4 cylinder car and caravan
Submitted: Saturday, Jan 30, 2010 at 18:39
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cranswick
l have a 4 cylinder 2003 Toyota camery altise, l think the tow weight max is 1,200 kg. l am thinking of getting a small caravan to fit 2 people. Some people l have spoken to said l should upgrade to a 6 cylinder car as even a light weight caravan would put too much strain on the engine, others have said its OK to buy a caravan as long as its under a certain
Taree weight.
What should l do? upgrade to a 6 cylinder car or buy a low
taree weight caravan, if l do what would be the maximum
taree weight and would it be difficult to tow on a 4 cylinder car or strain the engine.
Reply By: Rangiephil - Saturday, Jan 30, 2010 at 19:04
Saturday, Jan 30, 2010 at 19:04
Anthing is possible but think about the windage of any van as
well.
A 30Kmh or so headwind would slow you down a LOT and the poor little engine would be working hard.
If it is a manual think about
hill starting and clutches and if auto the oil temp.
I think an upgrade would serve you
well but it would not be impossible with the Camry, but you would have to ensure the motor is in good condition and maybe fit an additional auto cooler if it is auto. Thousand of Europeans tow with 4 cylinders!!!!
Regards Philip A.
AnswerID:
401770
Reply By: brizmatt - Saturday, Jan 30, 2010 at 19:07
Saturday, Jan 30, 2010 at 19:07
Cranswick,
Towed a Jayco Finch for a couple of years with a 93 4 cyl, manual Camry wagon. No issues at all with motor and transmission towing. Never run hot, drove to NQ from Bris a couple of summers, including driving up the range. Motor and transmission always felt strong. The issue is that was hopeless on dirt roads and always felt precarious in the wet with the front wheel drive. I even got stuck going up a
hill in the dirt as run out of traction and had to back down 1.5 ks!!
So not ideal but doable. Like everthing else in life, a compromise and essential to use a WDH.
Cheers
MattD
AnswerID:
401772
Reply By: Member - Don M (NSW) - Saturday, Jan 30, 2010 at 22:04
Saturday, Jan 30, 2010 at 22:04
It has nothing to do with the number of cylinders , be it 3,4,5,6 or 8, it has to do with the power and torque, at revs, which need to be examined to decide whether you can tow a particular van or not.
If the van has an ATM below that of your vehicle capacity then you can legally tow it, but I would allow 100-200kg under your vehicle limits for safety.
But frankly, if you get a van with an ATM of around 1000kg to 1200kg, you won't have a problem. Forget the number of cylinders and remember, a lot of the bigger 4WD's have 4 cylinder diesels; eg: Pajero, Prado, and,
heaven forbid...the legendary Nissan Patrol and they can tow between 2500kg and 3000kg.
AnswerID:
401816
Follow Up By: cranswick - Saturday, Jan 30, 2010 at 22:14
Saturday, Jan 30, 2010 at 22:14
l don't think l have ever seen a toyota camty towing a caravan so l don't
think it woukld be powerful enough, l'm thinking of Getting a second hand Ford Falcoln and use that to tow the van when l buy one. is that a good towing car?
FollowupID:
671217
Follow Up By: Member - Don M (NSW) - Sunday, Jan 31, 2010 at 07:48
Sunday, Jan 31, 2010 at 07:48
Like I said, it has NOTHING to do with the number of cylinders, it has to do with the power produced and the Camry has a 4 cyl. 2.4 litre engine that develops nearly 120kw and 220Nm and that is more than adequate.
But yes, the Falcon will do it better but nothing in it if you are getting a 12' van.
FollowupID:
671260
Follow Up By: Member - ross m (WA) - Monday, Feb 01, 2010 at 12:12
Monday, Feb 01, 2010 at 12:12
You only have to look around to see all the 4 cyl utes that tow heavy trailers all day to see what a 4 cyl can do.
A modern camry engine has much more power than an old holden red motor and look what they towed in their day.
However I would much rather have a rear wheel drive vehicle for towing
FollowupID:
671475
Reply By: disco driver - Saturday, Jan 30, 2010 at 22:34
Saturday, Jan 30, 2010 at 22:34
Cranswick,
What ever way you decide to go, ie change your tow vehicle or keep the Camry, make sure that the weight limits of the vehicle, the caravan and the combination are all within the limits set by the vehicle manufacturer.
Failure to do this will invalidate your insurance should things go pearshaped when towing.
Good Luck with your ideas.
Disco.
AnswerID:
401822
Reply By: Member - Flynnie (NSW) - Saturday, Jan 30, 2010 at 23:30
Saturday, Jan 30, 2010 at 23:30
Cranswick
The 2003 Camry is a fair sized car. Larger, heavier and more powerful than 6 cylinder cars of not long ago. It is big enough. A caravan will not strain the engine. As another has responded fitting a transmission cooler would be wise. This applies to all automatics not just Camrys.
The issues are more to do with traction. A front wheel drive is not ideal for towing. It will do it
well enough though. I would not use it to launch a heavy boat on a step
boat ramp. :) On bitumen roads or flat dirt roads it should do the job. Steep dirt roads - maybe not.
I would try it and see how it goes. You can always get a different car later.
Re the Falcon, they are not an ideal tow vehicle either. Then again nothing is.
Flynnie
AnswerID:
401834
Reply By: sc00by123 - Tuesday, Feb 02, 2010 at 07:28
Tuesday, Feb 02, 2010 at 07:28
We've just come back from a 5720km trip Armidale-
Melbourne-
Adelaide-
Broken Hill-Armidale.
We towed a Jayco Finch with a 2004 2.5lt automatic Subaru Outback. The camper was fairly loaded up and the car occupied two adults and two kids.
Up to around 4000kms the car handled everything perfectly. We were getting 12lt/100km fuel economy which I think is outstanding. Mostly we sat on 90-105km/h.
However we were in
Adelaide during the 43 degree days. We had to leave because of the heat. Driving from
Adelaide to
Broken Hill and then
Broken Hill to
Cobar was a little concerning. Outside temp was 45 degrees, there was a strong cross wind and the sun was booming down on to the bonnet.
The Subaru didn't want to know about 4th gear. Couldn't get it in there at all. This caused a big problem with fuel consumption. We really chewed through the juice.
My mechanic mate, reckons it the computer is probably designed to do what it did, so as not to put too much load on the transmission when everything is running hot. Either way, at the time I was concerned the transmission might fail.
I think a diesel or a more powerful car would of handled the extreme conditions much better.
Bare in mind, these were very extreme conditions and apart from than that we could not of been happier with the Subaru.
AnswerID:
402203