Just popping in to share my towing experience if anyone else is like me and looking for info. Just did a 5k mile road trip over the last two weeks towing a camper with the fam. It did surprisingly well!
Tow vehicle:
2000 Land Cruiser—250k miles, completely stock 4.7 gas engine (without the improvements and extra HP that came with the later models) Suspension is all totally stock and mostly original OEM parts (No AHC, that was introduced in the later models)
The only mod was to add a Redarc TowPro Elite brake controller and Air Lift 1000 helper springs in the rear.
Trailer:
Airstream Basecamp 20 — Lots of mods on the Airstream, mostly lots of extra solar, batteries and electrical stuff. Factory GVWR is 4.3k lbs and we're probably at that if not a little over when fully loaded.
Our trip:
We traveled from Utah north through the Great Lakes and back on I-80. The trip was around 5k miles over two weeks and involved several hours of driving most days. We were on big interstates, state highways, tiny country roads and gravel farm roads—so a pretty full range of "on-road" conditions including rain and high winds. We were carrying a full trailer plus me, my wife, 3 kids and a dog.
Here are the questions I asked myself before this trip and my answers to them now that I've got some experience:
Can the engine handle the load?
Yeah, absolutely. I was previously towing with a 6L LS-based Suburban and I honestly didn't notice a huge difference in power most of the time. The only time I wanted a little more was going up big, steep passes on I-80. The rest of the time was great. It will run the engine harder than normal. towing at highway speeds had the engine running pretty consistently at 75% calculated load peaking up to 80+ sometimes. So if there are any lurking drivetrain issues you should definitely sort those before hitting the road.
Will gas milage suck?
Yes, yes it will. I think we probably averaged 9mpg. I'm used to this from the Suburban but what I'm not used to is how incredibly small the LC fuel tank is. I didn't mind the gas milage as much as I minded having to pull over for gas all. the. time. The only mod I'm seriously considering now is a bigger gas tank.
Should I mod the LC at all for towing?
Beyond air helper springs (which you should have) I think any kind of lift or big suspension mod would probably make towing on-road worse. My previous tow vehicle was a suburban with a 2" lift. That thing handled like a boat, in part because of the extra lift. The LC feels like it's on rails. Super good highway handling, way less body roll. I don't want to change a thing. But definitely have some sort of solution for the squat you will experience when towing something heavy.
What brake controller should I use?
I used a TowPro Elite because I already had it—I pulled it off my previous tow vehicle. I would definitely recommend that one, although it is a bit pricey. I would just say to get a good one. One that has some kind of accelerometer or inertia-sensing feature. I've found those to be WAY better than the older-style brake controllers, especially when you're towing with an SUV instead of a pickup or something heavier duty. Id need to be adjusting the older ones all the time depending on whether I was on the highway or in town and always felt like I was getting jerked around by my trailer more. The newer style ones just work without a ton of thought or adjustment.
How does it handle with a trailer?
Surprisingly well. The steering feels great (assuming your front end is nice and tight) braking is great (assuming you've got a good brake controller). The LC100 is so heavy that I never felt sketchy while towing at highway speed. The only thing that bugged me was a rougher ride from the air springs. In order to get the back end up high enough to pull level I had to pump them up quite a bit—25psi. This definitely resulted in a harsher ride and paired with the shorter wheelbase you definitely felt bumps in the highway more than if you were just driving. It wasn't a dealbreaker though and the tight handling otherwise made it feel fine. You might get a better ride if you included a weight distributing hitch or tinkered with the back suspension a bit more.
How is the experience in-car on a long trip?
Pretty good! Seats are super comfy. Our stereo is in good shape. The only annoying things were:
1. the cupholders. They're super shallow and always seemed to be too big for any kind of cup yet too small for any water bottle.
2. the acres of flat, wasted space around the gear shift. It was basically the only handy spot to set a phone or map or anything. It just accumulated tons of stuff that would then slide around and down to your feet.
3. you turn on the seat heaters by mistake CONSTANTLY. They're right in the middle of the aforementioned flat space around the gear shift. I would set a phone down only to have it slide and turn on my seat heater. Any time the dog jumped up front she would inevitably step on the switch and turn it on.
4. maybe this is just something I haven't figured out yet, but the rear a/c controls seem to only be controllable via the interface in the ceiling that you can really only get to if you're in the 3rd row seat. From the front you can only turn the whole system on or off ... you can't adjust the settings ... which seems insane to me. This resulted in the rear getting set to full blast heat on accident a couple times and I only realized it when the kids started complaining about how hot it was ... again, this might be a user error ... it seems crazy that they would have designed it like this.
Overall, I'm really pleased with how well it did! I would totally recommend it as a tow vehicle for a small camper or trailer. Compared to the suburban we towed with previously, I would say it's just as good towing a camper while being way nicer to drive the rest of the time.
www.victory4x4.com
www.etsy.com
