Ssangyong Ute Range

There’s a couple of things to look for here. The first is pretty fundamental and relates to how the caravan is loaded and set up. You need to check that the two-ball down-load has not exceeded its maximum (usually 10 per cent of the towed load, so about 270kg in this case). And how is the van loaded beyond that? Are there full water tanks on board? Is the bulk of the mass inside as close to the axles as possible and not stacked in the extreme front or rear of the van?

Swaying and a light front end are classic signs of a poorly loaded or set-up rig. But they’re also dangerous and contribute to many serious caravan crashes every year.

The air-bags are another matter altogether. If these are not correctly set up and adjusted, they can cause more problems than they fix. The best advice would be to visit a caravan and suspension specialist, have the rig weighed axle by axle to determine the total mass and how it’s distributed. From there, you need to listen to what the specialist has to say and be prepared to make some changes on how you set up to tow. But even set up correctly, a 2.7-tonne caravan is getting pretty close to the practical maximum for a SsangYong Musso.

The last decade of dual-cab four-wheel-drive utes have emerged as the tow-vehicles of choice, and you see them everywhere filling roles exactly like the one you have planned. Popular models include the Ford Ranger you’ve nominated, Toyota HiLux, Mazda BT-50, VW Amarok, Mitsubishi Triton, Nissan Navara and Isuzu D-Max. But there are also cheaper alternatives including makes like the South-Korean made Ssangyong and various Chinese brands like LDV and Great Wall.

Just make sure you know exactly how much you need to tow before making a decision as some of the cheaper models don’t have the same outright towing capacity and even if they do, some of them don’t have the engine performance to make towing as easy as it should be. For parts availability, the Toyota would be king in really remote areas, but any of the major brands are pretty well covered in Australia.

Meantime, don’t rule out ute-based wagons such as the Ford Everest, Isuzu MU-X, Mitsubishi Pajero Sport and Toyota Fortuna. These offer better ride comfort when unladen thanks to more sophisticated rear suspensions and most have as much or almost as much towing capacity as their ute brethren.

The Rhino was a variant of the Musso ute, but wasn't sold here. Basically a UK-market model, the Rhino has now been discontinued.

In any case, it used the 2.2-litre engine which forms the basis of the engine in the Musso sold in Australia, but with the addition of AdBlue to bring it into line with Euro 6 emissions standards. As such, the Rhino's engine produced 148kW and 441Nm, compared with the 133kW and 400Nm of our version of the Musso. As for who builds it; while some earlier SsangYong models used Mercedes driveline technology built under license, the current Musso uses a driveline that is all SsangYong's own work.

So why don't we get the AdBlue version of the turbo-diesel? It all comes down to packaging. Strangely, due to the placement of the AdBlue tank, the Musso is rendered incapable of carrying a spare tyre, other than in the load area. SsangYong Australia wisely figured out that wasn't going to work here in a ute, so this market has stuck with the non-AdBlue engine variant.