Towing a trailer with a Subaru

Hi John

don't have first hand experience but... Last year met a bloke at Cape Paterson who was on the final leg(Melb to Sydney) of his round Oz trip. He had towed his 12ft pop top caravan the whole way. I'm certain he was in a liberty and it was definately an auto(he prefered manual but his wife could only drive an auto). He couldn't speak highly enough of the vehicle, was his retirement gift to him & his missus. I guess you just have to be mindful of the vehicles capabilities and drive accordingly.
Blue

John there's a guy on the campertrailer forum who has a forester and tows a pop up camper, from memory it's a goldstream similar to the Jayco and he said it tows it fine i had a pic of it but for the life of me i can't find it.

Have a look in here at this
and go to the campertrailers forum they should who they are.

Baz.

campertrailers forum

Hi John

OzRoamer are the National Distributors for the Cape York Camper Trailer range.

Our Wedge hard floor CT has a Tow Ball Weight of only 60kgs and a Tare of 770kgs but still offers a full bodied Ct with Queen bed, 130lts water, S/Steel kitchen and Independent trailer arm suspension with Pedders Foam cell shocks, 3300kg rated parallele bearings and 12inch Electric Brakes.

The Wedge has been specifically designed for the Outback, Liberty, Rav4, X-Trail, CRV and similar smaller 4WD and AWD vehicles also your medium 2WD sedans.

Email me with your contact details and I will forward the recent review completed by Caravan World for the Camper Trailer Guide and the Trailer spec's.

paul@ozroamer.com.au

oh

John my father owned 3 liberties all good towing vehicles as long as you respect their capacities. he felt the best one for towing that he owned was with pump up shocks about 93 model if i remember right. All vehicles done 200k before they were sold . hope this helps.
Trevor.

Our second car is a Forester 2.5 auto. We did a trip to Kangaroo Island from Melbourne two christmas's ago and the car was fully loaded with camping gear for 3, but we did not tow. We have an oil cooler fitted.

The load causes the rear to sag a lot and this then scubs rear tyres on the inside due to the independent suspension not up to the job. I can not recommend them for a lot of load carrying. The engine and gearbox might be upto it, but other bits appear not.

After talking to the dealer, funny tyre wear is a common trait for subaru's.

For occasional use you might be ok, but our forester is now definitely just a city run around and the old diesel disco (which is much noiser and slower) is used for all trips, even on the biti.

John D

Folks

Thanks very much for your advice and pointing me in the right direction. I'll certainly do a bit more research but sounds like a trailer might be the way to go.

Out of interest I recently hired a roof carrier (Thule) to carry gear, which worked well. While I normally have enough space to carry camping gear in the Subi the big advantage of the roof carrier is that I can carry all this gear safely and without obscuring rear vision. Big disadvantage however is that you still have a lot of packing to do before you leave home and then constant unpacking and packing to do during the trip which can be a real pain, particularly if touring. Hopefully with a trailer all the gear can be stored in the unit ready to go and I'll be able to minimise time spent unpacking and packing and more time relaxing. I'll either look at a lighweight CT or a kitted out trailer (kitchen, water tank, fridge etc).

happy camping
cheers
John

Firstly - my response to trailers is that they are like boat anchors and will do the same as a anchor !!

But if you have more than 2 people in the car they are sometimes necessary. If you go for a trailer make sure it is as light as possible - I think Cub are good in this respect.

In respect to the cars suspension - if it has self leveling suspension it is bound to fail - they don't like being abused.
The comment in regard to tyre wear - all my Subarus have done about 70 000kms on a set of tyres?

So if a trailer is the only answer for you - go for it - just treat the car and its extra weight with respect and you will be fine