In case anyone is curious... played around with this feature on my Defender. I couldn't find many posts on this.

Towed a trailer home this weekend 700 miles. Up until this trip I questioned the actual value of Tow Assist/Advanced Tow Assist and thought of it as a gimmick. It's useful and the Defender does act somewhat intelligently when a trailer is connected.

Advanced Tow Assist & Tow Assist:
-- Shows the little trailer icon on Pivi pro
-- Prompted me to add a trailer, I then "added trailer" and used a tape measure to measure width and distance from ball to wheel axle of the UHaul.
-- Automatically disables Rear Emergency Braking and gives you a warning
-- Automatically does not lower the vehicle into access height when stopping (even when selected in Pivi) !
-- Lets you steer the trailer vehicle in reverse with the left hand climate **** (it's better than you might think... and the steering wheel whips around like crazy turning when you do this)
-- By pressing and HOLDING the left climate **** in reverse, you can straighten the trailer out. In my case, in a large parking lot test it actually comically snaked back and forth but it did eventually bring the trailer and Defender into perfect alignment... albeit about 50 feet behind where my desired parking spot was. I suspect a good bit of operator error as I didn't hold the button down the whole time and perhaps that is the trick?
***note-it is amusing that the pivi screen says "tap to align trailer" -- In US here, tap means a quick tap. By "tap"... they mean "hold it down"

One note (which is in the owners manual...), the car needs to be off when connecting and reconnecting trailer wiring. Realized this. I had a corrosion issue on my vehicle side connector. Made more complex when the car was on and I was connecting/disconnecting to try to wear off the green corrosion on the pins and get the lights to work. All sorted.

Some images


Trailer Assist Icon appears (had no idea.. ha)


Trailer icon above camera icon on right bar


The trailer icon changes to a different icon with a steering wheel on it w/ advanced tow assist. This is the screen you see in Pivi when in reverse and hit the trailer icon on the right above camera.


Confirmed access height was on, but vehicle does not auto lower when doors opened, a cool feature. I wish they'd also do this when offroad in a terrain response mode ...


Notification appears. In other news why do I get this godawful Alexa notification too every blasted time I start the car...


Rear options disabled automagically greyed out when trailer connected


The little trailer light comes on when turn signals used to confirm connection, just like my D2's


Home w/ the Bull bar and mounting bits in a big box


And other than being blocked in at U-Haul for 30 mins... was flawless trip.


On the move pic. My ball height is a little high for this trailer with my 1.5" lift/tires.

 

Thanks for sharing this valuable information

 

I don't tow much. Couple of trailer-camping this this past summer is all I've ever done with the Defender

I have played with the advanced tow assist feature a bit and found it to be useless in trying to reverse into a parking spot with the trailer. Watching me derp was quite an amusing site for my fellow campers.
It does work well to keep the trailer and Defender straight if you wanted to reverse straight back for a long stretch. I'm sure folks more adept than I (a low bar to be sure), could get the feature to improve their trailer parking but for me it was as useful as a chocolate teapot.

Old school, arm out the window and steering the trailer into the spot did the job nicely. Second trip I was much more proficient.

With the camera tech I thought the feature might make the trailer disappear form the camera view. I think I saw an advert on a Ford or GM truck some years back.

The little red dot (a standard feature on all Defenders) in the tow view is setup for use with JLR's deployable hitch as far as I can tell. It would be nice to be able to move that dot depending on one's own hitch. That would make it more useful.

Advanced Tow Assist in action

 

With some practice, the reversing feature is really useful. Last summer I had to back our trailer off the San Juan ferry in Friday Harbor, Washington, a straight run of 330' with a turn at the end. Needless to say, they wanted me to back out first with everyone watching. It couldn't have gone smoother - just engaged the reverse steer and I aced the maneuver, right down the middle of the ramp - trick is to only use the assist to make small steering corrections. On completing the maneuver, I got a spontaneous round of applause from all the bystanders!

 

This Land Rover short is what helped push me to get the tow package/assist features on the Defender
I'd hate to be unprepared if I so decided to visit a lighthouse, on a narrow causeway, all while towing my trailer as high tide came in.

 

I just towed for the first time but didn't figure out how to turn the reversing on. We did 1100 miles with a full woodworking shop (Shopsmith with every add on) in the mid sized U-Haul trailer. Other than a bit of clunking from the hitch it was an easy tow. What are the three sticker dots for?

 

I don't have the 3 sticker "dots" with the Defender .. our older Rovers (RRS's & LR4's I believe) had these dots, and I was supposed to stick them on the trailer to calibrate it. The 3 dots would never stick in the right spot on the trailer (try sticking on diamond plate! or on the front of a boat trailer...nope) and in all my years of towing with them, never did it successfully.

This Defender, no dots and no need to use them it seems.

I was prompted to put the trailer dimensions in and travel on a straight road for maybe 50-100 feet, while it says "trailer calibration in progress" -- then trailer was "calibrated" whatever that actually means.

Anyway, do others have the 3 dots with Defenders?

 

Yes, I do. In fact, the more junior sales rep pointed out to me specifically not to throw it away.
It was pretty haphazardly thrown in the load space with boxes that held my floor mats, so I wouldn't doubt that many get lost or tossed by dealers during prep.

 

do you have to push a button when you put it in reverse to turn on that steering mode? maybe that's what I didn't do right. I did everything else you described, got the calibrating message, put in the dimensions it asked for. Just coudln't figure out when I put it in reverse at the end of the trip why I didn't get the steering options.

I mean, I've been backing up with a trailer since I was a teenager and I'm old, but I still would have liked to see it work and I'm lazy and having to remember how to back up a few times a year I'm happy to let the computer do it.

 

I think there are two:

Tow Assist
Advanced Tow Assist

And only the Advanced does the steering thing

I believe neither of them use the 3 dot targets other JLR models used. Can't find any mention of it in the owners manual online, but in the pre-Pivi Pro models, the 3 dots thing is in the manual. .