Pickup towing test: Top 12 trucks compared in tough ute tests to find the best!

CarExpert

This is the one you've been waiting for. This is the most comprehensive ute/bakkie/pickup truck towing test you'll find on YouTube. Paul Maric puts 12 of the best selling pickup trucks against our challenging hill road and our state-of-the-art trailer dyno to see which ute you should be buying!  Thanks to our sponsors Motorserve, who share our passion for cars and can help you with all your car servicing needs. See more here: https://motorserve.com.au/  EVERY ute drag raced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJapGI4JT5M EVERY ute dyno tested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNVkYw0e8-o EVERY ute tested off-road: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6ng66xBRM4  The utes!: - 2023 Ford Ranger Raptor https://www.carexpert.com.au/ford/ranger - 2023 Toyota HiLux Rogue https://www.carexpert.com.au/toyota/hilux - 2023 Ford Ranger Wildtrak V6 https://www.carexpert.com.au/ford/ranger - 2023 RAM 1500 Laramie https://www.carexpert.com.au/ram/1500 - 2023 Chevrolet Silverado LTZ https://www.carexpert.com.au/chevrolet/silverado - 2023 RAM 1500 TRX https://www.carexpert.com.au/ram/1500 - 2023 Mitsubishi Triton GSR https://www.carexpert.com.au/mitsubishi/triton - 2023 Isuzu D-Max LS-U+ https://www.carexpert.com.au/isuzu/d-max - 2023 Mazda BT-50 SP https://www.carexpert.com.au/mazda/bt-50 - 2023 SsangYong Musso XLV https://www.carexpert.com.au/ssangyong/musso - 2023 Jeep Gladiator Rubicon https://www.carexpert.com.au/jeep/gladiator - 2023 GWM Cannon Ute https://www.carexpert.com.au/gwm - 2023 Nissan Navara Pro-4X Warrior https://www.carexpert.com.au/nissan/navara  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Nissan Navara 05:36 Ford Ranger Wildtrak 10:55 GWM Ute Cannon-X 16:12 Toyota HiLux 22:43 Ram 1500 28:14 SsangYong Musson 32:09 Chevrolete Silverado 37:46 Isuzu D-Max 42:42 Jeep Gladiator 48:17 Mitsubishi Triton 53:40 Mazda BT-50 59:37 Ford Ranger Raptor 1:05:11 Summary 1:11:22  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #towing #comparison #ute #bakkie #pickuptruck

Transcript

00:00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. Welcome to Australia's most comprehensive ute test.

00:00:04 Today is all about towing.

00:00:06 We've gathered 12 dual cab utes, which represents pretty much everything

00:00:11 that's on sale on the market today.

00:00:13 You will notice a couple of exceptions.

00:00:14 There's no Amarok here because there's a brand new one launching.

00:00:16 And also the LDB T60, there's a facelift coming.

00:00:19 So just didn't quite align with our test schedule.

00:00:22 But why is this a comprehensive test?

00:00:24 Well, instead of just sticking a trailer on a ute and driving around the city

00:00:28 like most other people do, we're going to be putting them through the ringer

00:00:31 with not only a big trailer, but also a pretty advanced trailer over here as well.

00:00:36 We've shot a stack of other ute content as well with these vehicles, too.

00:00:39 So if you do want to have a look at those other videos,

00:00:41 have a look at the description below.

00:00:42 Make sure you subscribe and press the bell icon

00:00:44 because that'll tell you when those go live.

00:00:46 Now, if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this video,

00:00:48 you can use the time codes on the screen or if you're on YouTube,

00:00:51 you can scroll down and use the chapters below.

00:00:53 But let's get testing.

00:00:55 Now, just quickly before we kick off with the results,

00:01:01 you'll notice I'm dressed a little bit differently.

00:01:03 We reviewed the video and decided, let's add a little bit more detail here

00:01:06 so you understand how our test methodology works

00:01:08 and exactly what some of these devices are.

00:01:11 So first up, the unladen tests.

00:01:13 Each vehicle will be performance tested.

00:01:15 We're going to capture zero to 100 kilometres an hour, 100 kilometres an hour to zero.

00:01:19 And we're also going to look at the fuel economy at 100 kilometres an hour

00:01:23 with cruise control set during one lap of our circa five kilometre bowl.

00:01:27 Then we're going to attach our trailer dyno and do some more testing.

00:01:31 What exactly is a trailer dyno?

00:01:32 Well, that is a very good question.

00:01:34 It may look just like a normal box trailer here,

00:01:36 but it is actually a pretty complex piece of machinery

00:01:39 with a lot of electrical components as well that allows us to do some

00:01:42 more dynamic testing with the ute.

00:01:44 So let me show you what it looks like on the inside.

00:01:46 Think of this trailer as an anchor.

00:01:48 We hook this up to the car, it weighs 1600 kilos

00:01:51 before we even touch any of the controls.

00:01:53 What we're then able to do with the controls is vary the weight of the anchor

00:01:57 that's behind the vehicle, and that allows us to simulate different loads.

00:02:00 In this particular setup here, you can see there's a retarder.

00:02:03 There's also a differential.

00:02:05 And we're able to then communicate with this using a computer inside the car

00:02:09 and vary the load from no load, which is just towing a 1600 kilo trailer

00:02:13 all the way through to 10 kilonewtons of load.

00:02:17 And to put something like that into context, it would be like having

00:02:20 a fully loaded dual cab ute going up the steepest hill you can find,

00:02:25 and it's constantly pulling it back.

00:02:27 So for us, we're going to dial back the load to three kilonewtons

00:02:30 in an automatic load setting, and that's going to simulate a steep incline

00:02:33 that some of these utes are going to fail to overcome.

00:02:36 The automatic load setting allows the dyne to temporarily limit load

00:02:40 when the vehicle changes gears to gradually apply it again.

00:02:43 So it's going to simulate what you will experience driving up a big hill.

00:02:45 With this trailer attached and a three kilonewton load applied,

00:02:49 each vehicle is going to attempt a zero to 100 run.

00:02:52 Some vehicles are going to fail to hit 100 kilometers now with the load active.

00:02:55 So we're also going to measure zero to 90 just in case.

00:02:59 And then we'll note which ones fail to break the barrier

00:03:01 and how long they take to get there.

00:03:03 And then finally, what we're going to do is set the cruise control

00:03:06 at 100 kilometers now with the three kilonewton load

00:03:08 and do a lap of our circular bowl to see how much fuel they use

00:03:12 with this fully loaded at three kilonewtons compared to what they used

00:03:16 when there was no load on the back at all.

00:03:18 So it'll give us some really good numbers

00:03:19 and give us a really good idea of how good the dual cab ute is

00:03:22 at actually towing a loaded trailer.

00:03:24 Now, finally, we're going to attack our hill road.

00:03:28 The hill road is about five kilometers long,

00:03:29 and it includes a varying set of terrains that is representative of country Australia.

00:03:33 We're talking about some bends, some gradual inclines.

00:03:36 We even have a 15% climb that is really going to test

00:03:40 some of the less powerful dual cab utes that we have.

00:03:43 We've got a higher speed section and then a longer descent as well

00:03:46 with a choppy section as well.

00:03:47 So we're going to be using this big old thing over here.

00:03:49 It is a dual axle trailer.

00:03:51 This has been weighed up to exactly 2,500 kilos, including the drawbar.

00:03:55 It's been weighed up with a stack of these things, too.

00:03:57 So this is going to be the limit of the Ranger Raptor

00:04:00 and close to the limit of some of the other utes,

00:04:02 but well within the limits of the bigger utes as well.

00:04:05 So this test really is designed to tell us how the vehicle feels

00:04:08 with something that is typical of a caravan on the back.

00:04:10 We'll also have a look at the reverse camera as well

00:04:13 and how easy it is to back up to the trailer and get everything rigged up.

00:04:17 OK, so we are back in the studio.

00:04:20 I hope you enjoyed that explanation.

00:04:21 It kind of sets up the methodology for our testing.

00:04:24 A couple of caveats that I will point out as well.

00:04:26 Each of the dual cab utes was running stock tyres,

00:04:29 so straight as it would out of the factory.

00:04:31 We're also running our placarded tyre pressures as well.

00:04:34 So that was consistent amongst all the utes.

00:04:36 In terms of fuel economy, it was over one lap of our circular bolt.

00:04:40 Probably need to drive longer to get a representative fuel economy,

00:04:43 but it is a benchmark.

00:04:44 So it means one lap of the bolt in one car

00:04:46 should be the same as one lap of the bolt in another car.

00:04:49 Now, in terms of 100 kilometres an hour, 100 kilometres an hour

00:04:52 may seem like 100 kilometres an hour, but we're not using the speedometer

00:04:56 to determine 100 k's an hour.

00:04:58 We actually have some advanced GPS timing equipment.

00:05:01 So if you do see 100 kilometres an hour on any of the speedometers,

00:05:04 we're not actually using that.

00:05:05 We're using the GPS speed.

00:05:07 And when it hits 100 kilometres an hour on the GPS, as opposed to on the speedo.

00:05:11 And finally, unfortunately, it was raining on and off,

00:05:14 which meant we couldn't use our regular timing road for our performance numbers.

00:05:18 It meant we had to use the circular bolt, and that, of course,

00:05:21 affected some of the timing results.

00:05:22 So the numbers that you see here are going to be a little bit slower

00:05:25 than what we've achieved in the past for some of these dual cab utes.

00:05:28 But because they were all tested in the exact same location,

00:05:30 the deficiencies of that testing location should be the same

00:05:34 across all of the dual cab utes.

00:05:35 We're going to kick things off with the Nissan Navara.

00:05:38 So in terms of the engine, it is a twin turbocharged

00:05:43 four cylinder diesel engine.

00:05:45 So twin turbo should mean that it has plenty of punch

00:05:47 throughout the rev band to get things up and moving.

00:05:49 Has a towing capacity of 3500 kilograms with a brake trailer.

00:05:53 So even though it has that off-road focus,

00:05:56 they've been able to retain that towing capacity, unlike Raptor,

00:05:58 which is down to like 2500 kilos because of all the off-road hardware.

00:06:03 Let's start off with the unladen zero to 100 time.

00:06:06 13.2 seconds.

00:06:09 So did take a little bit of time to get up to speed.

00:06:13 Then in terms of the braking time, this was pretty disappointing.

00:06:16 It took 3.9 seconds and 53.7 metres to stop from 100 k's an hour.

00:06:22 So granted, it was a little bit dab,

00:06:24 but this is the worst performer of the bunch here in terms of stopping distance.

00:06:27 And you've got to keep in mind that when you do fit some of these off-road tyres

00:06:31 to dual cab utes, it really does affect their stopping performance.

00:06:34 There's almost 10 metres difference between the best and the worst here,

00:06:38 with the Navara being the worst.

00:06:39 So it is worth keeping all of that in mind.

00:06:42 So let's see how it performed with the dyno trailer attached.

00:06:46 [ENGINE REVVING]

00:07:15 OK, so that was a fairly leisurely 29.8 seconds to get to 90 kilometres an hour.

00:07:23 It couldn't get to the 100 k an hour.

00:07:24 Like, it just didn't have enough punch to break that barrier.

