Thread: defender 2.2 towing

I get 10.5 with mine normally. I have a shell card and it gives me a read out on each statement. I don't rush my defender and drive only on torque so I very rarely go over 2200 rpm. a mate has one and he can't get below 11.

the puma is almost as good as the td5 on fuel.

Our Puma does around 10 - 10.5 unladen and 13/100 when pulling the van which loaded with the Cooks cooking/cleaning gear probably weighs 1.75t.
Tows it better than the 3ltr Prado did and I put that down to a better spread of gears.
AlanH.

Thanks for the clarification Beefy. You do drive slowly and keeping it below 2200rpm must cause you to hold up traffic a lot.

If I drive at that sort of rate then I return 11l/100km. Usual driving to keep up with traffic and general mix of highway and 60 zones gives me 11.9/100.

Driving the same way as I usually do my old TD5 would give me 9.5l/100.

Originally Posted by quaddrive

All I can say is the importance of correct ball height is critical.

I have a mate that had a navara that 'towed the boat terribly'.

We weighed the ball load one day and looked at a neutral position for the trailer, I got him an adjustable hitch to lower the ball and the towing was transformed.

My defender with the standard 50mm step down reese hitch was terrible to tow one particular work trailer(my car is lifted and has 255/85 tyres)
Added a 150mm dropped hitch and perfect... dont even know the trailer is there now.

Think of it like this. Towing a tandem trailer with a hitch too high or low makes the front or rear trailer axle wheels light or off the ground, this increases ball load and pitching and also promotes sway in the trailer.

Cheers

if you can not adjust the ball height, similar can be achieved with weight distribution on the trailer. Sometimes you cant do that either....

Saying a hilux tows crap and a 90 excellent can be missleading when there are so many variables. Im sure the toyota could have been set up better for that given trailer.

Power is power and only helps accerlation and speed.

Wheelbase, COG, weight (total, front/rear) distance from tow ball to rear axle, etc all affect the perfromance of the tow vehicle.

I don't drive slow I keep up with the traffic. and driving it well helps. my td5 has 460k never had the head off and nothing but a starter and radiator. and the radiator was my fault.

ive never driven a td5 or Tdci, but I feel that if I changed from 3rd to 4th at only 2200 rpm while towing in my 2.8tgv (Tdi), that it would bog down so bad I would be forced to drop back to 3rd. I guess that is one of the positives of modern technology.

Hi Uninformed,

I have had both and you are correct. The TDCi is better but towing anything over 1 tonne and on anything other than flat roads changes at or around the 2000rmp mark lead to only one thing.... loss of speed and bogging down and then a down change again. The cubic capacity is not there and the boost on the turbo is not either.

I have had both motors and the on the TD5 after 70000km I had it chipped and other bits done an then it would hold 3t uphill easy without the need to change that was driven hard and had no issues at all and was sold at 300k to make way for the 110.

Thanks Beefy
The traffic must be mighty slow armadale way Beefy as driving anywhere north of the river the TDCi is no where near brisk and to keep up with traffic needs more speed than your style would offer

Cheers

Giles