I recently purchased a small a-frame pop up camper (15' total length) and had some time this weekend to play with the Advanced Tow Assist on my '21 D90. Has anyone used it extensively?

I noticed it appears to no longer require the three-dot target that came with my Defender. Once I entered the trailer dimensions and performed the calibration it appeared to be ready to go (no mention of placing target as shown in some older videos of the system in other LR vehicles). I was able to get the system to respond and operate using the left dial in our center stack, but the range of motion and the overall behavior was not really what I expected. The system seemed hesitant to move the purple target lines very much. It seemed like a LOT of turning of the dial was needed to get it to respond.

The ability to set the target lines to 'green' and have the trailer back completely straight seemed to work very well (and kind of freaky!).

Has anyone else tried it out and had luck with it?

The realist in me says stop worrying about it and rely on my own trailer-backing skills built up from years of towing. The gadget-lover in me says I paid for the damn technology I want to know exactly how it works!!

 

I have only used it once, we rented a 19ft camper last week. I ended up setting up the trailer profile, and you are correct, no need for the target. I found the tow assist was nice to have in terms of camera action. I found the dial worthless, at least without practice. i bet it is much better once you practice several times but I did not. I just backed up and that was it.

 

I agree with your assessment of the trailering camera views. Very nice feature and I like the fact that they can be visible at all speeds.

 

Yeah, I’ve used it with a couple of different trailers and generally like it, though I still haven’t quite figured how to get the trailer to go exactly where I want it to go. It’s a nice feature on the whole.

 

Did you figure out what the 'Tap to align trailer' message is intended to mean/do? From the manual, it appears that if you hold the dial in for a second it aligns the trailer (though I didn't read that until I was finished with my experimentation). I could swear that I held it in for a while during my testing, but never saw anything change.

 

No, I’ve never been able to figure that out. I tap away and nothing happens. Will try holding the dial down next time. I just assume if I turn the dial in the right direction the trailer will go there, and adjust as I go. I probably need to play around with it some more.