00:07:27 So it is a pretty slow time.

00:07:29 In terms of fuel economy, when it was unladen, 9.4 litres per 100 k's,

00:07:33 which is pretty good, and just over 30 litres per 100 k's when it was laden,

00:07:37 which is a difference of 254%.

00:07:40 So it's a fairly big difference here in this group compared to some of the other

00:07:43 four-cylinder dual cab utes.

00:07:45 Now, in terms of hooking up an actual trailer, the camera itself isn't very good.

00:07:49 It does have a 360 camera, but the clarity isn't quite there.

00:07:52 So you do need to pay a little bit of attention when you are backing in

00:07:55 to connect the trailer up.

00:07:56 So how did it perform on our hill road with the bigger trailer attached?

00:08:00 Well, this is how it all went.

00:08:01 [ENGINE REVVING]

00:08:03 Even here, I'm having to really get stuck into it for some of these uphill sections.

00:08:08 There it is, we're in tow mode now.

00:08:10 We're keen to see if that makes much of a difference.

00:08:12 So typically with the tow modes, they hold your gears for a little bit longer

00:08:18 just so you can sit within that peak torque band for the purposes of towing.

00:08:23 I'm actually pretty surprised by the ride, actually.

00:08:28 The ride is actually not too bad.

00:08:30 I was expecting this to be kind of all over the place.

00:08:32 This is the softer section of the road,

00:08:35 so I'll reserve judgment until we get to the later part.

00:08:38 [ENGINE REVVING]

00:08:42 The other thing worth noting with a lot of the dual cab utes in this segment,

00:08:45 these can only be driven in two-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive on sealed surfaces.

00:08:50 So when it comes to things like towing, you don't have that added traction

00:08:53 that you would in cars with a permanent four-wheel drive system.

00:08:57 So yeah, you're going to notice that when you are sort of driving on wet or loose surfaces.

00:09:01 And even though you're not meant to use four-wheel drive high range on sealed surfaces,

00:09:05 I would be using that in those situations just because you are afforded that little bit of extra traction

00:09:10 and whatever driveline where it introduces, it is going to be ultimately worth it.

00:09:14 OK, here comes our big hill.

00:09:17 Let's see how it goes in the Navara.

00:09:20 Yeah, I was just a bit worried about how this was going to go

00:09:22 given how much power and torque we have, but I'll just get stuck into it.

00:09:27 Ooh, OK, I've got that flat to the board.

00:09:32 Oh, it is only just increasing pace. Wow. OK.

00:09:37 Yeah, I've literally got that pin to the board.

00:09:39 I think we can make it to the top. Come on, come on.

00:09:46 Right, and we're only towing two and a half tonnes. Wow, OK.

00:09:51 Phew, that was a bit nerve-wracking. Yeah, that did not feel confidence-inspiring at all.

00:09:55 We were like, I was pinned to the board there and just hoping the car would make it up the top.

00:10:00 So yeah, that was interesting.

00:10:02 Finally, our long, steep descent, so target speed will be 60.

00:10:08 Get into a little bit of engine braking here, so we'll drop back to third,

00:10:11 see how that goes, holding that.

00:10:14 Yeah, no dramas, even if I come back to second here.

00:10:17 It sits higher in the rev band, but it's slowing us down nicely,

00:10:20 so third feels pretty good.

00:10:21 So not too bad there by the Navara for that long descent.

00:10:26 The last little section we have here is quite choppy,

00:10:29 so we'll see what that feels like with the trailer on board.

00:10:31 Let's see how this feels like.

00:10:33 It's actually really good.

00:10:35 Yeah, it feels surprisingly good.

00:10:37 So overall, good for the Navara in terms of how it handled and performed

00:10:40 and all that sort of stuff.

00:10:41 But just in terms of performance going up steep hills,

00:10:43 that's probably where this doesn't have the room to be towing three and a half tonnes

00:10:48 confidently with a big load on board.

00:10:50 So it is worth keeping that in mind if you do want to go to the limit,

00:10:54 big, heavily, big, steep hills.

00:10:56 [MUSIC]

00:11:01 Okay, over to the Ford Ranger.

00:11:03 We only have the V6 Ranger here, both the Wildtrak and the Raptor.

00:11:06 We didn't have a four-cylinder available, unfortunately.

00:11:09 But the V6 Ranger in terms of diesel is powered by a three-litre turbocharged V6 diesel.

00:11:14 It has a towing capacity of three and a half tonnes,

00:11:18 so it is probably going to be the best all-rounder in terms of towing capacity

00:11:23 without breaking the budget.

00:11:24 So how did it perform up against a stopwatch?

00:11:27 It clocked 8.9 seconds, 0 to 100.

00:11:31 In terms of stopping distance, it took 3.6 seconds and 46.6 metres to stop from 100 k's an hour,

00:11:37 which is okay but not amazing.

00:11:39 It was about five metres short of something like the D-Max,

00:11:41 so it was a little bit disappointing.

00:11:43 Like I mentioned with the Navara, it was a little bit damp,

00:11:45 so that did affect some of our acceleration and braking results as well.

00:11:49 (ENGINE REVVING)

00:11:54 Okay, so while the Navara couldn't break 100 k's an hour,

00:12:09 the Wildtrak V6 broke 100 k's an hour in 15.9 seconds with the trailer dyno attached.

00:12:15 It then did 0 to 90 kilometres an hour in 12.65 seconds,

00:12:19 so almost in a third of the time that it took the Navara to do the same.

00:12:23 So I thought that was pretty impressive.

00:12:25 Fuel economy, it averaged 9 litres per 100 k's when it was unladen,

00:12:29 and that jumped up to 28.3 litres per 100 k's with the trailer,

00:12:33 an increase of just over 200%.

00:12:35 So I think those numbers are actually pretty healthy there in terms of performance

00:12:38 with the trailer on the back.

00:12:39 It's not chewing through an enormous amount of fuel,

00:12:41 but you are still getting the performance benefits of a V6 diesel instead.

00:12:46 Caravan. So in terms of the reverse camera quality, it is excellent.

00:12:50 So you get a really sharp image.

00:12:51 It's easy to see where you're connecting the trailer to.

00:12:54 You also have a guideline specifically for the trailer, and you can zoom in as well.

00:12:57 So from that point of view, this is all very straightforward to use.

00:13:00 In addition to the camera actually being pretty good,

00:13:03 you also have an integrated brake controller,

00:13:05 and the ability to set the trailer length so that it integrates within the blind spot monitor.

00:13:10 So if the trailer is, you know, three or four metres long,

00:13:12 basically that will be taken into account with a blind spot monitor.

00:13:15 So really great technology there.

00:13:17 But how did it go on the hill road?

00:13:18 Well, this is how it all went down.

00:13:20 Look, this thing is what you want if you're towing.

00:13:26 We're towing two and a half tonnes here.

00:13:28 If you were going to go to three and a half tonnes, this engine would be great

00:13:31 because it feels effortless.

00:13:33 I mean, it's not as punchy as the V8s in the American trucks,

00:13:36 but it feels effortless enough to move this thing around without too many dramas.

00:13:40 And I do love the fact that you have full control over your trailer brakes here as well.

00:13:44 So it has the whole kit and caboodle covered.

00:13:47 Okay, so we are in tow mode now.

00:13:48 Just move that across.

00:13:49 It does feel like it's holding gears a little longer there,

00:13:52 keeping us in that peak torque band.

00:13:54 It's actually really good.

00:13:55 I like when they take this stuff into consideration.

00:13:58 Instead of you having to manage your gears and stuff,

00:14:00 it's actually doing all of that for you, which is great.

00:14:02 So when you do need to rely on the brakes, it'll then put you into an engine braking mode

00:14:08 instead of just pushing everything to the brakes.

00:14:09 I can feel it dive back a gear there.

00:14:11 That's the beauty of a 10-speed auto as well.

00:14:14 You do get that added flexibility,

00:14:16 and you're not just leaving it up to the short set of gears that you actually have.

00:14:20 So, yeah, that is really good.

00:14:22 Okay, so it is time for our steep climb.

00:14:25 The 15.5% grade will get stuck into it.

00:14:29 Here we go.

00:14:32 It is effortless.

00:14:34 It is powering up here without any dramas at all.

00:14:37 Just keeping that in the throttle.

00:14:38 It's holding us nice and high in the rev band.

00:14:42 What a piece of cake.

00:14:43 This is a sensational package.

00:14:46 I don't know.

00:14:48 The big American trucks are great, but this really does feel quite effortless.

00:14:52 Even with this load on the back, it's humming along nicely.

00:14:54 The ride is fantastic.

00:14:56 I'll wait for final judgment at our choppy section up the back,

00:14:59 but even along this stretch of road here where I'm trying to do 80 in each car,

00:15:04 it's sort of cruising along really nicely,

00:15:06 and the trailer isn't dictating what the car does.

00:15:08 So, yeah, really impressed with it so far.

00:15:11 Finally, our descent. Let's see how it goes here.

00:15:17 I know I'm in tow mode at the moment,

00:15:19 but we'll have a look at how this goes with a bit of engine braking with a target speed of 60.

00:15:23 It's worth calling out at this point that there's no paddle shifters,

00:15:26 which I find a little bit annoying.

00:15:27 So you're having to then go down here,

00:15:30 press M to lock it into manual mode,

00:15:32 and then diving back through the gears there for it to activate engine braking.

00:15:37 So third gear there is holding 65, and it's gradually coming down as well.

00:15:42 So that's pretty good, but I do wish there was actually

00:15:46 some kind of paddle shifters here on the steering wheel.

00:15:49 They're not strictly for sporty driving,

00:15:51 and this situation here, I think, can just be a little bit confusing.

00:15:54 Okay, here's our choppy section down the bottom.

00:15:57 Feels really good. It is a little bit bouncy there.

00:16:02 I can feel the trailer lifting the back end of this as we bounce over that stuff,

00:16:06 but it's really not that bad.

00:16:08 Righto, over to China with the GWM Cannon.

00:16:15 This is powered by a turbocharged four-cylinder diesel engine.

00:16:19 This has a reduced towing capacity compared to some of the other dual-cab utes here,

00:16:23 which I think is a sensible idea because in terms of power and torque output,

00:16:26 this is the least of the bunch on paper.

00:16:29 When it did come to our unladen 0-100km/h times,

00:16:33 it took 12.5 seconds, so not exactly super fast,

00:16:38 but not as slow as I thought it was going to be,

00:16:40 given the engine performance that you have under the bonnet there.

00:16:42 And then 100-to-0 took 3.7 seconds and 46.6 metres.

00:16:47 So it stopped it in an identical distance to the Ranger Wildtrak,

00:16:50 and again, it is worth keeping in mind it was very wet when we tested the GWM.

00:16:55 When we hooked it up to our trailer dyno, this is what it looked like when we accelerated.

00:16:59 - You ready? - Yeah.

00:17:01 That's 85.

00:17:28 Slightly better than the bar, let's hit 90.

00:17:31 Adjust.

00:17:33 95.

00:17:43 Come on baby, 96.

00:17:45 We're about to hit 100 on the dyno.

00:17:47 OK, 97.

00:17:49 Alright, we're all out of that.

00:17:54 Try stop.

