cost a lot less than the new NW Pajero to run.

Would I ever go back to Petrol? If I lived in a major city and most of my travel was in cheaper areas, yes. Petrol is far nicer to drive with, it is quieter and maintenance is considerably cheaper. On top of that, the cost of a new fuel pump for a diesel is in the thousands, whereas you can get a good Bosch petrol pump for a bit over a hundred, not that I ever needed to buy a new pump anyway. Similarly, injectors costs hundreds for petorl and thousands for diesel. Oil changes use double the quantity of oil. But I live in the country and at this stage have no intention of going to live in a city, so diesel is the choice for me now. Ask me after my diesel system has buggered up and it may be a different story.