Long Tom Pass in a hired car
The R37 from Sabie up to the summit and down into Mashishing is the best drive within an hour of Mbombela and the one that catches out the most hire drivers. It is not difficult. It is just long, cold at the top, and unforgiving of a driver who uses only the brake pedal.
Updated 15 October 2026Mbombela
The climb out of Sabie
You leave Sabie at about one thousand and ninety metres and reach the summit a little over two thousand one hundred and fifty. That is a kilometre of climbing in roughly thirty kilometres of road, through plantation, then open grassland, then the bare ridge where the wind arrives sideways. A naturally aspirated 1.4-litre hatch with four adults and luggage will spend most of that climb in third gear at four thousand revolutions, and it will do it perfectly well as long as you accept third gear and stop fighting it.
Turbocharged small engines feel better here than their capacity suggests, because they are making torque low down where the gradient wants it. The ones that struggle are the older normally aspirated units in a heavy body: a full seven-seater on this climb is a patient exercise. There is nothing wrong with sitting at seventy and letting the bakkies go past. The timber trucks will be slower than you anyway, and the overtaking opportunities are clearly marked.
Mist, and what it does to your timing
The escarpment makes its own weather. Cloud sits on the ridge for days at a stretch in the wet months, and even in winter a bank can roll over the summit in fifteen minutes and drop visibility to thirty metres. The temperature at the top runs eight to twelve degrees below Sabie. People set off from the Lowveld in a shirt and arrive at the monument shivering in horizontal drizzle, which would be funny if it did not also mean driving down the far side with a misted windscreen.
Plan the pass for mid-morning rather than late afternoon, and plan it in the direction of the light. Fog lamps in a hire car are often switched off at a menu level you will not find in the dark. Check the rear fog switch and the demister before you leave Sabie, work out which stalk controls the wipers, and keep the aircon compressor running even when it is cold, because the aircon is what dries the glass.
Brakes, gears and the descent to Mashishing
The western descent is the part that smells. Twenty-odd kilometres of steady downhill, a loaded car, and a driver riding the brake pedal will produce fade and a strong metallic stink by the bottom, and in a hire car you will not know how old the pads are. Use the gearbox. In a manual, third, sometimes second on the tighter sequences. In an automatic, pull it out of drive and use the manual gate or the paddles, and do not be shy about holding two thousand five hundred revolutions on the engine.
There are two or three places where the camber and a blind crest arrive together, and where a tourist stopped in the road to photograph the view is a genuine hazard. Expect one. On a Sunday, expect three. Cyclists use the pass in groups at weekends and they are entitled to the lane. The road surface itself is generally good tar with patching near the summit, but the shoulder drops away sharply in sections and there is no run-off worth the name.
Which hire car suits the pass
Our counter answer is a mid-size crossover with a small turbo petrol engine and a conventional automatic. Enough torque for the climb, enough sidewall for the patched sections, high enough to see over the crests, and a boot of four hundred to four hundred and sixty litres that swallows a weekend for two couples. Indicative rate for that class around Mbombela runs R780 to R1 150 a day in the quiet months and higher in the winter peak.
The class we steer people away from for this drive is a low-slung premium saloon on twenty-inch wheels with thirty-five-section tyres. It is a lovely thing on the N4 and it is a liability on the shoulder of a mountain road with a repaired edge. One kerbed rim on that specification is R14 000 and the tyre itself is another R4 800. If you want to do the pass in something quiet and plush, take the plush car with the sensible wheels and sixty-section rubber.
Fuel, food and the return leg
Fill in Sabie before the climb, not at the top, and not with the intention of filling in Mashishing. A hire car on a full-to-full policy wants to come back full, and the refuelling admin fee if you bring it back short is typically R250 on top of fuel charged at a rate well above the forecourt. On a round trip of about two hundred and ten kilometres from Mbombela over the pass and back through Lydenburg's southern approach, budget nineteen to twenty-four litres in a small petrol car.
Coming back over the pass in the late afternoon puts the sun in your eyes on the eastern descent and gives you the plantation shadows across the road, which hide potholes beautifully. If you can, come home the long way through Schoemanskloof on the N4 instead. It is further and faster, the surface is better, and you will arrive at the counter in a better temper than the pass gives you twice in one day.
Three things to carry with you
- 01Thirty kilometres of climbing and a kilometre of altitude: pick torque over outright power.
- 02Use the gearbox on the western descent; brake pads in a hire car are an unknown quantity.
- 03Fill in Sabie, and expect a R250 refuelling admin fee if you return the tank short.
Read on
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