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 \