Hello,
First of all, not sure if this is under Travel or Sports & Outdoors. Please excuse me.
I've got a 2007 Tarago that is rated 1600kgs braked towing capacity. Can I use it to tow a caravan? Has anyone experienced it? I've Googled but not much is mentioned for this vehicle. I asked my personal mechanic and he said he doesn't have much experience thus "not recommended", so, can some shed some light?
Thanks!
6 cylinders, thanks.
Van weight?
It can tow anything that is <1600kg and has brakes.
sounds logical enough I thought
There'll also be a ball weight that needs to be observed and generally is the most important spec.
10 second google search will yield you some info to answer your question. e.g. https://www.racq.com.au/cars-and-driving/driving/towing/trai…
In essence the Aggregated Trailer Mass (which is the weight of the trailer plus it's carrying capacity) shouldn't exceed your towing capacity, also factoring in your trailer ball load (the weight of the hitch on your tow ball). All this info should be available from a.) the placard attached to your tow hitch or on the door jamb of the driver's door (sticker) and b.) the caravan manufacturer (placard attached to draw bar of caravan). With a 1,600kg braked towing capacity it will be a very small/light caravan, alternatively you should be able to tow a mid range camper trailer. Bear in mind you may need to an electronic break controller fitted to your vehicle if the caravan does not have mechanical brakes.
electronic break controller
*brake
You might be able to tow 1600 (fairly small caravan), but you’ll need to be careful about the GCM.
GCM is Gross Combined Mass of vehicle plus trailer plus all luggage, passengers and fuel etc. Often at the max towed weight, the GCM is such that you cannot have much cargo (or passengers) in the vehicle. Eg if you want 7 people, a full tank of fuel and a bit of luggage in the Tarago, you’ll already have over 500kg of your GCM used up. That might end up reducing the amount you can tow legally by a couple of hundred kg.
Also you must not exceed the max tow ball weight of 160Kg for your vehicle. Having just recently cut a family out of a flipped car and van I urge you to be conservative in your calculations.
As an example my ute has a 3500Kg rated towing setup. I have an electronic brake controller, the vehicle is immaculately maintained and has anti trailer sway electronics. I am an experienced heavy vehicle driver (regularly drive a Cat 1 fire truck for RFS and a 16T GVM rescue truck for the SES) and I would consider towing anything above 2500Kg over any substantial distance a risky proposition and not a very good time.
Was looking for some specs on GCM and couldn’t find any, but did find this towbar that is only rated to 1200 tow and 120kg ball weight. Best check that too
FWIW we just sold a compact expander type caravan which had an ATM of 1500kg.
We have a 2009 hybrid tarago and tow a 1500kg gross caravan weight including luggage etc. Tho u will need to be careful to get a heavy duty tow bar rated to 1600kg and 160kg tow ball weight. This can be very difficult to find. Fast fit tow bars in Sydney did ours for me and I would definitely recommend them. Feel free to give me a call if you want to discuss further. It's difficult finding information. We have also just upgraded our shock absorbers which may have been original and put air bags (recommended to us by caravan experts at Rvgo) in the suspension so that it flattens out the ride of the vehicle. Braking and handling can be significantly affected by having so much weight at the rear and on the tow ball. Upgrade was around $4k from Pedders Suspension at Mascot. I would also recommend them. You may not need to do all that tho would recommend installing the airbags in the suspension, would be much cheaper. I just wanted to be extra safe and think we will have this car for a while yet, having only brought it earlier this year.
Can you, probably, should you, probably not.
How much does the caravan weigh? 4 or 6 cylinder Tarago?