Towing Jayco camper Trailer with 2008 Subaru Forester

Just a quick post for a point of reference for others who are interested in knowing how the Forester tows.

My Forester is a 2008 (My 2009) XS Premiumwith a stock standard 50mm (2") towbar supplied by Subaru. Its stock standard with no load levelling hitches or anti sway bars fitted. Of course, I had an electric brake controller fitted to the car.

Just did our first trip with our new Jayco Dove camper (offroad model they say approx 1000kg fully loaded - no didn't get it weighed) from Sydney to the Central Coast of NSW.

Averaged 12 litres/100km (12.40 and 11.80). I drove it using the sequential shift so that I could control which gear the car stayed in on the hills and overtaking. I tried not to rev it past about 4500 rpm seeing that this was my first trip towing the camper. For a point of reference I normally average 8.2 litres/100 km on the freeway and about 10.20 litres/100km around town.

For those of you who know the road to the central coast I managed no less than 90kmh at the top of mooney mooney hill heading north and 100-110kmh on the hill up from the hawkesbury river heading back to the city.

Got caught behind some trucks on the hill out of the hawkesbury heading north and mooney mooney heading south so don't know the speeds I could have achieved. I hope I learn to judge the traffic a bit better when I get a bit more practise so that I don't get caught behind slowing moving trucks. Bit difficult when you have some eejits in the middle and fast lanes doing 100 and not 110kmh as per the limit.

Everything I've read on the subaru and jayco sires indicate that I'm towing well within the limits of the forester but I must admit that I couldn't find any real info on the web for my situation, hence my post.

I didn't feel that the car and van were effected by passing trucks and yes most of them did pass me (within speed limit of course ;-)l

Besides that, we had a great trip.