00:17:56 The numbers there were 0-100, a fail, it didn't actually get there,

00:18:00 but 0-90 took 28.7 seconds, so slightly quicker than the Navara,

00:18:04 which has a little bit more power and torque than the GWM.

00:18:08 Then in addition to that, fuel economy, 10.5 litres per 100km when it was unladen.

00:18:14 That jumped up to 28.6 litres per 100km when the trailer dyno was on the back,

00:18:19 an increase of 172%, so not a terrible result,

00:18:23 but we did have one major issue, and I think this is what led to the fuel economy being so low.

00:18:29 When we set the cruise control at 100km/h for our lap with the trailer attached,

00:18:33 the cruise control was so poorly programmed, it basically went all the way back down to 40km/h.

00:18:40 And it was at that point where I had to take over and just get on the throttle,

00:18:44 so it was basically slowing down constantly.

00:18:46 It didn't bother diving back through the gears to get accelerating again,

00:18:50 so it was like a really poor setup there, and it's hopefully something they address,

00:18:54 because it definitely needs some work if you are towing and you do have cruise control set.

00:18:58 You really want the car to figure out when it needs to drop back a gear instead of you having to intervene.

00:19:03 When it came to the bigger trailer, the reverse camera was actually really good quality,

00:19:07 so it meant hooking up the trailer wasn't too much of a drama.

00:19:10 And this is how it went on our hill road when we attached the big trailer.

00:19:16 So early signs are here with the suspension, and it is pretty bouncy,

00:19:19 so I'll reserve judgment for that until we get to the very end.

00:19:22 One of the things worth noting here as well, in terms of the drive mode,

00:19:26 so this can operate as a two-wheel drive when the car is in Eco mode,

00:19:32 and then it operates as a permanent four-wheel drive the rest of the time.

00:19:36 So I think from that point of view, it's pretty impressive in terms of giving you that versatility.

00:19:41 The problem is that it just doesn't have enough grunt, even just here.

00:19:45 We're not even on the steep section of that hill yet,

00:19:47 and it is sort of struggling to move along here with just 2,500 kilos.

00:19:51 Just a note on the transmission, it actually seems to be coping okay with the trailer.

00:19:55 It must know that there is a load on the car because it's sort of holding gears

00:20:00 and it's dropping down gears as well as it goes,

00:20:02 so it's sort of giving me that confidence behind the wheel that it's taking care of everything.

00:20:06 I'm not having to sort of second-guess what it's doing.

00:20:09 It is a little bit there, but I think that's more a power thing.

00:20:12 There is something to note here that it's got that ZF transmission in it,

00:20:15 so from a transmission point of view, it's pretty good.

00:20:17 It's just not overly punchy.

00:20:19 Okay, here comes our 15% ascent.

00:20:22 We'll see if it will get up here.

00:20:25 I'm going to try and give this just a little bit of a run-up

00:20:27 because I am concerned that we won't actually make it, so I'm stuck into that.

00:20:32 All right, so speed's climbing.

00:20:41 To be honest, it actually feels more confident here than the Navara did.

00:20:47 That is really impressive.

00:20:56 So, look, when push comes to shove, it gets up without any dramas.

00:21:01 I'm genuinely impressed by that.

00:21:02 I thought of all the utes that we have here,

00:21:04 this is probably going to be the one that fails to make it up there,

00:21:07 but it climbed up the steep grade without any problems,

00:21:11 so I'm really impressed with that.

00:21:13 So this is the higher speed section at the back where we do 80.

00:21:16 Yeah, look, it is pretty wallowy.

00:21:20 I think ultimately that's a downside of this ute.

00:21:22 I have mentioned in our previous reviews that it really does feel like it is quite floaty.

00:21:27 I think you could easily fix that with aftermarket suspension,

00:21:30 so if you were going to be towing regularly,

00:21:34 you'd want to go down the path of that suspension

00:21:36 because I'm feeling it sort of bounce around a little bit here,

00:21:38 and this isn't even the choppy section.

00:21:40 We do have a choppier section coming, so we'll see how it fares through that.

00:21:44 Okay, now we've got our descent, so I'm going to try not to use the brakes here.

00:21:47 I'll just use engine braking.

00:21:49 Paddle shifters, which is great.

00:21:51 Some of the more expensive utes don't even have that, including the V6 Ford Ranger,

00:21:55 and you definitely need that stuff for towing.

00:21:58 It's actually doing a nice job there in third, holding 60 k's an hour down our hill.

00:22:02 Okay, and then to wrap up our GWM test, we have our floaty section.

00:22:08 This will kind of test to see what the suspension is like.

00:22:11 Yeah, this confirms what I already knew.

00:22:13 It is very porpoisey and boat-like, so yeah.

00:22:17 Look, overall, GWM, it surprised me.

00:22:19 I thought it was going to do much worse than it did.

00:22:22 It is pretty confident, inspiring when push comes to shove.

00:22:26 Could do with a bit more poke, and ultimately it is just let down by that poke

00:22:30 and the suspension, which you can fix the suspension,

00:22:33 and perhaps you get a bit of an aftermarket tune to give it a bit more punch.

00:22:37 So Toyota Hilux, it's the best-selling dual-cab ute in Australia.

00:22:45 It's also the best-selling vehicle in Australia just in general.

00:22:48 Powered by a 2.8-litre four-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine,

00:22:52 3.5-tonne brake to towing capacity.

00:22:55 When it came to our unladen 0-100 times, it clocked in 11.2 second times,

00:23:00 so good but not amazing.

00:23:03 And stopping distance, this was really impressive actually,

00:23:05 3.2 seconds and 43.2 metres, stopping from 100 k's an hour in the wet.

00:23:11 So I thought that was actually a really decent number there,

00:23:13 and it shows that they have put a bit of effort into braking with the Hilux.

00:23:17 When it came to our trailer dyno, this is what it looked like behind the wheel.

00:23:22 [Engine noise]

00:23:25 That felt like a normal take-off.

00:23:27 But you're flat-footed.

00:23:28 It's struggling.

00:23:30 Once it gets into its torque band, it's not bad, but...

00:23:37 97.

00:23:50 Feels like we're a bit over speed.

00:23:52 So it didn't break 100 k's an hour, but it did break the 90 k an hour mark

00:23:56 in 18.4 seconds, which was pretty reasonable.

00:23:59 On the fuel economy front, it used 10.2 litres per 100 k's when it was unladen.

00:24:04 That jumped up to 29 litres per 100 k's when we had the trailer dyno attached,

00:24:08 with an increase of 184%.

00:24:10 When it came to reversing the Hilux to hook up the trailer,

00:24:13 this was the first of a few utes that actually had an offset camera,

00:24:16 which meant that when you were reversing up,

00:24:18 everything wasn't really in alignment because the camera wasn't at the centre point

00:24:22 of the tray, which is where your tow bar is.

00:24:24 So it was a little bit tricky to get used to.

00:24:26 Camera quality wasn't amazing either, so it made it a little bit tricky

00:24:30 to hook the trailer up.

00:24:31 But it did actually perform pretty well when we went for a drive on the hill road.

00:24:34 This is what happened.

00:24:35 Setting off right away, the steering is quite heavy too.

00:24:40 So this is still a hydraulically-assisted steering rack,

00:24:42 and as a result of that, it feels fairly heavy a lot of the time.

00:24:46 And if you are driving on a winding road or something like that,

00:24:48 it will load up eventually and start feeling a little heavier

00:24:52 to actually operate the vehicle.

00:24:53 On throttle though, both the gearbox and just the engine are really responding nicely.

00:24:57 So when I call for power, it's giving me power,

00:25:00 and I'm getting that torque push in the back.

00:25:02 Yeah, look, it all actually feels pretty good.

00:25:05 I don't really have a great deal of complaints there.

00:25:07 So tuck it in through the hairpin and then see how it goes.

00:25:11 That's interesting.

00:25:14 Under brakes, I'm actually getting the steering pulling to one side.

00:25:18 So we're coming up the hill now, and it's very confident up there.

00:25:23 I'm just going to try and get on the brakes again as we come around this corner.

00:25:27 I hadn't noticed this in any of the other vehicles.

00:25:30 So we've got a wallaby on the road there.

00:25:32 So as I brake...

00:25:34 Oh no, it's OK. There you go. OK.

00:25:37 Get the wallaby out of the way.

00:25:39 See you, buddy.

00:25:40 Once I jump out, you're in deep trouble.

00:25:43 OK, big hill is coming up.

00:25:45 I'm confident Hilux will be fine.

00:25:47 Just like the other diesel utes, or most of the other diesel utes,

00:25:51 you can only run this in two-wheel drive high range on sealed surfaces.

00:25:55 So no four-wheel drive.

00:25:57 Got the throttle buried on that.

00:25:59 And that's gaining speed nicely.

00:26:02 We crack 50 here halfway up.

00:26:05 So, yeah, look, in terms of torque output, 500 newton metres,

00:26:08 I'm pretty sort of comfortable with it.

00:26:10 It is a pretty noisy engine as well.

00:26:11 So you're hearing all of that inside the cabin.

00:26:14 But in terms of confidence climbing terrain,

00:26:18 it's a piece of cake.

00:26:20 And look, you'd expect it to be, again,

00:26:22 rear-to-rear best-selling vehicle in the country.

00:26:25 It really needs to be good at towing.

00:26:26 Crank up the speed a bit to 80 here.

00:26:28 See what it's like in terms of body control.

00:26:30 It's actually...

00:26:33 It's OK. It's not amazing, but it's not terrible.

00:26:37 It is worth keeping in mind with the Rogue,

00:26:39 they've actually completely changed the suspension setup.

00:26:41 So it sits about 140mm wider in terms of the track.

00:26:44 You have dampers outboard of the chassis rails.

00:26:48 Really is quite a comprehensive change.

00:26:50 And on the handling front,

00:26:52 you always had an anti-roll bar at the front,

00:26:54 but now they've added one to the rear too.

00:26:56 So it is a decent enough change to make it handle better.

00:26:59 A little bouncy through this section.

00:27:01 And behind the wheel here with the big trailer on the back,

00:27:04 it actually feels fairly sort of confidence-inspiring.

00:27:07 OK, our descent, no paddle shifters.

00:27:09 So we're going to go manually changing gears here.

00:27:13 Look around the GoPro here.

00:27:15 We'll pop it down to third and just see how that feels.

00:27:18 So what it's doing here in that S mode,

00:27:20 you can see that on the screen up the top there,

00:27:22 it's basically locking it into that gear

00:27:23 so we don't have it running away from us.

00:27:25 Third is OK. I think second is going to be better.

00:27:30 It's not letting me enter second here.

00:27:32 So at about 70 k's an hour,

00:27:35 it is holding steady there,

00:27:37 but it will run away from us at the bottom

00:27:39 when the grade gets a little bit steeper.

00:27:41 I would have loved to be able to go back to second.

00:27:43 There we go. It's letting me go back to second now.

00:27:45 So second is a bit better for braking it down that long hill.

00:27:49 OK, let's pop that back into drive now.

00:27:52 We're approaching our bumpy section.

00:27:54 Let's see how this feels.

00:27:55 Yeah, look, it is a little bit floaty,

00:27:58 but it's not the worst I've experienced.

