How well does your V8 Disco tow?

**Utemad** · 6th December 2009, 06:42 PM

The biggest problem with Cunningham's Gap is that it has some very tight turns on the way up that you have to slow down for in a Disco and towing. Once you've slowed for the corner you have stuff all chance of accelerating up the next super steep section whether you are towing or not.

The first trip away I went on with our 4wd club I remember being told that one of the Patrol drivers had to put it in low range to get up the last section with his van. I think it was a 2.8 TD but I don't know what sort of van he had.

When towing my camper with my Disco1 V8 I switch to petrol in the hilly bits and LPG on the flat bits. However given that it isn't very often in the grand scheme of things I have just run on petrol the whole time when towing on the last few trips.

Still the Disco V8 isn't a great towing machine but it does get the job done in the end.

**rovercare** · 6th December 2009, 07:22 PM

Originally Posted by V8Ian

I would hope so, it would take a first class goose to attempt driving any vehicle up or down the Gap at that speed. In my opinion 130 kph is too fast to tow a trailer anywhere.

Towing can be fun

I've had to use my centre diff lock twice to live

First time I had an old Fordson tractor on a heavy ass car trailer, slasher, water filled tyres and all (the poor 4.4 used a tank of gas to do 60km's and wouldn't go over 50km/hr

) so it was heavy, coming into an intersection in the floggin rain and locked the fronts with no hope of pulling up, had to pull in the diff lock to stop

The other time I had the old mans Kubota on my car trailer on the back of the 120", pulled up at a T intersection on a steep ass hill and started sliding back with the fronts locked, was a little scary....the hill was obviously steep although it was asphalt

Both times quick engagement of the centre diff lock saved my rectum

**V8Ian** · 6th December 2009, 07:26 PM

Originally Posted by rovercare

Towing can be fun

I've had to use my centre diff lock twice to live

First time I had an old Fordson tractor on a heavy ass car trailer, slasher, water filled tyres and all (the poor 4.4 used a tank of gas to do 60km's and wouldn't go over 50km/hr

) so it was heavy, coming into an intersection in the floggin rain and locked the fronts with no hope of pulling up, had to pull in the diff lock to stop

The other time I had the old mans Kubota on my car trailer on the back of the 120", pulled up at a T intersection on a steep ass hill and started sliding back with the fronts locked, was a little scary....the hill was obviously steep although it was asphalt

Both times quick engagement of the centre diff lock saved my rectum

With about 7,000,000km under my belt I had a few seat pinching moments too.

**rovercare** · 6th December 2009, 07:28 PM

Originally Posted by V8Ian

With about 7,000,000km under my belt I had a few seat pinching moments too.

Share?

**V8Ian** · 6th December 2009, 07:36 PM

Originally Posted by rovercare

Share?

And get myself locked up?

There was one time a transport authority pulled me up and pinged me for not filling out my log book for a week. I was grossing 100 ton.......................with one trailer. He was happy with the easy mark, as was I.

**ozscott** · 13th December 2009, 02:12 PM

There is a post above of a bloke with a D2 4.0 5 speed manual having problems with the Dingo. I have towed a dingo and all the fittings on a dual axle trailer with mine and it towed very well...lighter of course than my 21 foot Seafarer Vagabond on its dual axle trailer. I can only assume that he had a problem there - bad MAF can cause poor power but otherwise virtually no symptoms to alert the owner. I regularly tow 2 tonn - long trips and never have a drama. I towed 2.5 tonn with a vehicle that was FULLY laden up Cunnigham's gap range with a MAF that was iffy and it was no dramas with 3rd most of the way up (on 31 inch tyres) and it easily kept up with an Issuzi rodeo turbo diesel with a much lighter load (17' ski boat) - that vehicle regularly serviced and a lot less ks than mine....the lack of throttle response in the above post for the dingo owner smacks of bad MAF too....oh...I was running it up the range on LPG - old fashioned mixer but lambda controlled converter idle and main tap.

Now, having said all of that, 4 litres isnt much when your talking 2 tonns plus, so for regular towing of that sort of load I would chose a few more cubes for sure. But, the 4 litre is still a nice tow vehicle particularly in manual form.

Having said all of that I am prepared to try a TD next time around as they have come so far, but whether it would be Mitsubishi or LR I really dont know...and I would really miss the smoothness, sound and power in the upper revs of my V8...

Cheers

**nsgnomad** · 22nd February 2010, 07:00 PM

I have recently completed a similar trip to the one that prompted my original enquiry, towing the same caravan of nearly 2 tonnes. However this time with no other alterations to the vehicle than the timing advanced a few degrees, I found towing quite a bit better. This was due to a different approach to the hills.
Following the advice of many of you, I kicked down to a lower gear early to keep the revs up (and therefore the speed up too). Keeping the revs up to above 2700 and if necessary changing down to second manually, there were only a couple of instances that I dropped below 60 kph.
Just goes to show that your advice has been good and while the D1 V8 mightn't be the fastest of tow vehicles, it still gets the job done if you handle it right.

For the record for those who are interested, for a distance of some 6700km the average fuel consumption (LPG) while towing the van and a kayak on the roof of the D1, was 27.4 l/100km. (incidently the kayak actually improved consumption when I compared it with last years trip.)

Roger

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