Tuesday, Jun 07, 2011 at 17:46
Hi Chris,
The Montana Cooper that we have is designed by Paul from Adventure and is raised on a 6' chassis with 15'wheels and has Simplicity independent
suspension.
It has 3 water tanks, one dedicated to
drinking water which is also filtered. Since purchasing it I have modified the coupling by replacing the 50mm ball hitch with a 3.5 tonne McHitch off road coupling (fully articulated). This was to raise the coupling to better match the rear of my vehicle which requires a height in excess of the legal 460mm above ground. I am extremely happy with the new hitch and the van tows extremely
well on both bitumen and dirt. I will attach a couple of pictures of the new coupling.
The van is setup for 2 people only but other than my mods is as speced by Adventure. I also dispensed with the oven in lieu of a extra pot draw as we rarely use an oven when travelling.
I also travel with a 2kVA Honda generator and have stuck with the standard 2 100Ahr batteries and have not added solar.
My tow vehicle is a 2007 WH Jeep Grand Cherokee 3.0 ltr turbo diesel which has a towing capacity of 3.5 tonnes with 317kg on the drawbar. The vehicle is also raised 2" and has had the ECU re-programmed for more power, although that is not necessary as it has 160kw power output and 510Nm of tourque as standard.
The ATM of the van is 2865 Kg and I would be travelling at that especially with 3 full water tanks.
Travelling up to
Darwin from
Brisbane I averaged 16.9 ltrs/100kms, which is exceptionally good given the weight of the van and car which is also over 2 tonnes.
hope this helps with your selection
Cheers
PS Can't attach photos of hitch
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