Brim13

Not sure why the set-up is as good as it is but am certainly glad it is - as it is not just a good towing vehicle, I have found it to be very "car-like" when driving around town as well. I had a 2001 X-trail before the Kluger and used it to tow our old van (a camper) for a couple of years upgrading when we bought a full size van. Would certainly recommend adding the Kluger to your shopping list as I loved the X-trail (even considered going to a diesel when we need to upgrade but couldn't go past a V6) and whilst hard to compare cars because they are so different in size. power to weight etc have never regretted moving on the the Kluger (just wish it either had a long range tank and/or a diesel option for the longer hauls with the van). Good luck!

Greg I have a similar setup and got around 17ltr/100km hot windy conditions over 250km, my question is how did you manage the transmission, Auto ? and if so were you able to hold it smoothly enough to prevent the O/drive from dropping back, did you at any time manually select out of O/drive and maintain this, I found if you can maintain a smooth cruising style up to 100km/h its possible to keep it in O/D even though Toyota dont recommend it. It would be nice if Toyota could come up with an adjustmet for towing purposes. Regards Don Don, Did the whole trip in Auto only and did not find it to be a big problem although I had not considered going into manual until reading these forums - plan to on our next trip later in the year and will update then. One thing I did find (and did not add to the original post) was the difference in economy depending on the fuel UL91 vs UL98 and even more significantly UL91 between brands (found Caltex to be consistently better than others???) - again interested in others experiences with that as well. Greg

Hi all, First time commenting but thought I would share our towing/fuel economy experience from last year. We have a KX-R AWD and tow a 20ft van with a weight of about 1650kgs loaded up. Trip was Adelaide to Sunshine Coast over 4 weeks with a bit of trekking around NSW (had to take the boys to see the Bathurst track!). We did not get off-road but covered all up just under 6000k's of which all but about 500ks was towing the van. For the whole trip we average 18.5 l/100klms with my best (whilst towing) 16.1 and worst (crossing the Hay plain into a severe head wind on the way back) at 28.2. This was our first "long" trip so did not have much to compare to but the Kluger was a dream to drive - generally sat on 95-100kph and was about as relaxed as you could get at the end of the day, even after a couple days of 700+klms covered. Whilst much of the terrain was flat the Kluger handled any of the hilly parts comfortably and I never hesitated to pass at speed when needed. Although I would love to have the long range tank of a Prado I have to admit that for the extra $$ to trade up if you aren't planning a lot of serious off-road work then the Kluger would tick the box for most things you would need when towing a van. Would be interested to hear others stories from towing as we are planning our next long trip (over to WA) now. Thanks, Greg