Is The JK Jeep A Good Tow Vehicle

[kx steve]

Is the jk a good vehicle to tow with?
My jk is a 2009 diesel auto has a ECU tune but no transmission cooler.
It normally runs mud tires but I have put the standard tire back on to help ease the load on the car.

So I thought I would find out, I have towed with the jk many times but not a big trip like we are doing this present time.
The jk is towing a 17ft pop-top caravan dry it weights 1300kg and its got about 400kg of stuff in it at a guess so about 1700kg all up.
So we set off from Perth destination Tasmania, at the moment we are just outside of Melbourne.

On the trip we have encountered tail winds, strong head winds and side winds
I have tried with driving with overdrive on overdrive off and different speeds.

The jeep will pull the caravan with the over drive on but labours ever so slightly as the rev drop below 2000rpm which is to low for towing, the engine temps sit between 76 to 90Deg trans temps sit between 61 to 67 Deg on a flat road and no head winds.

The best way to tow what I have found is to drive with the over drive off and sit at 90 to 100kmh revs at 2500rpm fuel usage slightly lower with over drive off.
Head wind make the engine temps go from anywhere 76 to 100Deg Trans temps stay the same about 70Deg.

The engine temps rise very quickly if the going gets tough, the trans temp take a lot longer to rise but also take a longer for them to come back down.

On the trip I have had the engine temp as high as 102 and trans temps 105. When traveling the great ocean road,through the Ottoway national park there are a lot of slow steep hills. I couldn't get the trans to lock up due to the slow speed this created a lot hotter temps to the cooing system and transmission.

If you can maintain a good pace and keep the auto toque converter locked you don't have any problems with the trans over heating.

So far we have travelled 6000km with the jk and its not missed a beat, it doesn't suffer from the lack of power. If you have a hill in front it will climb up them with ease.
It Just need's a larger cooling system. If I did this same trip in summer the cooling system would of struggled big time with the heat. Not so much the transmission but it still need a transmission cooler to help

So is the jk a good tow vehicle in my eyes no its not.
but I didn't buy my jeep for a tow vehicle next car will do that but I will still keep the jeep.

We wont need to make the trip back as we are going to be settling in Tassie so all you Tassie jeep guys look out for a blue jk with west Australian plates on and say hello

[LeighP]

What year / eng combo?

[kx steve]

Originally Posted by LeighP

What year / eng combo?

Thank Mate just put it in at the top

[Paul-JK]

I found the same as you with my 2010 CRD Auto towing a camper trailer. It had the power and it was very stable when towing (arguably more stable than when solo). There were only 2 issues......

The first was the temperatures, and if I'd been doing a lot of towing then I would have fitted a dedicated transmission cooler to take care of that.

The second was the gearing. I always towed with OD off to keep the TC locked as much as possible. That essentially means you're driving a 3 speed auto and the gaps between the ratios were too big for my liking. If you could keep it in the torque band then it was great but the gap between having TC locked up in 3rd and dropping back to get TC lock up in 2nd was too big. A few times I was faced with having to slow down to better match the 2nd gear ratios or run at higher revs than I wanted as if I changed to 3rd then the TC would unlock and the temps would rise.

To be fair I was running 33" tyres and didn't have a dedicated transmission cooler. Adding a cooler and running 32" tyres would have helped a lot, but ultimately there were still big gaps between gear ratios which wasn't ideal.

All that said, do I think it made a good tow car........yes, definitely. You need to drive it to it's strengths but it was very comfortable and stable when towing.

[Nanook]

I tow a camper trailer with my 3.8. Nothing too heavy, fully loaded it would sit around 900kg.

I usually sit around the 90 - 100kph mark however it will easily sit on 110. I couldn't even count how many thousands of kms I done towing with it. It will tow all day without an issue.

Mine's a manual and find if I sit in 5th it has enough power. 6th will labour the engine at the slightest bump in the road.

Even though the 3.8 isn't a power house, going up twisty hills is easy when the revs are kept up to it. It only becomes an issue when you get stuck behind Granma and Granpa in their Camry braking at every turn.

Admittedly I really woudn't want to tow anything with it that's close to the JKs towing limit but for me and what I tow it's the perfect vehicle.

[Stevil]

I tow around 750kg of boat regularly and it eats it up, obviously I stick it 4th up hills as it just doesnt have the torque of the CRD, but overall fuel economy rises 1-1.2L per 100 on the free way.

[MidnightMods]

This may help with the RPM range when towing

RA428 (2.8 CRD jk engine)