towing offroad caravan

I don't know if I am reading your reply correctly or not.

If the towing capability of his vehicle is 3000Kg and the van weighs 2000Kg empty, are you seriously indicating he is going to load it up with nearly 1000Kg of "water, food, clothing, all the fishing gear" etc etc. If I have misread it, please tell me.

I am of the opinion that if the vehicle has the towing capability, good Kw and Nm and it is not asked to perform beyond its capabilitys, then it is OK.

The vehicle in question depending on engine type, has either 198Kw and 385Nm of torque for the petrol or 128Kw and 403Nm of torque for the turbo diesel, so the engines would appear to have the stuff to do the job and at 3000Kg towing capability, I would say it is more than capable of doing the job.

I could not imagine anyone loading anymore than 500Kg into thier van and that would include all personal effects, water at 1Kg per litre, gas, tools, cooking equipment, food etc etc.

If my estimate is anywhere near right, then he would have about 500Kg to spare.

Am interested to hear others opinions as I have ordered a new van that will come in at 1750Kg dry and although I have a capable vehicle, it is only rated at 2500Kg towing capability, so this subject at the moment is very interesting to me.

I may be totally wrong here, I dont know, but if so, I am sure I will be told.

Guess its all a learning curve.

Read the original post - it's a 2003 Pathfinder (3.3L petrol only). IIRC it had a maximum towing capacity of 2500kg. As long as Andrew is happy with the Pathy and keeps within the limits he shouldn't need a new vehicle.

Stephen.

Cruiser, i'm one of these dumb folk who like to look at the big picture. You may be fair on your estimate of weights, but with limited info, and the fact as stated.......going around oz for a year........i can only go on my experience, and that is that the pathy, altho a capable vehicle, will not be up to the task asked of it as far as i am concerned. If i have read correctly and the van is 2000kg dry, then add your 500kg, and another 2 or 3 hundred for extras, souveniers, pets?, kids?,any thing else, and suddenly you are up at the top end of the weight limit...........not a real good place to be for a year is it?
Concideration has got to go to other road users as well,,,,imagine cunningham gap behind this rig, or the Adelaide hills, even the Gold Coast hinterland.
Take into concideration as well, that the more weight in the tow car, the lower the towball figure has to be, its real easy to out do your GVM,,,just ask a few who shall remain nameless on this forum....lol.
Its to easy to hit the maximum weights nowadays and not even realise it, better to rethink the whole game plan and attack it from another angle as far as i am concerned. That lead me to my conclusion of another tow vehicle, or a smaller/lighter van..

meow.

rick.

I must admit that I did not read the original post correctly and assumed it was the current model Pathfinder, mainly because of Doggy Teases opening sentence "Andrew, just had a look at the spec for the current model Pathfinder and 3000kg is the limit for it."

The trouble is we don't know what he is going to load into the van or the vehicle, and I can only speak of how I would load things.

I am the minimal type of packer. After 20 years of loading vehicles with excessive camping gear, trailers with excessive gear and never using half of it, I have learnt my lesson.

I do not need all the whistles and bells that some people take, nor do I need to collect souvenier's of every place I have been, because they invariably end up in a cupboard somewhere at home and never get looked at again.

I to am going to do a year around Oz with a similar weighted van, but seriously doubt that I would EVER get anywhere near the weights indicated by Doggy Tease, so I am going to leave it at that because we obviously have different approaches to the same subject.

I agree with Stephen F10, "As long as Andrew is happy with the Pathy and keeps within the limits he shouldn't need a new vehicle."

gda guys thanks for the advice the pathy is rated at 2000kl cap the van is atm 2000 dry weight of 1650 so specs say yes can be done but i dont want to kill the pathy which i really do love. but we allready own the van and cannot change for a lighter one it is offroad and bullet proof i thinking of the future after 1 yr. thanks

The vehical we are looking at to replace pathy if we have to are 2001 prado or 2001 disco any thoghts on these or stick with beloved?? both auto mayby a 3ltr tubo patrol. worried about dielsle costs.

Another weight worth considering is the GCM (Gross Combined Mass) which is the total weight of the Pathy and van, all loaded and ready to go. Don't know what the figures are for a 2003 model, but if it were 4500kg, even if the loaded weight of the van was about 2500kg, the loaded car could be no heavier than 2000kg. The newer model as per the link above don't appear to quote a GCM, but depending on the towball weight, suggest a reduction in the weight carried in the car. Of course, none of these figures mean much as they are for a different model. If the the above figures were about correct, then I'd be concerned that there was very little, if any, slack in the figures to give you a bit more of a safety margin.

Surely the handbook would quote a GCM though,

regards

Andrew

gda pathy rated at 4335 gvm 200 kl towball weight as i said in other post van comes in at 1650 dry weight 2000kl atm so pathy just makes it in but yes after towing it around there seems to be no room to move its on the edge. Van lets you know its there at 95 kmh . one thing going for the rig is it stops brilliantly breaks are great and abs still works. I more woried about the trannie and my wife loosing it, while on freeway.

Andrew - if'n you are travelling around Oz for a year and already worrying about diesel costs you will have multiple ulcers by the time you get back. Seriously, the petrol pathy would gulp down copious quantities of petrol lugging 2.5tonnes behind it but you should still return around 15ltrs/100km on either the Disco or the Prado diesels. If you are going to go to seriously remote places good mechanics (or anyone wanting to touch the complexities of modern diesels) can be hard to find...I guess my choice would be a 4.2tdi Patrol or a 4.2 troopy ute for this job. Just my two bobs worth.
Cheers
Pete

Hi Andrew
"worried about dielsle costs" Don't worry, Be Happy!
Continueing on what Patrol22 said, diesel costs, shmoosts, it's the distance (low fuel consumption), towing pulling power & reliablibity you get from diesel that outwieghs petrol.
A good diesel will happily chug along for ever (well nearly for ever, ok, for a bloody long time then).
Also there are certain areas back-country that you can't take petrol vehicles & if you do you end up fuelling with av-gas which is really kind to unleaded petrol motors NOT.

madCrow

PS what you save on the price petrol over diesel, you mega consume in extra litres per 100 k, so you end up consuming mega heaps more petrol & money to pay for it!

Hi to all thanks for advice. i havnt mentiond that pathy has been converted to lpg so thats why i was worried about price of diesle. yes i know pathy will gulp heaps of petrol.. thats why we put it on gas. any thoghts on power with gas over the power with diesle?

Hi again Andrew,
Yes LPG costs less in the cities than petrol & diesel, but put simply your lpg consumption per litre will be greater per 100k than you unleaded petrol, it might be 10 to 15% +/-5% (I'm not up on the stats for your vehicle).
Be aware of the fact that LPG is not fully available every where, there are forum posts which discuss LPG availability around Australia, do a search for those!

Anyway have patience & enjoy your preparations for you up & coming trip around Aussi land!

madCrow

Yeah, me too. VERY SURPRISED.

Trevor.

thanks i will take the whole rig down to the weigh bridge and see what the go is.
Think i will end up buying another fourbie anyway Nissan says pathy will be on the edge without reserve, dont want to kill trannie or motor .