New tow vehicle

Hi Barry

We bought the GM equivalent, the Colorado, dual cab ute with ARB canopy. Can't say about dust as it has been wet over here, no water in ute though.

Don't know about the fuel consumption (man) as we did not bother to check during recent school hols trip towing 1 tonne CT.

I can say though any calculation would be suspect as speedo accuracy as checked by GPS was reading 7Km/hr fast at 100Km/hr (in tolerance says Stealer who has been very helpful except for speedo accuracy)

So check your speedo before passing judgement on consumption.

regards David

PS Towed trailer with ease, love it. (Mum's taxi, as I still have the 60 series 2H)

This Isuzu with a 3Lt Turbo Diesel is here at Mt Bundy, the Van weighs 2.9 Tonne, the weight on the turn-table is around 440Kg, the owner is happy with it's performance.

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Hi Barry

We are back in Mareeba after 2 weeks to the cape via Weipa. We have a DMax Auto dual cab ute with a ARB canopy and yes plenty of dust but no water ingress, I think that Clark Rubber has something that will help seal around the tailgate which would help, as for Fuel economy we tow a 2.5 tonne van and 14.5 litres/100k seems to be the norm and 9.5 litres/100k without the van. The cape run showed 10.5 litres/100k with the tyres at 25psi. Overall seems pretty good after 27000 ks.

Cheers Pete

5.The Mazda BT50 is a manual 4X4 with 3000 kg GTM towing capacity. GTM (Gross Trailer Mass) is the maximum allowable weight being towed (on the trailer's wheels) and does not include the king pin weight on the back of the ute. The Ultima above has a total empty weight of approx 2800 kg made up of an axle weight of approximately 2300 kg and a king pin weight of 500 kg. If you were just considering the towing capacity of the BT50 it would allow the Ultima to have approx 700 kg of payload (almost twice the payload of most caravans - most tandem axle caravans have a payload of up to 400 kg).

There are other factors to be considered such as the king pin weight (in this case 500 kg) in the back of the pickup. The payload of this BT50 is over 1000 kg so it is not a problem. The GCM of this BT50 is 5500 kg. The empty weight for this BT50 is approx 1800 kg and approx 2800 kg for the Ultima or total of 4600 kg. This leaves a combined payload of approx 900 kg, also not a problem.

It is often misunderstood that in many cases the trailer towing capacity advertised for vehicles of this type is not the total loaded weight of the trailer (ATM - Aggregate Trailer Mass) rather it is actually the GTM. It makes little difference to a caravan because they often have only 100 kg or less of tow ball weight with the balance on the trailer's wheels. However it makes a big difference to a 5th wheel with 15% - 20% on its king pin.