Best 4X4 ute for heavy towing | Auto Expert John Cadogan

What's the best 4WD ute for towing heavy loads, in Australia?

This report is inspired by the following question, from Paul B:

I will be towing a fully enclosed car trailer and transporting cars as my business. the trailer is a 3.5T GVM. I’d say including trailer I'd have around the 2.5 to 3T most of the time. I am after a twin cab ute that has good tech and must have leather. I need something that is obviously a good tow vehicle and especially for long trips. Please help. I looked at the RAM but its overpriced for what you get. I was thinking either the wildtrak or hilux rogue. I looked at the BT50 but you don't get much for the price, any others that would be better? - Paul B

My basic position on that is that up to 3T is OK with a ute, but over that is a joke (because of the GCM compromise - if you tow a 3.5T trailer with most utes, if you put four fat blokes in the ute, the combination is overloaded). I’ve reported on this endlessly on YouTube - just use the search function on my YouTube channel page.

Essentially there's an 'arms race' going on: all manufacturers (except Mitsubishi) want to offer 3.5T tow capacity to remain competitive but in reality, those last 500 kilos is a big problem - and it requires extreme payload compromises to comply with the regulations when you tow 3500kg.

Wildtrak and Rogue - more similarities than differences, but principally as I see it, better engine performance from the Ford, but far better customer support from Toyota.

Colorado here is a contender as well - but Holden's customer support is as crap as Fords - so there's that. (I like the vehicles but don't recommend them because of the poor underlying ethics of the parent companies.)

I actually think the BT-50 is excellent value as well, and so is the Triton (but Triton maximum towing is 3.1T - which is more rational, but not much help if you occasionally intend towing 3500kg).

A lot of this choice is a personal preference call. I agree with you on the Ram - w-a-y over-priced - and I think customer support there is likely to be a complete joke.