00:28:01 So, yeah, look.

00:28:03 Toyota Hilux, best-selling vehicle in the country,

00:28:07 and as a tow vehicle, it kind of just does what it says on the box.

00:28:10 Time to get into some V8 territory.

00:28:16 It's actually a hybrid V8 as well.

00:28:17 It is the Ram 1500 Laramie,

00:28:20 so powered by a naturally aspirated petrol V8

00:28:23 with a hybrid assistance system.

00:28:24 And that, of course, comes with a 3.5-tonne brake towing capacity

00:28:27 with a standard tow ball.

00:28:28 When it came to 0-100,

00:28:30 being a naturally aspirated V8,

00:28:32 it didn't mess about 0-100km/h in seven seconds,

00:28:35 so it absolutely hauled.

00:28:36 Stopping distance, also incredibly surprising,

00:28:39 3.3 seconds, 41.8 metres from 100km/h.

00:28:44 I am really, really impressed with that,

00:28:47 and it does show you that despite these things being enormous,

00:28:49 they still actually have some decent road holding

00:28:52 when it comes to stopping and accelerating,

00:28:54 which I reckon is really cool.

00:28:55 Had it go without trailer dying.

00:28:57 This is what happened.

00:28:58 (ENGINE REVVING)

00:29:01 Right-o, so big old V8.

00:29:14 It broke through 100km/h barrier.

00:29:15 11.5 seconds, which is pretty cool.

00:29:18 0-90 took 9.6 seconds,

00:29:20 so it really carried the trailer with it

00:29:22 over that last 10km/h.

00:29:24 Fuel economy, not so great.

00:29:25 11.1 litres per 100km when it was unladen,

00:29:28 which is kind of to be expected

00:29:30 when you look at the size of this thing.

00:29:32 That jumped up to 37.3 litres per 100km,

00:29:35 so you are going to be consuming more fuel

00:29:38 when it comes to towing,

00:29:39 but as you can see here with these numbers,

00:29:41 it is incredibly effortless in comparison,

00:29:44 and that was an increase of 236% for towing.

00:29:47 When it came to hooking our caravan up,

00:29:50 the camera quality was excellent,

00:29:52 so it meant that reversing in

00:29:53 and rigging everything up was great.

00:29:55 Also had an integrated brake controller as well,

00:29:57 which made life really easy.

00:29:59 How did it go on the hill road though,

00:30:01 in terms of the ride with our big trailer attached?

00:30:04 Everything is nice and smooth.

00:30:07 The good thing with these American pickup trucks

00:30:09 is you really don't notice weight behind them,

00:30:11 so we have got 2,500kg in that trailer,

00:30:13 and it is just moving along really nice and smoothly,

00:30:16 and it is absolutely effortless with 2,500kg behind it.

00:30:20 Now let's talk about ride comfort.

00:30:22 It actually doesn't change a great deal,

00:30:24 even with the trailer on the back of it.

00:30:26 It is all still pretty comfortable,

00:30:28 and you can just lay into the throttle.

00:30:29 It is sort of 50% throttle and we are moving away.

00:30:32 You get to hear that awesome sounding V8.

00:30:34 I can also feel the gearbox is actually doing a great job

00:30:36 here at holding gears and making sure

00:30:38 that everything is moving along in unison.

00:30:40 So, yeah, look, really impressed with the 1,500kg so far.

00:30:44 Okay, here comes our real big test,

00:30:47 and that is our steep climb.

00:30:49 So this is a 15% grade,

00:30:51 and this is really going to be a test

00:30:53 of how well these utes can manage a steep climb like this

00:30:57 without sort of slowing down or falling back.

00:31:00 Like I said before, easy peasy here in the V8,

00:31:04 but I suspect when we move down the rakes

00:31:06 to some of the slower utes,

00:31:07 it will definitely struggle a little bit.

00:31:09 But, yeah, this is a walk in the park in the big old V8.

00:31:13 Okay, and our final test before we switch

00:31:18 into the next dual cab ute is our long descent.

00:31:21 This is where we're going to have a chance

00:31:23 to test our, I guess, engine braking functions.

00:31:26 So this is a little easier here

00:31:30 because you actually just have the ability

00:31:34 to just move between gears on the steering wheel in the 1,500kg,

00:31:37 and it's doing a great job there of just holding back our speed.

00:31:40 I'm trying to sort of target 70km/h here,

00:31:42 not going much further than that.

00:31:44 And I also want to aim not using the brakes all that much

00:31:46 because the more brakes we have to use,

00:31:48 the more that trailer is going to get overheated

00:31:50 in terms of its trailer brakes,

00:31:52 and you never know when you're going to need them.

00:31:53 So every chance you can get to slow down

00:31:55 without having to use trailer brakes,

00:31:57 if you do have more descents coming up,

00:31:59 you should take as much as you can.

00:32:02 Okay, from the States over to Korea with the Ssangyong Musso.

00:32:12 So it's powered by a turbocharged four-cylinder diesel engine,

00:32:15 towing capacity of 3,500kg with a brake trailer.

00:32:18 This is the extended wheelbase version as well,

00:32:20 so you have a slightly longer tray compared to the shorter ones.

00:32:24 In terms of 0-100km/h time, it clocked a 12-second acceleration time,

00:32:28 so quicker than the Navara, which is a pretty commendable effort, I reckon.

00:32:31 100-0, 3.6 seconds and 50.6 metres,

00:32:36 so that is an incredibly long stopping distance.

00:32:38 In terms of our trailer, Don, you will notice in some of these shots

00:32:41 that there is an engine light on.

00:32:43 This was an O2 sensor that we're told by Ssangyong

00:32:45 didn't affect its performance, so it is what it is,

00:32:48 and we couldn't get it fixed in time for this test.

00:32:51 This is how it went with our trailer, Don, attached.

00:32:54 (ENGINE ROARING)

00:32:57 80km/h is on the V-Box.

00:33:13 Yeah, did we get 90?

00:33:15 We hit 90.

00:33:18 OK, that's quite good.

00:33:23 So it didn't break through 100km/h, and it took 21.2 seconds to get to 90,

00:33:28 which is actually really interesting because

00:33:30 that is a fairly healthy acceleration time with the load attached.

00:33:34 It was only marginally slower than the Hilux,

00:33:36 despite it being almost a full second slower when it was unladen,

00:33:40 so pretty impressed with that.

00:33:42 On the fuel economy front, it ended up consuming 8.9 litres per 100km

00:33:45 when it was unladen, which is really impressive for a dual-cab ute,

00:33:49 and then when it was laden, that jumped up to just under 30 litres per 100km,

00:33:53 which was an increase of 233%.

00:33:56 Something worth pointing out, though,

00:33:58 this had a similar issue to the Great Wall in terms of the cruise control.

00:34:01 It just wouldn't drop down a gear, so it got to about 70km/h

00:34:04 before it actually picked up the gear below and started accelerating again.

00:34:08 And I just don't know why these dual-cab ute manufacturers

00:34:11 don't actually test this stuff out when they are doing their development

00:34:14 because cruise control is something that a lot of people use,

00:34:16 especially while they're towing,

00:34:18 and if every time you get to a hill it's going to slow down and annoy traffic,

00:34:21 it is just going to annoy everybody around you,

00:34:24 which ultimately creates road rage.

00:34:26 In terms of our bigger towing tests,

00:34:29 the reverse camera quality was excellent,

00:34:31 so it made hooking up the trailer really easy,

00:34:33 but it is worth keeping in mind that with the SsangYong,

00:34:35 you do have to have a weight distribution hitch

00:34:37 when you do get over a certain point,

00:34:39 so we had to fit one of those when we were towing

00:34:41 with our 2,500kg caravan up the hill road.

00:34:47 And usually just here on the throttle,

00:34:49 it actually feels nice and responsive off the line.

00:34:52 This thing is quite big,

00:34:54 so when you look at the size of this compared to other dual-cab utes,

00:34:57 it sort of sits right up there.

00:34:59 You've got plenty of room inside as well,

00:35:01 so it is a big vehicle from that sense.

00:35:03 OK, this steeper section, it's struggling a little bit,

00:35:06 I've had to go full throttle into that.

00:35:08 Wow, OK.

00:35:10 OK, this is going to be interesting on our hill.

00:35:14 We'll see how that goes.

00:35:16 Steering feel is good, and so far the ride is good as well.

00:35:18 It doesn't sort of feel too bad as we mosey on around here.

00:35:22 Here comes our steep climb.

00:35:25 Let's see how it performs through here.

00:35:27 I mentioned before I've got this in power mode.

00:35:29 All that does is sharpen throttle response.

00:35:31 It doesn't actually buy you any extra power, unfortunately,

00:35:34 but let's give this a shot.

00:35:36 I'll get stuck into that.

00:35:38 And I'm flat to the board there.

00:35:43 Oh, it is only just crawling ahead there.

00:35:47 I'm slowly gaining speed.

00:35:50 It's not the end of the world, actually.

00:35:52 It's getting there.

00:35:54 So it is just slowly gaining speed.

00:35:56 We're not going to crack 50km/h up there,

00:35:58 but it didn't feel like it was going to slow down

00:36:01 or go backwards at any point, which is good news.

00:36:03 Check this up to 80km/h. OK, here we go.

00:36:06 What's the ride like?

00:36:08 It's pretty good.

00:36:10 It's actually really comfortable.

00:36:12 This car has an upgraded suspension kit on it,

00:36:15 so that is going to definitely help with ride comfort,

00:36:18 but typically we find with the Musso

00:36:20 that it is a pretty comfortable ute to begin with,

00:36:23 so you don't really have to do a great deal to that to adjust things.

00:36:26 But, yeah, so far, so good.

00:36:28 We'll see what it's like down our hill

00:36:30 and then on the choppy section right at the end.

00:36:32 No paddle shifters here either for our descent.

00:36:34 You've just got this controller

00:36:36 with a little stick on the sort of gear stick here,

00:36:39 so a bit of an annoying application,

00:36:42 but seems to work OK.

00:36:44 So third gear there, sort of holding us at around 60.

00:36:48 Go back to second.

00:36:50 Yeah, so that's not very good.

00:36:51 The ratios are probably a little wide here

00:36:53 because I can't go down to second,

00:36:55 and currently it's just gaining speed.

00:36:57 I'm going to have to take over and start braking here.

00:36:59 So that is a little bit disappointing.

00:37:01 I would have preferred to be able to dive back to second there

00:37:03 because third isn't enough to hold us at 60km/h.

00:37:06 It's running away from us,

00:37:08 especially at the bottom section here

00:37:10 where it actually gets a little bit steeper.

00:37:12 So, yeah, just something to point out.

00:37:14 OK, choppy section down the bottom here.

00:37:18 Let's see how it feels at 60.

00:37:20 Yeah, look, it does have a bit of porpoising,

00:37:25 but it's definitely not the worst we've seen here.

00:37:28 So, look, overall, SsangYong Muso,

00:37:30 pretty impressed with it as a package.

00:37:33 A little down on power.

00:37:34 You might want to get a little tune

00:37:35 if you are going to be doing any towing,

00:37:37 but definitely from a ride comfort point of view, it's excellent.

00:37:39 Time for another big old American truck.

