Sun Shades for 4WD Touring: Wagons and Utes

A touring 4WD gets a harder life than the family car it often also is. It spends whole days in full sun, sits on a campsite with nobody in it while you are off walking or fishing, and carries kids in the back for longer stretches than the school run ever asks of them. This page is about how to set a wagon or a dual cab up for that kind of trip, and where the shades stop being useful.

Start with the limit: highway speed

Every one of our listings carries the same line: the shades hold securely in normal driving, and we recommend taking them off at highway speeds. That applies to a LandCruiser on the Stuart Highway as much as a hatchback on the freeway.

So on a long sealed leg at highway speed, the shades go in the seat-back pocket and come back out at the next town. On gravel and corrugations we have nothing that tells us they stay put when the car is being shaken hard, and we would rather you didn't find out on a remote road with a panel bouncing round the back seat. Treat a rough road the same as a fast one.

That still leaves plenty of the trip where they earn their keep:

• through towns and on the slow stretches in and out of camp;
• every fuel, lunch and toilet stop, which on a long day adds up to hours parked in the sun;
• the car sitting at camp all day while you are away from it;
• the drive to the beach or the waterhole once you've set up.

Fitting and removing them is quick, which matters when you are doing it four or five times a day.

Which windows on a touring wagon

A touring wagon has more glass behind the driver than people think: two rear doors, often a fixed pane or third-row glass behind those, and the tailgate. What we cut differs by car.

Front doors are $49.99 a pair and rear doors $59.99, or $99.99 for all four. Where the car has them, the third-row pair is $49.99 and the tailgate panel $59.99. On the cars with third-row glass, the complete set of every window is $199.99; on the Prado 150, the four doors and the tailgate together are $154.99. Several of these have an older generation listed separately, so pick the listing that matches your build year.

The LandCruiser has been through enough series that the year on our listing and the number you call it don't always match up; the LandCruiser by series guide maps one to the other, including why there is no 70 Series cut. On the Patrol we only cut the GU. We don't make a Y62 set, and because the two were sold side by side for a few years, check which one you have before ordering if yours is a later build.

Utes: HiLux, Ranger, D-Max

On a dual cab the back seat is bolt upright and close to the glass, and the rear doors are short, so the panels are smaller than a wagon's. The window that catches people out is the one behind the back seat. Parked at camp with the tray facing the afternoon sun, it bakes the seatbacks and anything left on them.

• Toyota HiLux 2019–2025: doors and the cab rear window.
• Ford Ranger 2022–2026: doors and the cab rear window.
• Isuzu D-Max 2021–2025: doors only.

The cab window is $59.99 on its own. Older generations, the Triton, BT-50, Navara and the utes we don't cut are all in the dual cab ute guide.

Rear passengers on a long day

On a day that starts before sunrise and finishes at camp, the sun works its way round the car. Heading north in the morning it is on the right-hand side; in the afternoon it comes in low from the west and sits on whichever rear door faces it. Kids in the second row get that for hours, and kids in a third row sit right against the small fixed glass that no universal shade covers.

The Cancer Council recommends sun protection whenever the UV Index is 3 or above, notes the peak is usually between 10am and 4pm, and points out UV can be high even on cool and overcast days. That last one matters for winter trips through the north, when the air is mild and it doesn't feel like a sunburn day.

Because the shades come off for the highway, they are not the whole answer for the back seat on the long legs. Tint, long sleeves and a hat do that job. Where the shades help most is the part of the day when the car is stopped or crawling, which is also when the cabin heats up fastest. If you are not sure which glass is doing the damage in your car, the guide to which windows to shade walks through it by position.

Dust and flies

On a slow track with the windows down, the mesh still keeps doing its job: our listings say that even with the window down, the shade blocks sun, dust and insects. It takes the edge off a dusty two-wheel-track and keeps the flies out at a stop. It is mesh, not a seal, so in real bulldust the windows go up like they always have.

At camp

Parked at camp is where a touring set does most of its work. A few things to do:

• Put the front pair on too. On the road, the front panels stay off. Parked, there is nothing stopping you covering every side window. Take them off again before you drive; the legal guide covers the rules by window.
• Cover the tailgate if the fridge or gear lives there. On the Prado 150, LandCruiser 200 and 300, Everest and Fortuner the tailgate panel keeps direct sun off whatever is stacked against the glass.
• Sort the windscreen separately. We don't make a windscreen panel, so the biggest piece of glass in the car needs a folding windscreen shade of its own. The windscreen shade guide compares the types.
• Don't leave anyone in it. Shades make a parked car less of an oven for the gear inside. They don't make it safe to leave a child or a dog in, whatever the temperature.

Ordering for a trip

Order well before you leave, not the week before. Find your vehicle and year in the table, and if your car is a 2009 Prado, a 2021 LandCruiser, a late GU Patrol or anything else on a changeover year, send us the build month from the compliance plate on the driver's door jamb first and we will confirm the set. The guide to build dates and generations shows where to find it. If your car isn't in the table, search the full product list; the per-model guides for the Everest, Prado, D-Max and MU-X and Fortuner and Pajero Sport go into the generations in more detail.

If you'll be sleeping in the car on the way, the car camping guide covers privacy at night and the gaps our sets leave.