I've noticed an issue with my, otherwise excellent, Mondeo 20. TDCi. It has real difficulties reversing slowly uphill (e.g. on to a sloping pitch).
The characteristics of the turbo diesel seem to be very little power at low RPM (i.e. below 1000). I nearly burned the clutch out reversing on to a sloping pitch at the C&CC West Runton site.
Is this a characteristic that is ever tested by the various tow car testers? I've seen results for pulling away, but not reversing up a hill.
don't think it is, I agree many cars have no torque till the turbo kicks in, which ends up slipping the clutch alot during manovering.
My 406 used to always stink after putting the van on the drive, nothing I could do about it, tried to minimise it, but ended up stalling if I used any fewer revs.
The sedona was better, but still smelt a little if I didnt get it on first time.
My Pug 406 diesel doesn't have any problems reversing uphill, we have quite a camber on our road and the car doesn't have any problems with it as long as I give it enough revs, it's better to give more revs to start with so you can dump the clutch then lower the revs.
Reversing with the revs too low can cause clutch slip and burn it out, Ford use a dual mass flywheel, dual mass flywheels have a much shorter life than a steel flywheel, so be careful of clutch slip.
My Mazda 6 diesel also has a dual mass flywheel but no tow bar, the Mazda also has a heck of a lot more torque than the Pug, but as the Pug has a steel flywheel I will stick to using that to tow with.
The smaller, higher-revving diesels do seem to have an issue compared with the earlier, larger engines.
Our 2.5 DCi Renault Trafics seem to be better that the harder working 1.9 ans 2.2 engines, and going back even earlier, the 2.8 turbo in the Renault Master was even better.
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Topic: Do tow car tests check reversing?
