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**Phil H** · 1 October 2003, 09:40

Jackie,

First of all welcome to the forum. if you have any problems with your Surf there are loads of people on here who know just about all there is to know about Surfs.(not me by the way).

We recently had a long and heated debate on the subject of towing. (initially about caravans but horse box towers were also in on it.) the final outcome was that if you follow all the safe towing guidlines for towing on roads and stick to 85% of kerb weight then the trailor limit will be around 1500kgs. The Surf will however shift far more so plodding round a farm with a little more should not be a problem with a little common sense and care.

I am touching wood as I type!!! I have a 92 2.4 and have had no problems with the head. I have had it a year now. I took loads of advise and flushed the cooling system out etc and still going strong. (towing/motorway/kids taxi etc)

Hope yours works as well mine has. You said you inherited it. Has it been in the country for a long time because it seems once they build up a little UK history they are less likley to cause you problems.

Phil...

**Linda** · 1 October 2003, 10:36

Hi Jackie - nice to have another lady on board!!

Have no fear - your surf can cope with towing your horses. I have towed a Rice Beaufort double with 2 x 17hh on board a couple of times recently - and also the trailer with bales of hay and woodchips/feed etc.
Last time I took both horses - plus the car loaded with 2 adults, 2 kids,2 labradors, hay, feed for 2 days, tack etc all the way to Peterborough and she drove like she was empty.

I know I have a 3.0 and yours is 2.4 but she shd cope- just as Phil says - as long as you are sensible and follow correct towing procedures you will be fine.

I also know little about maintaining cars, and I ask lots of stupid questions on here and noone minds - they always know the answers, and are really helpful.

Just enjoy your surf - its a super car!

**marky** · 1 October 2003, 12:30

set your suspension switch to hard for towing the back end wont slouch so much

**Keith** · 1 October 2003, 19:14

As already mentioned the Surf weighs in at about 1800kg so a towing weight of 1500 to 1800kg is appropriate for the road according to towing experience. Toyota advise towing without the overdrive selected - the botton on the top of the auto gear lever. I find that when I get up to about 50 m.p.h. I can reselect overdrive and it will bowl along. I think that deselecting overdrive has the effect of making less things move in the gear box and thus less heat is generated. If towing a heavy load it is as well to use the "power" button so that the box revs more in each gear and the engine has more grunt when it changes up. Whatever you are towing put it on the stiff suspension and keep the weight on the towbar within reasonable limits. i have never seen this written down by Toyota but supect that it is between 100 - 150 kg. 7% of the towed weight is the right amount for stability of the towed vehicle so towing 1800kg you would ideally have a nose weight of 126kg.

Towing up a serious hill I engage the power setting and let the engine pull at about 2300 revs in whatever gear it chooses. It just goes up.

Happy towing,

Keith

**sumo** · 1 October 2003, 19:23

Hi jackie, welcome aboard, Ive had my 2.4 for 5 years and never had any head trouble,its just pot luck and as you know when somthing goes wrong thats all you hear about, so try not to worry too much and check your levels (oil & wate ) every day untill your mind is at rest then enjoy your surf. The 2.4 aint as powerful as the 3ltr but who needs speed when she will pull a 9 tonne truck 4 miles and not complain.

sumo.

**Guest** · 1 October 2003, 19:32

Originally posted by sumo

Hi jackie, welcome aboard, Ive had my 2.4 for 5 years and never had any head trouble,its just pot luck and as you know when somthing goes wrong thats all you hear about, so try not to worry too much and check your levels (oil & wate ) every day untill your mind is at rest then enjoy your surf. The 2.4 aint as powerful as the 3ltr but who needs speed when she will pull a 9 tonne truck 4 miles and not complain.

sumo.

Hi Jackie.

Welcome to the forum.

As Sumo says Head problems are a pot luck issue, I had a head crack on me however it hasn't put me off the Surf. There are also a lot of 2.4s out there who haven't had any head problems. I think at one point we did a straw poll and it run at less than 10% which considering the age of these cars isn't bad. Plus they don't have really any other issues unlike a lot of other cars. Landrovers have fragile axles and steering and some people still rave about these. I had a friend who probably spent more on Halfshafts for his Series 1A Landrover than my new head did plus it only started one time in 2. He spent more time working on his car than using it. I use mine as a daily commuter car and I've no issues with it and I've done about 20K miles in the last year.

Good luck with it, you won't regret the car, it's built like a tank and will go places most 4x4s won't. If you look at some of the pictures on the www.hiluxsurf.co.uk website you will see a lot of 1st, 2nd and 3rd gen surfs doing things easily that some of the Landrovers and Rangerovers and triallers were having difficulty on.

Finally I see a lot of surfs being used to tow Horseboxes, box trailers and caravans (a lot of them pretty big) and they don't seem to be having any problems.

Cheers

**strawberry mojo** · 2 October 2003, 16:48

Thanks

Thanks very much everyone for your advice. It seems that I have been fortunate to get the Surf. It was imported by my uncle at the beginning of the year and apparently he had no problems with it at all. He left it to me when he passed away because he thought it would come in handy for the horses and wanted me to be safe. I've been very lucky bless him.

I'm sure there will be lots of other questions soon !!!!

Jackie

**Mart** · 3 October 2003, 11:54

I had my 3.0ltr '94 surf weighed yesterday. It had a full tank of fuel, and me, and the usual crome a-bar on front. It came in at 2080kg. I weigh about 76kg so the kerb weight wet is 2000kg. If you remove the fuel at 60ltr (1kg=1ltr approx) you get 1940kg (+/- 20kg) dry (apart from oils etc).

85% of that is 1649kg. Although I believe that legal tow weights include the driver and fuel so it could be upto 1768kg (+/- 20kg scale accruacy!)

We just bought a caravan at the weekend for it max weight 1600kg. Will the forum know how we get on, but I have never heard of a prob when towing except the dreaded saggy rear syndrome which comes to us all and even our surfs! New shocks and srings will sort that.

**Jonnyboy** · 3 October 2003, 12:47

I towed a 16ft boat back from Portrush to my house yesterday (about 60) miles.

She drove as if there was nothing on the back and it was a struggle to keep her down to 50. being a 3.0 Td she has plenty of torque but I was well impressed

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