WARNING - Mitsubishi Triton

My Hilux Duelcab (1999) has 180 kg stamped on the towbar placard.Hilux Dualcab, 3 litre diesel

What does it really mean?
My 100 series cruiser factory fitted tow bar says 350kg.But is this static loads and not towing capacity.
Wonder what the loading would be under heavy braking and has this been calculated and taken into account when specifing the maximum towing capacity of 3500 kg?
Is this static loading related to the tongue or towbar mounting arrangement or is it some how related to the vehicle?
An expert would be good here.
Richard Quinn

Just aint this a vexing question! For starters I have a 97/75 series L/C with factory towbar stamped "175kg. max ball weight, 1750kg. max towing weight" Vehicle kerb weight 2140kg.,3150kg.gvm Then I also have a L/R 300tdi Disco, also with factory towbar stamped "120kg. max ball weight, handbook says for braked trailer weight max 3500kg. , unbraked 750kg." Vehicle kerb weight 2055kg.,2720gvm., The gvm figure is one you cannot legally exeed and includes towball weight connected at the time (Incidently, the Toyota handbook is very vague on towing, claiming the vehicle is designed as a "passenger and load carrying vehicle" and yet being a multy purpose trayback) This I believe is where we get into the grey area, put simply if you have for instance a trailer, total mass 1000kg (900kg. on axle, 100kg. on ball coupling) by simply extending the distance of the coupling to the axle the downforce at the coupling is proportionately reduced. Its called leverage, (and also the easiest way to accurately measure the ball weight using bathroom scales) And it in no way affects the balance of the trailer (providing it was not tail heavy to start with) Perhaps we could take an example from the old horse drawn dray, balance it correctly and do a few road tests. I tow an "older" poptop, allup weight 1350kg. no towing aids, swaybar etc. with both above vehicles, dead steady at 100kph, no drama solid breaking, and the ball weight as loaded is ... 70kg.!... I can there fore use my vehicle in both a load carrying and towing capacity.
Hope this provides some food for thought! cheers, haze

Wombat, with only 40 Kgs over you could possibly load the van (inside) in such a way as to overcome this set back.
Cheers,
Al.

G'day again Wombat. Well again starters: I bought this van from a bloke who said it was far too heavy for his commodore, and at about 200kg. ball weight too heavy for my L/C too. Front kitchen, pantry, pots'pans, all there plus 2 gas bottles and the spare wheel on the A frame. So first thing is a solid (100x50x2.0) rear wheel carrier(2 spares), next move the water tank back 250mm.,then (a biggerjob this one) move the whole wheel, axle assembly forward 50mm. Last job was to extend the A frame 300mm. (mainly so that the tray of the 75 didn't wipe off the corners of the van in tight situations) We are now getting a better balance, convert that horrible spring base bed to a lift up slat top for storage and the whole caboodle starts to get under control. Also, because where we travel (also because it broke!) I have extended additional A frame members back to the axle region with additional cross members for support. I also did quite a lot of work on the axle/wheel set up as this is now carrying much more weight than when I bought it. (now I have to fix the water pump!!!) cheers haze.

Amazing, how many of you people bag the transport industry for over loading and damaging the roads we drive on, and here we are bagging maufacturers and trying to get more from our vehicles and trialers so that we can carry more gear so we can go camping, its all well and good to put all the extras on our rigs, but bottom line is we still have to follow the rules like the truckies do, how many times have you seen a 4wd grossly overloaded and thought nothing of it, then when hear a trucky go over weight give the industry the full force of our abuse. Travel light and stay safe Col

The other end of the equation is to make sure the rear wheel to towball measurement is a little as possible to reduce the effects of leverage on the rear suspension and sensitivity to wagging the trailer. This also assists keeping the front wheels on the ground (useful!!), and makes reversing a lot easier as the trailer direction is less sensitive. The downside is the trailer takes a slightly shorter "cut" across corners when negotiating things like roundabouts.

MM are a funnty lot, they have buggered around with tow ball weights on lots of their cars.

Now what they are telling you does not sound correct, the Magna with a load distribution hitch, has a higher loading.

I have also found that depending on who you talk to at MM, you will get totally different answers to the same problem. If I recal correctly, the only way you can get the Pajero up to a decent towing weight, is again to use a load distribution hitch. Only two companies in Australia do not recogmend LDH, that being Mercedes Benz and Range Rover. This indicates to me that neither of them understand crap from clay about towing safely.

I would do two things.

Go to the parts man at your local MM dealer, and get him to look up how much tow ball weight on their bar with a LDH.

Then ring Hayman Reece and see what they have to say.

Hope this helps. The answer is not to reduce the towball weight, by playing with the trailer, the tow ball weight should be at least 10% of the gross weight of the trailer.

Regards

Col Tigwell

Well my friend and namesake, let me share with you my thoughts,as a owner of a W114 Mercedes, a good car, but hopeless to tow anything with, but then it was bought for mother.

Having just sold a ML270, with 41,000 Kms on it when it went, I was totally cheesed off with the attitude of MB Aust. This for a person who tows, would have to be one of the best tow cars around, giving fuel consumption, towing a 2400KGS van at 8.5KM per litre, and without the van 16 km oer litre.

The problem with MB, even though their tow bars are made by Hayman Reece, they are to a MB design, and in actual fact you cannot fit the LDH, without the need to drill the shank.

When one contacts MB, their dealers know nothing about towing, and one of their MB servicemen, asked me what is a load distribution hitch.

The letter which came in due course, stated that the ML does not need the LDH, even though every one I know who owned one uses one.

An offer for MB to come and drive the car, towing my old van, with and without the LDH on, was declined as a waste of time.

Now Land Rover may be a good car, but certainly would not be on the top of the list for quality. In actual fact when owned by BMW, a senior BMW person, was asked when was BMW going to badge the car. The response was when they can achieve our quality. Needless to say, up until BMW sold the company, no BMW badges appear.

It is not the perception that the motor car gives, but how it is seen by the owners that matters. It our case we found MB a most difficult company to deal with ( go to your dealer for service publications, and you will be told to nick off). The USA forum on MB, clearly shows the Germanic approach, is a world wide problem.

In the case of the ML's, a good motor car, stuffed by poor and indiferant service.

Regards

Col Tigwell

Easy one for you Peter, get a piece of timber(4x2 or sim.) 100cm. long. Starting 50mm. in, mark it at 30,30,30cm. Find a couple of blocks, bricks etc. so that when the timber is placed across them one end can be supported at the first mark on say a short piece of about 1/2" pipe, the othe end mark similarly supported but in the centre of the scale. The ball coupling of the van is then lowered onto the centre mark. the reading on the scale is 1/2 the ball weight. If this is too much for the scale, the ratio of the marks can be changed (say 20,40cm.) then with the scale at the 40 end the reading will be 1/3 of the ball weight. Once again its levers at work.
I am sorry Herkman, but you are quite AOH with your reckoning. Ball weight is ball weight and no amount of juggling is going to make it dissappear. All the LDH is going to do is create a lever which will, through the structure of the vehicle, shift the load to the the front wheels. I can quite understand MB and R/Rover not wanting their vehicles treated this way! I also wonder just how many put their TOW vehicle over the scales, fully loaded with the (also loaded) van hooked up. The result could be quite surprising

My Challenger has a max towing weight 2270kg and max down weight at 150kg.

Easter fun down Nannup!!