00:37:47 So the Chevy Silverado, naturally aspirated petrol V8.

00:37:51 No hybrid malarkey here like you do have in the Ram 1500.

00:37:55 0-100, this is bloody impressive.

00:37:57 Six and a half seconds.

00:37:59 This thing absolutely boogies.

00:38:00 It then stopped from 100km/h

00:38:02 in an equally impressive three seconds and 42.1 metres.

00:38:06 So, again, for a big dual-cab ute,

00:38:09 that is some seriously impressive stuff.

00:38:11 When it came to our Dyne trailer,

00:38:13 unsurprisingly, it was pretty quick.

00:38:29 It did 0-100 in 11.2 seconds.

00:38:32 So with a 3kN load,

00:38:34 it outperformed some dual-cab utes

00:38:37 that had nothing on the back,

00:38:39 which I thought was pretty awesome.

00:38:40 0-90, equally impressive, 10.18 seconds.

00:38:43 Fuel economy, as you'd expect, not great.

00:38:45 10.4 litres per 100km when it came to

00:38:48 just being driven without the trailer.

00:38:50 Jumped up to 36.5 litres per 100km

00:38:54 with the trailer Dyne on the back

00:38:56 at an increase of 250%.

00:38:58 On hooking up, our trailer came with

00:39:00 an integrated brake controller.

00:39:01 It was also pretty easy to see out of that camera

00:39:04 as well when it came to hooking everything up.

00:39:06 And this is what happened on the hill road.

00:39:08 We've just set off in the Silverado.

00:39:13 So this has a tow mode,

00:39:15 so I've enabled that by changing the mode here.

00:39:17 Okay, so it's come up with a message saying

00:39:21 "service trailer brake system".

00:39:23 So I'm going to continue the lap

00:39:25 because I have no choice,

00:39:27 unfortunately we can't go backwards on this road

00:39:29 and there's nowhere to U-turn.

00:39:30 So it is disappointing that has faltered.

00:39:32 We checked the connection a couple of times

00:39:34 but it doesn't seem to have fixed it.

00:39:36 So all I'm going to do is just comment

00:39:38 on what it's like on the uphill sections

00:39:39 and on the downhill sections I'll just be using

00:39:43 engine brakes to make sure we don't run into any drivers.

00:39:47 So what does it feel like behind the wheel?

00:39:49 So just like the Ram 1500,

00:39:51 it's really nice and punchy.

00:39:52 It's got a hardy V8 engine.

00:39:54 It doesn't have the hybrid assistance stuff

00:39:56 that the Ram has, but pulls along really nicely.

00:39:58 I'm not at any point feeling not confident

00:40:02 that I'm going to be able to get up things.

00:40:04 It does feel like it's bouncing around a little bit.

00:40:06 It does sort of sit a little lower

00:40:08 than the Ram did as well.

00:40:10 So there is that, but look,

00:40:12 it is perfectly comfortable.

00:40:13 I think if you had to tow something this way

00:40:15 with one of these again, it feels effortless.

00:40:17 We're doing 2500 RPM here

00:40:19 and it's getting along without any dramas at all.

00:40:22 So from that point of view, it's great.

00:40:24 On the ride front, look, it is actually really comfortable.

00:40:27 With the Ram, you could feel it sort of

00:40:29 leading the direction of the vehicle a little bit,

00:40:31 whereas here, I'm very confident in the car

00:40:33 being in charge of where we're heading

00:40:35 and the trailer is just a passenger for the whole ride.

00:40:38 So yeah, pretty impressive setup.

00:40:40 What we'll do is we're about to get to our steep hill,

00:40:42 get up that, and then it's going to be

00:40:44 a long, slow descent with our engine brakes

00:40:46 down the big hill.

00:40:53 Okay, here's our steep grade.

00:40:55 Saddle up.

00:40:58 It should be okay in this, so

00:41:00 let's get stuck into it now.

00:41:02 Yeah, this feels good.

00:41:06 No dramas. I've got my foot into that.

00:41:09 That tow mode seems to adjust the

00:41:12 setup here with the gearbox,

00:41:16 because it is holding the gear for much longer there

00:41:18 to give me the torque that I need to get up.

00:41:20 So that's pretty cool.

00:41:22 Yeah, and the rest all just feels nice and confident.

00:41:24 And I guess just a tip if you are in this situation

00:41:26 that we're in where your trailer brakes

00:41:28 stop working entirely.

00:41:30 You can still use the car's brakes, but

00:41:32 that's why cars are limited to 750 kilos of weight

00:41:35 without a braked trailer.

00:41:37 Obviously, you need to be incredibly careful

00:41:39 because you're forcing the car to do all the braking work

00:41:41 for your vehicle, plus the trailer on the back.

00:41:44 So obviously, I'd be relying,

00:41:46 I keep saying obviously, but you should be relying

00:41:48 on engine braking wherever you can

00:41:50 to make sure you're slowing up the vehicle

00:41:52 as efficiently as possible without having to use your brakes.

00:41:54 Because the second you cook those, you don't have

00:41:56 any real ability to slow down in an emergency.

00:41:59 So what we'll do is dial back through our gears here.

00:42:02 Alright, there we go.

00:42:04 So you pull the column shifter down a bit,

00:42:06 and then you can use the buttons here on the gear shifter

00:42:08 to slow it down.

00:42:09 This is doing a great job.

00:42:10 So target speed there was 60,

00:42:12 and it's holding that really nicely.

00:42:13 I haven't had to touch the brakes yet with our trailer,

00:42:15 which doesn't have any trailer brakes on it.

00:42:18 So yeah, look, good job there by the Silverado.

00:42:21 Obviously, a fault here has stopped the actual trailer brakes working,

00:42:24 which is disappointing, but I guess it is what it is.

00:42:27 Yeah, I tell you what, it's really not feeling

00:42:29 all that good here over the bumps.

00:42:31 It's kind of all over the place,

00:42:32 and I thought it was better than the Ram,

00:42:34 but no, it is, yeah, it doesn't feel anywhere near

00:42:36 as good as the Ram or as settled.

00:42:38 Now, first of our two identical twins,

00:42:44 the Isuzu D-MAX.

00:42:45 It's powered by a three-liter turbocharged diesel engine,

00:42:49 has a brake towing capacity of 3,500 kilos.

00:42:52 When we did put it up against the stopwatch,

00:42:54 it came back with a 0-100 time of 11.3 seconds,

00:42:59 and it took three seconds and 41.9 meters

00:43:03 to stop from 100 k's an hour.

00:43:04 That is an incredibly good stopping time,

00:43:07 and I think that is actually second only to the Ram Laramie

00:43:12 in terms of the stopping performance.

00:43:14 Really great effort there.

00:43:15 When it did come to hooking up our trailer die,

00:43:18 this is how it went trying to get through 100 k's an hour.

00:43:21 Now...

00:43:23 [SIREN]

00:43:25 [INAUDIBLE]

00:43:32 [INAUDIBLE]

00:43:43 Oh, my God, I've got a ping.

00:43:48 Yes.

00:43:49 Do you not have a 100 yet?

00:43:50 No.

00:43:52 So as you can see there, it didn't quite break 100 k's an hour,

00:43:55 but it did the 90 k'd hour marker in just over 18.5 seconds.

00:43:59 So it actually places it really nicely there

00:44:01 within the mix of those four-cylinder dual-cab utes.

00:44:03 It was nowhere near as bad as the Navara,

00:44:05 and it had more than enough punch to keep up with something like a Hilux,

00:44:08 which has 50 newton-meters more torque than the D-MAX,

00:44:11 which I thought was great.

00:44:12 Fuel economy was also really good.

00:44:14 It came in at 9 liters per 100 k's unladen,

00:44:16 jumped up to 22.2 liters per 100 k's

00:44:19 when it was laden with the Dyno trailer,

00:44:22 an increase of 144%, which is great.

00:44:25 Now, what about towing our bigger trailer?

00:44:27 This was one of the other dual-cab utes that had an offset camera,

00:44:30 so it meant that the camera wasn't center with the tray,

00:44:33 and when we went to put the trailer on,

00:44:35 you had to kind of compensate for that when reversing.

00:44:38 It didn't quite line up with the center line of the camera there.

00:44:41 Camera quality also wasn't very good at all,

00:44:43 so you had to really watch what you were doing there

00:44:45 when you backed in to get everything hooked up.

00:44:48 It did actually perform pretty well on the hill road,

00:44:50 though this is how it all went down.

00:44:52 So, time to head off in the D-MAX.

00:44:56 When you do have the trailer connected,

00:44:58 it seems to switch off your rear parking sensors

00:45:01 and blind spot monitor straight away, which is great news.

00:45:04 I would then also switch off your lane-keeper system,

00:45:07 which now, with this upgrade they've done,

00:45:10 you just push and hold the steering wheel button

00:45:12 and then it comes off saying lane-keeper's off.

00:45:14 It says it in the manual, and it's just if you're towing,

00:45:16 you don't want the car doing its own thing whenever it decides.

00:45:19 Initial impressions, actually feels really strong.

00:45:23 It's, I don't know, it just feels quite sort of confident

00:45:26 and punchy behind the wheels, so we'll see how it goes

00:45:28 when we get to our steep hill section,

00:45:30 but, yeah, so far so good.

00:45:32 All right, climbing out of our little gully here.

00:45:40 Get on the throttle.

00:45:43 Yeah, this is great.

00:45:45 It is a little noisy.

00:45:46 It is sort of a fair old racket in here,

00:45:48 but, yeah, so far the ride feels pretty good.

00:45:51 Yeah, I will reserve judgment until we get round to the other side,

00:45:54 where it is a bit choppier, but, yeah, so far

00:45:56 it is actually doing a pretty commendable job,

00:45:59 and the steering's great too,

00:46:01 so it is an electrically-assisted rack,

00:46:03 and I'm feeling that it's in charge of the car.

00:46:06 It's not really sort of being led by the trailer,

00:46:08 and the gearbox is also nice and snappy

00:46:10 when I need it to be doing things too,

00:46:12 so, yeah, tick, tick.

00:46:14 Okay, here comes our big hill.

00:46:16 Let's see how it goes.

00:46:18 Yeah, one of the downsides here is that

00:46:20 this is like an old-school four-wheel-drive system.

00:46:22 You have to keep it in two-wheel-drive high range.

00:46:24 You can't run it in four-wheel-drive high range

00:46:26 on sealed surfaces, so for this type of thing,

00:46:28 you really do want the assistance of a four-wheel-drive system.

00:46:32 We are picking up speed, which is good.

00:46:38 It's not slowing down.

00:46:41 It is having to work for it, though,

00:46:43 and as we get closer to the top,

00:46:45 it is only just adding speed,

00:46:47 but it's okay, yeah.

00:46:49 Look, I would have thought with the amount of torque this has,

00:46:53 it should have perhaps been a little more sprightly up there,

00:46:56 but it's fine for what it is.

00:46:58 It climbed that okay, especially in two-wheel-drive.

00:47:01 We've got our faster section up the back here,

00:47:03 so we can jack up the speed a little bit.

00:47:05 See how that rear end feels over some of the choppier stuff.

00:47:10 It's not bad. It's pretty settled.

