PeterD wrote:

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Meredith wrote:

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Are you still intending to tow with the Ford Ranger you mentioned in your earlier post? Because while the Cell Estate certainly does look to have everything it comes with a Tare weight of 3050kg and ATM of 3500kg, which would really be beyond what a Ranger could/should tow. While the Ranger may have a 3500kg towing limit, to tow that amount you have to have a basically empty car or you would go over its GCM and also it would just simply struggle.

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 Let's do the maths. From the industry towing guide Rangers average about 2100 kg tare. Add to this a couple of standard persons (140 kg,) fuel 50 kg and around 250 kg for your tow bar and hitch, plus other ancillaries. You now have a tug weighing 2540 kg. To this add your ball weight of 300 kg, your tug now comes to 2840 kg. Subtract this from your 6,000 kg GCM and we can tow a trailer with 3160 kg ON ITS WHEELS.

The definition of GCM from the ADRs definitions is GROSS COMBINATION MASS - value specified for the vehicle by the
Manufacturer as being the maximum of the sum of the Gross Vehicle Mass of
the drawing vehicle plus the sum of the Axle Loads of any vehicle capable of
being drawn as a trailer.

People fall into the trap of using the aggregate weight of the trailer when calculating to see if their rig exceeds the tugs GCM. If you can keep the weight of the tug to the figures I proposed (a lot of people can't) then we add the allowed 300 kg ball weight back to the weight on the wheels and find the maximum van we can tow the maximum weight of van we can tow in this exercise is 3460 kg.

The big problem is keeping those weight figures so I agree the  Estate pushes the limits of the Ranger (even though the web site brochure I downloaded has a tare weight of 2950 kg tare and the tare weight includes most of the things that Chris is claiming you have to add.) I would not be happy attempting to keep within those weight figures.

Dianne, if you still wish to proceed with a Cell I would suggest you look at the Peninsula. It is much the same layout (albeit without the island bench) but is a little shorter and lighter.  Here are the comparisons from brochures I downloaded this morning.

Peninsula - length 7.72 m Tare/ATM 2600/3200 kg

Estate    - length 8.07 m Tare/ATM 2950/3500 kg

Friends of mine tow a Peninsula with a Jeep. They have had some serious issues with the van but Cell has had these attended to mostly without having to take the van back to the factory. As a result of the backup they are quite happy with their selection. On of the things they are wrapped with is the outside laundry and kitchen.

Good advice Peter D.

GCM rating is the lessor of a) The tug manufacturers rating or b) Tug GVM plus van GTM.

Many of the modern dual cab utes stretch the truth with a 3.5 tonne tow capacity and ignoring the GCM implications.

Montie