Reversing a trailer doesn’t have to be hard
Land Rover makes the challenge of reversing a trailer easier with the sophisticated Advanced Tow Assist Technology.
To many, reversing a trailer is a dark art, a confusing and sometimes terrifying combination of steering and articulation that can quickly get out of hand and result in embarrassment or damage to one’s ego if not one’s property.
But backing up a trailer or a caravan doesn’t have to be gruelling or intimidating if you know what you’re doing and take your time. It also helps to get in some practice ahead of time, preferably in a place with no onlookers who’ll laugh when things inevitably go askew.
But what if you don’t have a place to practice or the luxury of time? What if the tide’s coming in and you’ve got to get your boat on the trailer? What if the sun’s going down on your campsite and you’ve got to get the caravan in position and start setting up before all goes dark?
Salvation is at hand if you own a Land Rover vehicle equipped with Advanced Tow Assist Technology. This wonderfully helpful technology is like having the world’s greatest trailer reverser in your pocket, ready for when you really need it.
Advanced Tow Assist is available as an option on a number of models in the Land Rover and Range Rover luxury SUV ranges. It gathers information about your trailer, some of which you supply and some it gets from observing your trailer as you drive.
It's an $850 option on the Discovery that we used, and also requires an additional $1000 for the tow-hitch receiver option. You can go a step further and bundle these with a few other goodies for $3190 and score a full Towing Pack, that adds off-road suspension, an active centre differential and low-speed cruise control with downhill descent control.
It doesn't however, provide an ability to stop familiar the tow-hitch cover from coming off... (a little Land Rover joke there folks)
The hitch itself is supplied in a lovely hard case, so fitting it up is a substantially more impressive experience than it ought to be!
Also supplied is the sighting target decal. This needs to be applied to your trailer so that the car's cameras can understand what is hooked up behind. This makes the system far more valuable to those who own and use a regular trailer, but a little less convenient for anyone swapping or even hiring trailers to use.
If you need additional stickers, they can be ordered from Land Rover for about $10.
Advanced Tow Assist is effectively a very automatic parking system for reverse parking. It allows drivers to reverse a trailer using the rotary controller on the centre console to guide the vehicle. Operating the pedals as normal, the intuitive system shows the predicted path of the caravan, horsebox or trailer on the infotainment touchscreen, enabling drivers to steer with ease as the vehicle calculates the precise level of counter-steering required to maintain the desired trajectory.
To configure the system, you need to know the length of the trailer (in inches) from the hitch (anchor point) to the axles (pivot point). You also need to know the width of the axles, and of course stick your sighting-guide sticker on.
With this all done, and the trailer hooked up, you can define the trailer through the touch screen. Here you need to note the number of axles and the various lengths which essentially calculate the mathematics involved in moving the trailer.
There's a short diagnostic where you need to tow the trailer forward so the guide decal is registered, and you're ready to go. You can even save multiple trailers in the system.