00:47:12 Like most utes in this segment, if you are going to be doing a lot of towing,

00:47:15 you probably want to have a look at an aftermarket suspension option,

00:47:17 but for a leaf-sprung setup,

00:47:19 this actually feels nice and comfortable at higher speeds.

00:47:23 So, see what it's like at the low speeds on the choppy section shortly,

00:47:26 but yeah, so far, so good.

00:47:27 Okay, our long descent.

00:47:28 We're going to try and target 60 k's an hour.

00:47:31 Drop back through the gears here, so that's now second gear.

00:47:37 That's holding it nicely. I'll just try third there.

00:47:40 That's fine as well.

00:47:41 Yeah, I would like some paddle shifters here.

00:47:43 This system's okay. It's not too bad,

00:47:45 but yeah, paddle shifters for easy access would always be a very welcome thing.

00:47:49 And finally, the choppy section down the bottom.

00:47:51 This will be a real test of how it handles those weight influences from the trailer.

00:47:56 Really impressive.

00:47:58 That suspension feels really nice and sorted there,

00:48:02 so it wasn't sort of bucking about too much at all.

00:48:04 So yeah, look, overall, Isuzu D-MAX,

00:48:07 this is sort of lining up to be my pick of the bunch for the four cylinders,

00:48:10 so I'll reserve judgment until the end,

00:48:12 but yeah, so far, this is pretty impressive.

00:48:14 Jeep Gladiator is powered by a naturally aspirated petrol V6 engine,

00:48:20 and it has four-wheel drive suspension that makes a good off-road,

00:48:23 but not great for towing,

00:48:24 which means it has a towing capacity of around 2,700 kilos,

00:48:27 so you don't get that full three or three and a half ton brake towing capacity.

00:48:32 It is worth keeping in mind as well with the Jeep,

00:48:35 the Great Wall, the American Utes, and also with the Ford products,

00:48:38 we actually kept those in four-wheel drive automatic

00:48:40 to make sure that we had enough traction for doing all of these tests.

00:48:44 Every other dual-cab Ute was left in two-wheel drive mode.

00:48:47 So with the Jeep in 4A, it did 0 to 100 in 10.3 seconds,

00:48:51 which isn't a bad time,

00:48:52 and then 100 to 0, 3.3 seconds at 45.9 metres.

00:48:57 Now, this result is actually really impressive

00:49:00 because the Navara Warrior took an additional seven or eight metres

00:49:03 to stop from 100 k's an hour,

00:49:05 and the Jeep well and truly has big, meaty off-road tyres,

00:49:08 just like the Navara does.

00:49:09 So it's pretty impressive there the Jeep has been able to fit decent brakes to this

00:49:13 to make sure that it does actually pull up in time, which is cool to see.

00:49:17 How did it go with our trailer, Dime? This is what it looked like.

00:49:19 Here we go.

00:49:20 No grip.

00:49:25 Tyres are warm.

00:49:28 (ENGINE REVS)

00:49:30 How are we?

00:49:41 97, 98.

00:49:43 So how did all that go?

00:49:46 Well, we actually did break 100 k's an hour just.

00:49:48 It took 28.9 seconds to hit 100 k's an hour,

00:49:52 but 0 to 90 took 16 or just over 16 seconds,

00:49:56 which shows you that it's not exactly amazing.

00:49:59 It doesn't have that punch,

00:50:00 and that's where the V6 lacks the torque that some of the turbo diesels have.

00:50:04 It just didn't really get up and move as much as it could have.

00:50:07 Fuel economy also wasn't great.

00:50:08 11.3 litres per 100 k's when it was unladen.

00:50:11 Then when we had it laden, 42.7 litres per 100 k's.

00:50:15 It actually used more than the V8 Ram 1500 and the Silverado,

00:50:20 and there was an increase of almost 300%,

00:50:23 so quite an effort there.

00:50:25 In terms of reverse camera, really good reverse camera.

00:50:28 Ben hooking up the trailer was all pretty straightforward,

00:50:31 and I think it was actually pretty surprising when we did hit the hill road with it.

00:50:34 So the other cool thing about this is you don't have to run this in two-wheel drive high range

00:50:42 like you do most of those diesel dual-cab utes.

00:50:45 This can actually run in four-wheel drive high auto,

00:50:48 so you can use that on sealed surfaces.

00:50:50 So we'll see how that performs when we get to our hill for traction.

00:50:54 Yeah, look, it is making a fair bit of noise,

00:50:56 but the reason it does that is because you're sitting within the peak power

00:50:59 and torque band of the petrol engine,

00:51:02 so it's trying to extract as much as it can.

00:51:04 There's no point sitting low in the rev band and you're not going anywhere,

00:51:07 so we'll see how that goes.

00:51:09 But yes, it is very noisy inside the cabin when the engine flares up.

00:51:13 In terms of ride, early thoughts, actually feels really good.

00:51:16 So Rubicon gets the off-road suspension,

00:51:19 and that means that you do get a bit more compliance in the ride,

00:51:21 a bit like the Raptor in terms of its suspension setup.

00:51:24 So from that point of view, it is a nice thing to have,

00:51:27 and it doesn't seem to be all that worried by having a trailer on the back,

00:51:30 which is good news.

00:51:31 You know what, even though it is noisy, it actually sounds pretty cool in here.

00:51:35 I don't mind it at all.

00:51:37 Steering's actually pretty good as well.

00:51:39 Tell you what, I wasn't expecting this to be performing as well as it is

00:51:43 with all this load on the back of it.

00:51:46 I thought this would probably be one of the worst ones here,

00:51:49 but, yeah, look, it's fine for the moment.

00:51:51 We'll see what it's like on our big hill climb

00:51:53 and the choppy section right up the back.

00:51:55 Here comes our hill climb.

00:51:57 Line this up.

00:51:59 I always get stuck into the throttle, so here we go.

00:52:02 It's doing okay. We'll see what happens when it gets to the next gear.

00:52:11 It doesn't love grabbing the next gear because it falls outside of its torque band,

00:52:16 but it is holding speed there, 52km/h.

00:52:19 Throttle is pinned to the board.

00:52:21 And climbing, there you go.

00:52:23 Gladiator has really surprised me.

00:52:27 Obviously, you're not going to be towing 3.5 tonnes with it,

00:52:29 but if you do load it up here, it feels fairly competent.

00:52:32 So here's our higher speed section at the back,

00:52:35 so 80km/h through here.

00:52:37 Bit of wind noise, but that's obviously the Gladiator with its removable doors and stuff.

00:52:44 It is a little bit floaty, and that is down to the steering.

00:52:47 The steering in these isn't great to start with anyway,

00:52:50 and that's causing it to feel a tiny bit floaty,

00:52:52 but for the most part, it is actually surprising how well it's moving along here.

00:52:56 Okay, long descent at the back of the hill road.

00:52:58 No paddle shifters, so I'm just going to manually select my gears here.

00:53:03 Third gear is holding that really nicely.

00:53:05 Bump it up to fourth, see how that feels.

00:53:08 Even fourth is fine, it's sort of holding it nicely too.

00:53:13 Paddle shifters would have been nice,

00:53:15 but this gear stick is pretty straightforward to use, so no dramas there.

00:53:19 And our choppy section at the back, just before we wrap up.

00:53:22 See what this is like.

00:53:24 Yeah, it's okay.

00:53:27 Yeah, it is a little bit bouncy there once you get a bit of oscillation,

00:53:30 but look, this is actually way better than I thought it was going to be.

00:53:34 So, hat off to Jeep, you've actually surprised me, so good job there.

00:53:39 Mitsubishi Triton, so.

00:53:42 Didn't go so great.

00:53:43 This is the oldest Ute here in terms of the platform,

00:53:46 so it has been out for quite some time.

00:53:48 In terms of the powertrain, 2.4-litre turbocharged,

00:53:52 four-cylinder diesel engine.

00:53:54 It comes with a slightly reduced towing capacity compared to some of its peers,

00:53:58 and kind of makes sense when you look at these performance figures.

00:54:00 So, 0 to 100, 13.1 seconds.

00:54:04 It was only second to the Navara in terms of being the slowest here.

00:54:09 100 to 0 was actually pretty good, so it took 3.4 seconds and 43.2 metres

00:54:14 to stop from 100 k's an hour, so pretty impressive there.

00:54:18 This is how it went with our trailer dyno attached.

00:54:22 Oh, wow.

00:54:25 Used to see this bus.

00:54:36 Which number?

00:54:40 I think 85 k's an hour.

00:54:44 100 k's an hour.

00:54:46 OK, once we hit overspeed.

00:54:59 Yep.

00:55:00 Just about to.

00:55:02 Yeah, overspeed.

00:55:04 Right, cool.

00:55:05 So, it didn't break 100 k's an hour, but it did 0 to 90 in 28.7 seconds,

00:55:10 so fairly leisurely pace there.

00:55:12 On the fuel economy front, 9.7 litres per 100 k's was our unladen fuel economy.

00:55:17 That jumped up to just over 30 litres per 100 k's with the trailer on,

00:55:21 and that was an increase of a little over 200%.

00:55:24 When it did come to towing our bigger trailer, this was another one of those

00:55:27 dual cab utes with an offset camera, so the camera doesn't sit quite flush

00:55:31 with the centre of the tray, and it means that when you are reversing,

00:55:34 it's a bit hard to line it up.

00:55:35 Camera quality was also pretty poor as well, so when it did come to hooking

00:55:39 everything up, you had to pay a lot of attention to exactly where

00:55:42 everything was sitting.

00:55:43 But did that all translate to a poor result on the hill road?

00:55:46 Only one way to find out.

00:55:48 Strangely, even though it is one of the oldest, it does have the Super Select

00:55:55 four-wheel drive system, so typically you can run it in two-wheel drive

00:55:58 high range to save fuel, but what I've done is popped it into four-wheel drive

00:56:02 high range, which you can use on sealed surfaces, and if you want to know

00:56:05 why that's the case, click up here to watch a video that we shot explaining

00:56:08 four-wheel drive controls previously.

00:56:10 But that should mean that it has a bit more traction in those situations

00:56:13 where it's wet or a bit sort of sketchy and you are towing something.

00:56:17 The other utes you can't use four-wheel drive high range unless it is a system

00:56:21 that is capable of being used on sealed surfaces.

00:56:24 Look, you are having to work for it here.

00:56:28 It is sort of, it is really stretching that 2.4 litre diesel to its limits.

00:56:33 The ride is also very jiggly as well, sort of bouncing around the place

00:56:38 as we go around this earlier part of the track, or we came to see how it feels

00:56:41 when we are on the actual super bouncy section near the end, but yeah.

00:56:46 I'm pinned to the board here, it's really having to work for this.

00:56:53 Yeah, right.

00:56:54 Look, this does have a reduced towing capacity compared to the other utes,

00:56:58 so it's kind of understandable when you look at it and how it's performing

00:57:01 just with a 2.5 tonne load.

00:57:03 You definitely wouldn't want to be towing more than 3 tonnes with this,

00:57:07 I wouldn't have thought.

00:57:09 Steering has hydraulic assistance, so it is a little heavy as you move

00:57:12 through that steering range, but it's not terrible.

00:57:16 It gives you enough feedback without loading up too much when you need it.

