Best mid sized SUV Australia 2013
Q.A reader has posted a question asking what is the best mid-size SUV going around at the moment.
Their key criteria is safety, price and a towing limit of 5,000.
A. An article on Drive.com (Top selling SUV\’s) details the best selling mid-sive SUV’s of last year. I’ve also linked to an article that provides some useful details on towing with SUV’s/4WD’s (How to Tow). It is interesting to note that even the biggest and most powerful SUV’s/4WD’s have a maximum towing capacity of 3500kg (braked). There would be no mid-size SUV in Australia that would be capable of towing 5,000kg.
Below lists the towing capacity of the best selling mid-size SUV’s listed in the drive article above. I have also added the VW Tiguan to this list as it is a very capable SUV (although it would probably be closer to a small to mid sized SUV), but more importantly, it has the equal highest braked towing capacity of all the other mid-sized SUV’s listed.
| Make and Model | Price* | Towing Max (kg) – braked |
| Nissan X-Trail 2WD manual | 31,660 | 1500 |
| Mazda CX-5 2WD manual | 31,403 | 1800 |
| Toyota Rav-4 2WD manual | 32,074 | 800 |
| Nissan Dualis Manual | 29,088 | 1200 |
| Subaru Forester X Manual | 34,753 | 1500 |
| VW Tiguan | 32,575 | 1800 |
*Price:
On-road for the base 2WD petrol models.
Conclusion
All of these cars have a very good safety score. The two that really stand out in terms of one of your key requirements (maximum towing capacity) is the Mazda CX-5 and VW Tiguan. If space and practicality is also a priority, then the CX-5 would be the outright winner as it is a substantially bigger car to the Tiguan. It is also $1,000 cheaper than the Tiguan.