GORV - Digital Magazine Issue #31 | Page 20

THE WORST OFFENDERS THERE ARE MANY VEHICLES WITH UNREALISTIC GCMS – THESE ARE AMONG THE WORST. LAND CRUISER VX 200 SERIES The Land Cruiser VX 200 Series has a 610kg payload. If you tow a 3500kg caravan with 350kg towball download, you’ve got just 260kg of payload left. If a lean couple are towing, with let’s say a 140kg combined weight, they have just 120kg for payload to play with. If the Land Cruiser in question has common accessories fitted, such as a steel bullbar, you can bet it would be overweight when towing 3500kg. FORD RANGER/MAZDA BT-50 The Ford Ranger and Mazda BT-50 both have a GVM of 3200kg. If your Ranger or BT-50 was loaded up to GVM and you were to try to tow a 3500kg caravan, you would exceed the Ranger’s GCM by 700kg. So their real towing capacity when fully loaded is just 2800kg. The Ranger is not by any means the only ute with a less-than-stellar tow capacity when fully loaded – except for the Cruiser, none can tow much more than 3000kg at GVM. 20 \