00:57:19 Yeah, a little nervous about this just to see how this will go,

00:57:22 given how much power this makes, but we'll give it a shot.

00:57:28 I'll get stuck into that.

00:57:30 Alright, here we go.

00:57:32 I'm pinned to the board there.

00:57:37 Okay, it is just gaining speed.

00:57:43 Yeah, it's just gaining speed there as we move up,

00:57:46 just seeing if there's a digital speed display there.

00:57:48 Yeah, so it's barely cracking 50km/h, but we made it up.

00:57:52 Yeah, look, that is commendable.

00:57:53 We did make it up, but yeah, not very confidence inspiring.

00:57:57 We're rolling onto our faster section here so we can see what it feels like

00:58:00 in terms of choppiness.

00:58:03 We've got this up to 80km/h.

00:58:05 Yeah, it's not great.

00:58:07 So I feel like the rear end is very much being led by the trailer.

00:58:10 You can hear in my voice as well that I am sort of sounding like I'm stuttering

00:58:14 a fair bit, and that's just because it is bouncing around so much.

00:58:17 So yeah, really not a fan of how this feels, especially with a weight like this

00:58:22 on the back of it.

00:58:23 Hopefully with the next generation of Triton they will and truly address

00:58:26 this when it comes to towing.

00:58:29 Okay, time for our descent.

00:58:31 Big old paddle shifters here.

00:58:32 They're kind of comically large.

00:58:34 They're almost like the Raptors, and it's comically large because

00:58:38 it's not really a sports car.

00:58:40 So let's see how it holds there with engine braking.

00:58:43 So third gear down here seems okay for about 70.

00:58:46 That's slowing us down to 60 as well.

00:58:48 Yeah, you can really hear it in my voice as we go over some of these bumps

00:58:51 and stuff.

00:58:52 It is sort of jiggling a fair bit as we move over this sort of terrain.

00:58:57 Okay, getting to the bottom of the hill and then to our choppy section

00:59:04 which I'll attack at about 60 k's an hour, and we'll see what it feels like.

00:59:09 My goodness, the ride is terrible with the trailer on the back.

00:59:13 Jeez, okay.

00:59:14 Here we go.

00:59:15 Here's the choppy section.

00:59:18 Wow, it is very boat-like.

00:59:21 This is actually worse than the GWM in terms of how it feels over there.

00:59:25 So a fair bit of work is needed to the suspension here to give it that

00:59:30 confident feeling behind the wheel.

00:59:32 So BT50, now this is an identical twin to the D-MAX, so you would assume

00:59:41 that this would perform the exact same.

00:59:43 Well, only one way to find out.

00:59:44 So as a recap, 3-litre turbocharged, 4-cylinder diesel engine,

00:59:49 brake towing capacity of 3,500 kilograms with a brake to trailer, 0-100,

00:59:55 11.4 seconds, so 0.1 of a second slower than the D-MAX, and that I think

01:00:00 came down to the BT50 being slightly higher specified, so it was a different

01:00:04 spec to the D-MAX, which would have meant that it was slightly heavier.

01:00:08 That also translated to a slightly longer stopping distance as well,

01:00:11 so it took 3.3 seconds and 42 metres compared to 41.9 metres in the D-MAX.

01:00:18 How did it go with our trailer dine?

01:00:20 Did the results match the D-MAX?

01:00:22 Well, have a look.

01:00:23 The great Nomad, I love it, it's good.

01:00:32 It's actually moving along okay, surprisingly.

01:00:40 Load's definitely on?

01:00:42 Yep, load's on.

01:00:43 Like this thing's really moving along okay.

01:00:47 That's not going to get...

01:00:48 Alright, that's 95.

01:00:50 96.

01:00:55 So again, BT50 didn't manage to break 100 k's an hour, and it took 18.1 seconds

01:01:00 to get to 90.

01:01:01 Now, this is interesting because it took the D-MAX 18.59 seconds,

01:01:05 so about half a second more than the BT50.

01:01:08 That could have come down to the wheels slipping off the line with the D-MAX.

01:01:13 It was wet when we tested that, and there was a slight bit of wheel slip

01:01:16 off the line when we did have the trailer dine attached.

01:01:19 Either way though, the fuel economy, 8.8 litres per 100 k's,

01:01:22 so slightly better than the D-MAX when it was unladen.

01:01:25 But, surprisingly, fuel economy with the laden run was 26.4 litres per 100 k's,

01:01:31 an increase of 200% compared to the D-MAX, which was 22.22.

01:01:35 So I'm not exactly sure why there was a discrepancy there.

01:01:38 We did have an issue with the D-MAX where it was set in kilometres a litre,

01:01:42 which we didn't realise until later on.

01:01:44 Perhaps when it is in that setting it's taking results less often than it is

01:01:48 in litres per 100. Not sure, but a slight difference there in terms of fuel economy.

01:01:52 Just like the D-MAX as well, when it came to hooking up our big trailer,

01:01:56 camera quality wasn't great and it meant that it was a little hard to see,

01:02:00 and of course the camera was offset with the centre of the tray as well,

01:02:03 so stuff didn't really line up as it should have.

01:02:06 Surprisingly though, it did feel a little bit different on the hill road

01:02:09 compared to the D-MAX.

01:02:10 [engine noise]

01:02:14 Feels sort of nice and punchy behind the wheel.

01:02:17 I'm not sort of having any dramas there in terms of how it feels when I get on it.

01:02:22 Gearbox nice and responsive as well, and the steering is good too.

01:02:26 So I mentioned before with the D-MAX that I really like the light steering

01:02:31 because it means that you're able to just do what you need to do.

01:02:34 In the Hilux for example, it just feels really heavy and I feel like you're

01:02:38 hitting it a little bit with the hydraulic setup, so this feels far more

01:02:42 sort of confidence-inspiring.

01:02:43 And it's picking up speed fine, no dramas there.

01:02:46 Like it's not going to rip your face off in terms of intensity,

01:02:49 but it does pick up speed without too many dramas.

01:02:52 And the hill road here is great because it really does simulate a variety

01:02:56 of conditions that you'd expect to see in Australia,

01:02:58 and it gives us a good understanding of how this car's going to feel

01:03:02 if you are going to go drive around Oz or go for a bit of an adventure

01:03:06 with your caravan on the back.

01:03:07 Time for the steep hills.

01:03:09 So I mentioned before this will be slightly heavier than the D-MAX,

01:03:14 so hopefully it performs about the same and we don't have too many dramas

01:03:18 climbing the hill.

01:03:19 So here we go.

01:03:20 Stuck into that now.

01:03:23 Okay.

01:03:25 Yeah, this dropped back a gear a little earlier than I thought it would have,

01:03:29 but we're proceeding up here.

01:03:32 Yeah, okay, so it's gaining momentum.

01:03:34 It's actually not doing a bad job.

01:03:35 So despite the weight difference, there doesn't appear to be too much

01:03:38 of a drama here in terms of the way that it's climbing.

01:03:40 So yeah, making a fair bit of racket like the D-MAX was,

01:03:43 but we made it to the top.

01:03:45 And then our faster section up the back.

01:03:47 We'll pump this up to 80 k's an hour.

01:03:49 Yeah, really nice and comfy.

01:03:51 No sort of issues here that are worth noting.

01:03:55 This does feel a tiny bit floatier at the rear end compared to the D-MAX.

01:03:59 I don't know if there is a calibration difference there in the suspension,

01:04:03 but it sort of is being led by the trailer just a little bit.

01:04:07 So not the end of the world, but just something worth pointing out.

01:04:11 And now we're on descent, so lock this over in third.

01:04:14 Yeah, that feels, yeah, third's fine.

01:04:18 Can drop it back to second if we want to slow it up a bit.

01:04:21 But yeah, from an engine braking point of view, it's good.

01:04:23 Again, no paddle shifters here for the BT-50 either,

01:04:26 but not the end of the world.

01:04:27 This is kind of a pretty standard setup in stuff like the Ranger,

01:04:31 where you've got buttons and other fiddly things.

01:04:33 That is a little bit annoying,

01:04:34 so either this or paddle shifters would be preferable.

01:04:37 And the final section at the bottom of our descent here.

01:04:41 So I mentioned before that I thought this felt a little floaty at the rear

01:04:44 compared to the D-MAX.

01:04:45 Let's see how it goes over this stuff.

01:04:47 I don't know, it's kind of strange.

01:04:52 I can feel the movement at the rear end a little more than I did in the D-MAX.

01:04:55 So it could just be a perception thing or perhaps a slight change in speed,

01:04:58 but D-MAX felt just a slight bit more planted.

01:05:01 So maybe different wheel sizes or something like that are just influencing

01:05:04 how it performs with our big load on the back.

01:05:07 So finally, the mighty Ranger Raptor.

01:05:13 It is powered by a twin turbocharged petrol V6 engine.

01:05:17 This has a reduced towing capacity, 2,500 kilos,

01:05:20 with a brake trailer compared to 3,500 for the V6 Ranger Wildtrak we have here as well.

01:05:26 But that does mean that it is pretty quick.

01:05:27 It does 0 to 100 in 6.4 seconds.

01:05:31 And then in terms of the stopping distance, not very impressive,

01:05:34 3.7 seconds and 50.5 meters from 100 k's an hour to zero.

01:05:39 So not quite as bad as the Navara Warrior,

01:05:41 but those KO2 tyres do not like stopping from 100 k's an hour,

01:05:46 especially when it is slightly damp as well.

01:05:48 How did it go with our trailer dine though?

01:05:51 Turn your speakers up because it sounds pretty good.

01:05:54 Here we go.

01:05:56 (engine revving)

01:05:58 So it broke through the 100 k an hour marker in 10.9 seconds

01:06:11 and then 0 to 90 took nine seconds flat.

01:06:14 It is the best performer here in terms of towing

01:06:17 and in terms of how quickly it accelerated with that towed load.

01:06:20 But it did use a fair bit of fuel, 11.6 litres per 100 k's for our unladen run around the track

01:06:26 and 36.5 litres per 100 k's for the laden run,

01:06:30 a difference of just over 200%.

01:06:33 When it did come to towing with the caravan, camera quality was great.

01:06:37 It also has an integrated brake controller and the ability to set the trailer length

01:06:41 so it's integrated within the blind spot monitor.

01:06:43 So all of that is really welcome.

01:06:45 The Raptor actually didn't perform too badly on the hill road.

01:06:48 This is what happened.

01:06:49 (engine revving)

01:06:51 Now you may have noticed, this looks a little bit different

01:06:56 and I just want to explain.

01:06:58 It's the same colour, but we started hearing a noise in the other Raptor that we had

01:07:02 and we'd already done a whole bunch of dynamic testing with it and other stuff

01:07:06 and we thought better be safe than sorry and gave Ford a call

01:07:09 and they delivered us a new Raptor for the towing test and our off-road test as well.

01:07:14 So thank you for sorting that out Ford.

01:07:16 Now, this is the quickest here, based on our drag race,

01:07:21 or except the TRX, but we're not testing that for towing.

01:07:23 So it is the quickest here, but it has the least towing capacity, so two and a half tonnes.

01:07:28 So I'll be interested to see how that feels from behind the wheel.

01:07:33 A couple of the cool features that this car has is the integrated brake controller just here.

