Victor said:
Yup the Antara is only a soft roader isn't it and I don't think the tranfer box and the gearbox for that matter are very heavy duty. The actual rear diff with its electronic clutch is a Toyota design built by Aisin (I believe) so shoud be robust enough but very pricey if anything goes wrong. I went for the 2 wheel drive but I'm sure the on-demand 4 wheel is a good safety thing to have for wet or icy conditions solo.
How important is the 4 wheel drive for you caravanners?
Depends on where you take your caravan if you are mostly on concrete tarmac or even gravel 2 wheels drives ok but like if your on some CL sites or small sites which are grass on clay then in the rain that wet stuff makes the ground very slippery pulling about 1000kg upwards then you can not beat a 4x4.
I've just come back from Cornwall and the first site we were at was a slopping field and yep only the bottom pitch was available. Pitched up and the sky's opened up for the time we were there only a few days as visiting family.
The van owner the next pitch up had a 2 wheel drive SUV and couldn't get out. Mmmmm
Got the bread crates bases out so he had more grip started to move but no joy because as soon as he come off the crate bases just started digging in. Tried with my antara and off we went pulled his van up to a more dryer area
So I would say 4x4 is the answer if your towing a caravan to sites that do not have hard standing bases or you could end up getting the farmers tracker to pull you out
because that'll be the only 2 wheel drive that works on very wet grass on clay as Dulac has already said
All wasn't bad though had over a week of great sunny weather just outside Bude
Edited by: Bigjohnsparky