What a dual cab can actually tow

The sum

Gross Combined Mass is the most the vehicle and the trailer may weigh together. Take the trailer off it and what remains is all the vehicle may weigh, loaded. Take the vehicle's kerb weight off that and what remains is everything you can add to it.

The tow ball is the part that catches people. A loaded caravan puts around ten per cent of its weight down on the ball, and that weight sits on the car rather than on the trailer's axles. Isuzu, Mitsubishi and Mazda each publish 350kg as the most their tow bar will take, which is ten per cent of 3,500kg exactly.

That the ball comes out of payload is the makers' own instruction, not our reading. Mazda, on its weights page:

"The weight of any vehicle occupants, options, accessories, modifications, cargo and tow ball download must be included when calculating payload weight."

Ford and Toyota print the same thing in their own words.

The five

The heaviest double cab in each range, towing 3,500kg, with the ball at 350kg.

GCM and kerb are each maker's. The allowance, what the car may carry and what is left are our subtraction.

The best of them keeps 230kg.

Two of them cannot do it

At 3,500kg of trailer a D-MAX is capped at 2,500kg. A BLADE weighs 2,199kg empty, which leaves 301kg, and Isuzu's own maximum ball is 350kg. The car is 49kg over its Gross Combined Mass with nobody in it. The BT-50 Thunder is 63kg over on the same sum.

It is not only the two flagships. The D-MAX X-TERRAIN is 20kg short of the ball and the BT-50 SP 26kg short.

To bring a BLADE under its Gross Combined Mass at 3,500kg the ball has to come down to 301kg, which is 8.6 per cent of the trailer. On a Thunder it has to come down to 287kg, or 8.2 per cent. Both of those figures are with nobody aboard, and every kilogram that gets in comes off them.

The D-MAX and the BT-50 are one vehicle

Their sheets say so without either maker mentioning the other. Same 3,125mm wheelbase, same 3,000kg and 3,100kg GVM, same 5,850kg and 6,000kg GCM, same 3,500kg braked and 750kg unbraked, same 350kg ball. Cross-shopping the two changes the badge and not the arithmetic.

Gross Combined Mass does not rank them

The Ranger has the largest of the five at 6,400kg and finishes second, because the Platinum is 199kg heavier than the Triton GSR. The Triton starts 150kg behind on the figure the brochures lead with and ends 49kg ahead on the only one a buyer can load.

What each gives up of its own GVM

Every one of them is capped below the Gross Vehicle Mass printed beside its own payload the moment it tows at the maximum, because Gross Combined Mass runs out first.

Ours, from each maker's GVM against its braked towing limit.

The carrying capacity on the spec sheet is not reachable while the car is towing what the same sheet advertises.

The Raptor is not in it

It is rated to tow 2,500kg, not 3,500kg, on a Gross Combined Mass of 5,400kg, a full tonne below every other 4x4 Ranger. The most expensive Ranger sold here pulls less than the cheapest 4x4 HiLux.

The 4x2 is not automatically the answer

A 4x2 is lighter, so the usual advice is that it carries more. That holds where the maker also rates it to tow less, and fails where the maker does not.

Toyota rates a 4x2 HiLux to 2,900kg braked, 600kg below its 4x4, and a 4x2 SR double cab keeps 645kg against the heaviest 4x4's 108kg. Mitsubishi rates a 4x2 Triton to the full 3,500kg on a 6,210kg GCM, and a 4x2 double cab keeps 345kg.

Isuzu and Mazda rate their 4x2s to the same 3,500kg as their 4x4s, on a GCM 150kg lower. A 4x2 D-MAX Crew Cab Ute LS-U is 15kg short of the ball and a 4x2 BT-50 XTR 12kg short. On those two the 4x2 is worse than the 4x4, not better.

Before you sign anything

Check the tow bar is in the price. On the Ranger the 3,500kg rating uses a Genuine Ford tow pack, standard on XLT and above but on XL, XLS and Black Edition "available as part of a pack at additional cost". The headline towing number can be an option you have not bought.

Count the accessories. A bull bar, a canopy, a second battery and a tow bar together are commonly 150kg to 250kg, and all of it comes off the same figure the ball comes off.

Weigh it. These are published masses for a car with a full tank and nothing else in it. A public weighbridge costs a few dollars and gives you the number the published one is standing in for.