01:07:39 So that comes with your manual brake control and also the gain adjustment.

01:07:42 You can also set the length of your trailer when you're connecting it up

01:07:45 so that it can interact with the blind spot monitor, which is an excellent feature.

01:07:50 We see that on some of the American pickup trucks as well.

01:07:53 But it is unsurprisingly effortless in terms of towing this kind of load.

01:07:59 It really is just moving along nicely and it makes a nice noise while it's doing it as well.

01:08:04 The ride is fantastic. I think of all the Utes we've tested so far,

01:08:07 this is probably as good, if not better, than the Ram 1500 just in terms of how it rides.

01:08:14 So it's just moving along really nicely without any problems.

01:08:17 We are at 100% capacity here for Ranger Raptor in terms of the towing capacity.

01:08:22 So it is asking for most of this entire package.

01:08:26 And by the way, as well, I'm running it in four-wheel drive automatic instead of just rear-wheel drive.

01:08:30 If you are going to be doing any longer distance towing,

01:08:34 KO2s are probably not the right tyre for this either, simply because they are quite sketchy in the wet.

01:08:39 So if you do find yourself in a situation where it's raining, you want as much traction as you can get.

01:08:44 Great tyre for off-road, but not for wet driving on tarmac, especially if you are towing a load as well.

01:08:49 Okay, Big Hill is coming up. I'm quietly confident Raptor will just walk up this,

01:08:54 but you never know. This is why we're doing all the testing.

01:08:57 We'll see how it all fares. So we'll line it up here.

01:09:02 I'll stick it into sport mode for the exhaust as well so we can hear it.

01:09:07 Alright.

01:09:09 It actually feels like we're...

01:09:17 Okay, I'm just being silly now, but that was climbing up there without any problems.

01:09:30 And it actually felt like it was squirrelling up there as well.

01:09:34 So that's the point I was making about the KO2s.

01:09:37 They don't have a great deal of traction, and even here where it has dried up now, it is still a little squirrelly.

01:09:42 So 80km/h on the back section.

01:09:45 It is a walk in the park. There is no problems at all.

01:09:48 It is actually really comfortable with that Fox suspension. So, yeah, nice.

01:09:53 Here comes our descent. So yeah, you can...

01:09:56 Well, you do still have a manual button here on the shifter, but you can just go straight for your paddle shifters on the steering wheel.

01:10:03 So unlike the V6 Ranger, which doesn't have paddle shifters, this does.

01:10:07 So, third gear. We'll see if that gives us the engine braking we need for this descent.

01:10:12 Yeah, no dramas there. So it's slowing down a little bit towards our target speed of 60.

01:10:16 Can drop to second as well if I want to round that out just a touch more.

01:10:22 So, tell you what, bloody impressed with Raptor.

01:10:27 Last test is going to be this little bouncy section at the bottom of our descent, but I was not expecting this to be so good at towing.

01:10:34 I don't know if it's just the suspension that's the limitation here for it to not be able to tow 3500,

01:10:40 but imagine if you could. This would be like the ultimate towing machine.

01:10:43 It's got the power, the comfort, pretty much everything you need.

01:10:47 So, we're coming to this bottom section now. We'll see what the ride's like over our bumps at 60 k's an hour.

01:10:55 So here's the first set.

01:10:58 Piece of cake. Wow. It's doing an incredible job there. That is sensational.

01:11:03 The trailer is not guiding the car at all. It is just moving along so nicely.

01:11:07 So, look, big tick for Ranger Raptor. I think I'm going to have to have a sit back and look at all the footage,

01:11:13 but I think this is probably the best towing vehicle here.

01:11:17 Okay, time to chat results, and I want to start off with sag.

01:11:25 Happens to us as we get older, but it also happens to dual cab utes when you put a load on the back.

01:11:30 The whole concept of towing is that you don't want too much weight forward.

01:11:34 You don't want too much weight backwards. You really want the dual cab ute just pulling the trailer and stopping it as you go.

01:11:40 So what we did was with our 2500 kilo trailer, we measured the delta between unladen and laden,

01:11:46 and that gave us a measurement in terms of sag, which we've converted into a percentage to make it easier to understand.

01:11:52 So you'll see that up on the screen at the moment.

01:11:54 So I was pretty surprised by these results.

01:11:56 Hilux was well and truly the best with under 10% of a difference between laden and unladen.

01:12:01 It means when it is hooked up with 2500 kilos and you've got about 250 kilos on the down ball,

01:12:06 it is going to look fairly normal on the road.

01:12:08 Unsurprisingly, the Ranger Raptor was the worst.

01:12:12 That came in at over 15% of sag, and that is due to that soft suspension.

01:12:16 The second you put a trailer on the back, that soft suspension is designed for fast driving off-road.

01:12:21 Put a trailer on it, it dips down immediately.

01:12:23 But equally on that side, the Jeep wasn't as bad as the Raptor, and that also has that fancy suspension too.

01:12:30 So that's a little bit weird.

01:12:31 Overall, though, I was surprised a little by the other Ranger, given that it has normal suspension.

01:12:37 That came in second compared to Hilux.

01:12:39 So it looks like they've really spent a lot of time making sure that weight distribution works well when you do have a trailer attached.

01:12:45 So it's really good results there.

01:12:47 What about our acceleration?

01:12:49 So I did mention earlier, and just so you have all the results in one place on the screen,

01:12:53 Ranger Raptor was the quickest 0-100 without the trailer, and also quickest 0-100 with the trailer as well.

01:13:01 It was closely followed by the Silverado and then the Laramie too, so that wasn't really all that surprising.

01:13:06 On the four-cylinder front, though, it was the BT-50 that came in fastest from 0-90 with the trailer attached.

01:13:14 So really great effort there.

01:13:16 When it came to fuel economy, the D-MAX was technically the best, but there is some question marks around how we got to that fuel economy figure.

01:13:23 If we discount that, the GWM comes in the best at 172% extra fuel when towing.

01:13:29 But I think I'm going to discount that result as well, because it got down to 40km/h.

01:13:34 I'd like to then intervene, and I just don't think that's a really accurate figure,

01:13:37 which leaves us with Hilux at 184% additional fuel use when it came to towing.

01:13:44 So Hilux really is squaring up to be a really good all-rounder here when it comes to towing and out-of-the-box performance.

01:13:51 OK, so that's sag, acceleration and economy out of the way.

01:13:55 What about the feel behind the wheel on our hill road?

01:13:57 Like I mentioned in the videos, the Triton was really not that impressive in terms of the ride.

01:14:03 It was really jittery, and you could even hear it in my voice when I was going up the hill road.

01:14:06 It just sounded very weird because it was just all over the place.

01:14:10 GWM as well, it was pretty sort of sloppy there in terms of the way that it performed.

01:14:14 I think the one that surprised me the most though on the hill road was the Silverado.

01:14:18 It was so soft and just ponderous, and you can't really just say that that's all American big pickup trucks,

01:14:25 because the Ram on the other hand was excellent in comparison.

01:14:28 So I think that some of these manufacturers really need to look at how their suspension performs unladen.

01:14:33 And also with a typical load as well, you don't want to have to go down the path of getting aftermarket suspension,

01:14:38 although that will fix some of the issues that we have seen across this cross-section of utes.

01:14:44 Navara was surprisingly pretty good despite the fact it had that off-road focus.

01:14:48 And I was really impressed as well with the Raptor.

01:14:50 Again, even though it had that softer suspension, it actually coped really well towing at 100% capacity.

01:14:56 Now we'll just touch on that capacity issue as well.

01:14:59 We're only towing at 2,500 kilos.

01:15:02 Some of these dual-cab utes are marketed with a 3,500 kilo brake towing capacity.

01:15:07 And I can tell you, if we got to our 15% grade with an additional tonne on the back,

01:15:12 I'm fairly certain some of those dual-cab utes would not have made it to the top,

01:15:16 and we would have been in all sorts of trouble.

01:15:18 So yeah, please do keep that in mind.

01:15:20 If you are going to be towing 3,500 kilos,

01:15:22 I don't know that I'd be confident going down the path of just a standard four-cylinder dual-cab ute to achieve that.

01:15:29 I just don't think there's enough overhead for things like overtaking.

01:15:31 I was also one up in the car.

01:15:33 Can you imagine having your full family in the car,

01:15:35 being at the vehicle's payload capacity with the trailer attached?

01:15:38 It'd be some pretty bad news if things got a little bit hairy.

01:15:41 So, who are we giving our winner trophy to?

01:15:45 Well, there's actually three winners here in total.

01:15:47 I'm going to start with the best four-cylinder.

01:15:49 So the best four-cylinder was split between the D-MAX and the BT-50.

01:15:52 They both really impressed in terms of acceleration and also economy.

01:15:57 I think they are the perfect balance there between being able to tow a load,

01:16:00 but also being efficient while doing it.

01:16:02 So, hats off to those guys.

01:16:04 You've really done a great job with that platform when it comes to towing a load like a 2,500-kilo load,

01:16:09 and also our 3-kilo-newton trailer.

01:16:11 In terms of the best value, that has to go to the Ranger Wildtrak in V6 trim,

01:16:17 and even any Ranger in V6 trim, I think that if you do want to be towing closer to that 3,500-kilo mark,

01:16:23 you want to have a V6 diesel at the very least,

01:16:26 and that's where the Ranger at the moment really excels in its class.

01:16:29 I'm hoping other dual-cab unit manufacturers are working on a V6 diesel,

01:16:33 because it really does give me confidence then when it comes to towing a bigger load.

01:16:36 But our overall winner, this is the winner that performed best regardless of price.

01:16:42 I understand price is obviously a concern,

01:16:44 but here we are testing them on their performance in general,

01:16:48 and most expensive does not always mean best.

01:16:50 The winner is the Ram 1500 Laramie, so that did really well in terms of acceleration.

01:16:56 Fuel economy was slightly high, but if you do want that ultimate confidence when it comes to towing,

01:17:01 that is the best option in this group.

01:17:03 You can even tow over, I think, five tons,

01:17:06 depending on what type of trailer setup that you have and what type of tow bar you have as well.

01:17:11 So there are some options there if you do want to tow a little bit more,

01:17:14 and I feel totally confident that if you were to load that up with passengers

01:17:17 and then put a trailer on the back, that it is always going to feel nice and confident behind the wheel.

01:17:21 But price, like I said, doesn't mean that it's great.

01:17:24 We saw with the Silverado that it was kind of all over the shop when it came to towing on the hill road,

01:17:28 and I think that that would sway me away from buying one of those for the ultimate towing machine.

01:17:33 So I do hope that you enjoyed this video.

01:17:36 We went to a lot of effort to do our year-to-the-year testing.

01:17:40 This was one of the videos that we shot in collaboration with Offroad Videos, Drag Racers, Dyno Tests, you name it.

01:17:46 All of those other videos are in the description below.

01:17:49 If you did enjoy this video, please make sure you like it and you share it with your mates.

01:17:52 What other videos do you want to see?

01:17:54 What else do you want us to test in this comprehensive fashion?

01:17:57 Is there anything in this video that you spotted that you thought we did wrong?

01:18:01 We're keen for your feedback. Let us know in the comments section below.

01:18:04 But until next time, take it easy.

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