- Have you recently bought a Toyota Land Cruiser 200 series
and need to get it set up to tow your caravan?
Then we've got all the information in this video for you.
I'm Brihony, and this is Andrew.
- Hi.
- And we're from Accelerate Auto Electrics
and Air Conditioning.
So we've got two, Toyota Land Cruiser, 200 Series here.
One is the one that we drive and that
we tow our caravan with.
And another one here is a customer one
that we've just had some work through.
So we're gonna take you through the setups
in both of these vehicles, and give you all the information
you need.
Aright, so let's talk trailer plugs.
Andrew, generally from Toyota,
how do they come from the factory?
- So they all come with a factory seven pin
flat trailer plug, and that you need to get one
installed by Toyota, 'cause it needs a genuine towing
module, to output it.
What you then do is most vans now across the board
will come with a 12 pin plug.
So both of these have been installed with a 12 pin plug,
and that gives you extra feeds in the extra five pins.
And then normally for breakaway charging,
mainly fridge, and some of them battery charging,
but they all, now we put a 12 pin plug on them.
- So the other thing that we commonly do is
the Anderson plugs, what do we use the Anderson plugs for?
- Okay, so obviously you can see on mine,
that's an Auto Electricians one.
But the Anderson plugs, so you'll always have one for
charging your batteries in your van,
because you can push a lot of amperage through it.
That's a grey one.
Secondly, you'll have a red one
and that's for your stability control.
So both Alco, Dexter, Tucson and BMPRO,
or use a red Anderson plug.
And then the third one, which is on mine, not so common,
but some people use it for a fridge.
We find that the 12 pin sometimes can't take the load.
So you can use one for a fridge.
That's why mine's got three.
- And so with charging the batteries in the caravan
and with the running the fridge,
we don't do like to do those through the 12 pin plug at all.
Some people will do them.
- So some manufacturers from factory
will run it through the 12 pin plug,
but eventually it always melts.
A 12 pin plug isn't designed to push current through.
It will definitely work for breakaway charging and so on
is okay for fridges, but you can't charge
batteries through it.
And stability control generally requires
its own red dedicated Anderson plug.
- So the next thing that we always like to recommend
when you're towing is a reverse camera.
So you generally have one standard on your 200 series
that you're seeing behind the vehicle.
The one that we'd like to add in,
is on the back of your caravan,
and that's gonna see behind your caravan.
Now I love this because you can see on the freeway,
you can see basically usually the lane, either side of you.
And it's really great for overtaking,
knowing when to merge and that sort of thing.
It's also great for when you're parking up the caravan
at the site, you can see behind the caravan.
So what's involved with doing an aftermarket,
reverse camera on to your caravan?
- Yeah, certainly.
So most vans now actually come with a camera on it,
and we just end up wiring the car,
or if its an older van we'll retrofit a camera.
So basically there's couple of options in screens,
so either stick on the windscreen over the mirror,
or you can integrate it into your current dash,
sort of navigation system, run a cable down,
down to a plug like that chrome one there
it's called a camera plug or a WOZA cable,
through to your van, down your van
and to the camera on the back of your van.
We can also have multiple cameras on the van, so you can see
at the side, some people have side.
They wanna see down the wheels
or forward onto the drawbar so they can see
what's going on there.
- Cool, we'll have a look at that now.
Okay, we're quickly gonna show you the reverse camera.
There's lots of options available on the market
for reverse cameras.
This is just the one,
that's our personal preference for towing.
So we use the Safety Dave.
Now you can get a kit that mounts
onto your dash here like this,
or you can have one that goes over your reverse [mirror].
Depends what you want.
There are also other brands that will integrate
into your dash unit.
That's a little bit more in price,
so it totally just depends what you want, but know
there's lots of options.
So the reason we like this one here is it is removable.
So it has to legally, if you're having one like a GPS
or anything like this extra onto your car,
it has to be mounted on the bottom right.
And I don't wanna drive with that around town,
blocks out some of my view, so I can just easily pull
the suction cup off like that, and unplug this cable.
And then that just lives in my glove box
or my console box for when we're not towing.
So once again, this screen here in particular,
is showing behind the caravan.
As Andrew mentioned, you can get cameras
for the side of your caravan,
for when you're reversing into tight spots
and that sort of thing.
And so you can set this display screen up,
so it can either see one, two or four cameras
at any one time.
So that's just a little quick info on the reverse camera.
The other thing we need to cover off on
is an electronic brake controller.
Can you explain what it is?
What we install and preferences?
- Yes, so there's few brands on the market,
but most commonly we'll do the Redarc TowPro,
especially into the 200.
It sits really nice in a switch blank,
they do a blank for it.
Anything you tow over 750 kilos has to have it.
It was into that seven pin or 12 pin plug,
and, pretty much, you've gotta have it.
And for these vehicles, Redarc is the pick.
- We will also link to a video below,
on the Redarc TowPro Elite and why we chose that one.
But yeah, basically that's just operating the brakes
on your caravan via when you breaking in the car.
it's proportional.
- [Andrew] Pretty much.
You gotta have it, it's the best one to get,
so yeah, get it.
- Okay, the next thing it is totally optional
when you're towing, is we're gonna look at
a dual battery system.
We're not gonna cover off on this
in too much detail,
because we've got plenty of videos
and we will link to those in the description below.
You do not need a dual battery system to tow,
is that correct?
- Correct.
- So what are the benefits of getting
a dual battery system installed?
- The main benefits are definitely if you wanna run
a fridge in your vehicle, so you go away from your van,
it gives you the option to run a fridge in your vehicle.
It's also a second battery for safety for jump starting,
they're probably the main reasons.
So most of our customers want to put a fridge in the car
as well as have their fridge in the van.
So when they stop lunch or whatever,
they've got a fridge there,
and that's generally what the dual batteries for.
- Also charging all your devices in the as well,
if you wanna run an air pump or anything,
- Yeah
- Charge iPad's and that sort of thing.
- Of course.
- They will run when the car is off by the second battery
or the auxiliary battery.
So the last thing, and once again, this is totally optional.
Now we do a Roo Systems tune,
and both of these 200 series have had them in them.
Speaking from my driving experience.
It is great once again, like the
camera when you're wanting to overtake,
I've really noticed a difference in the tune
as if you'd cruising on the highway at say, 90km.
You need to overtake someone.
When you put your foot down to overtake,
quite often in the 200 series,
if you've got a decent van behind it,
you don't have the power,
and therefore you don't have the speed.
With the tune in there, it's definitely
the biggest difference that I noticed as well.
What benefits, what's involved with the tune?
Tell us a bit about it.
- Yeah, so basically we remap the ECU.
It's quite a common practice now.
And what it does, is it gives you a lot of torque
down low in the revs.
So rather than when you trying to overtake it,
tacho goes a million miles an hour, engine revs
its head off and you don't go anywhere.
It'll sit in a taller gear,
and it'll actually pull away a lot better.
So we find this tune very successful
and very happy customers with it.
It will also help with the fuel economy,
because you'll sit in the taller gear
and you'll definitely reduce your revs
and improve your economy over a long distance.
- So there are lots of tunes out there on the market.
We specifically do the Roo Systems tune
here at Accelerate, why do we like Roo Systems?
- So they offer a towing and touring tune,
and that's what both these vehicles have had.
And that's by far our most common tune.
So it's a nice, safe, conservative tune,
that's specifically designed for towing a large van
and giving you that torque down low.
- So as you can see,
we totally love doing our 200 series here.
They're a great towing vehicle.
We will quite often do five or six,
200 series towing set up in a week.
We are known as the 200 series experts here
on the Sunshine Coast.
If you do have any questions about any of the products
that we've mentioned, if you just want a 12 pin conversion,
we do that, you don't have to do the whole package,
this is just covering off on everything in one video
that is available.
And this is across the board.
It doesn't have to be a 200 series.
We can pretty much do all of this into any vehicle
that you towing with.
Drop us a comment below, if you have a question,
email us at info@amae.net.eu,
or give us a call 1300-227-353, thanks for watching.