Ok, now this is not your usual type of vehicle to tow a caravan, granted. However I did all the correct calculations and bought a caravan that fit within these.
In fact, I actually got a caravan instead of a motorhome/camper as I wanted to keep my car (it's my boyhood dream car you see!)
However, the car does seem to struggle somewhat. I don't particular mind this as long as it doesn't cause damage to the vehicle. I didn't expect it to be cruising along as though it had nothing on it's back!
Can I get some advice please and peace of mind hopefully on this?
My car is a Toyota Celica 1999 (7th gen, 1.8, 140) and my caravan of choice was a 2 birth Elddis XL Whirlwind 1993. It also has an anti snake stabiliser.
Petrol engines are not so good for towing as diesels so it probably will be a bit slow uphill. It’s a sports car so probably fairly high geared which won’t help with towing. Caravan is 950kg fully loaded so provided it is within car towing limit then it won’t damage car as such but obviously towing puts a higher load on whole drive train which can be negated somewhat by gentle driving through the gears & not allowing engine to labour uphill.
The sums seem to add up OK so should be all right.
Sticking a ton of caravan on the back of any car slows it down a lot although diesels seem to cope a lot better in this regard with lots of low down grunt.
You also need to be aware of the effect of wind resistance on performance especially above about 40mph. Imagine the force a 40mph wind will exert on that surface area.
Fuel consumption may well be nearly doubled so that shows how hard the engine must work. You just need to be patient and let it cope as best it can.
The common belief is that torque accelerates the car and caravan and drags them up a hill. This is not quite true, it's actually the horsepower produced at that moment which is a measure of work done. The work being increasing the speed or lifting the mass up a hill.
Using some rounding (to illustrate), a Nissan Qashqai 130bhp diesel is a modest tow car compared to the size and weight of a modern caravan, however this produces almost twice the torque of the Celica throughout the useful rev range though this drops off after 1500 rpm in the Nissan whereas the Celica is quite flat.
Work done (Horsepower) is torque x rpm
To get the same amount of work from your normally aspirated petrol engine you would need to near double the rpm of the Celica to the Nissan.
So a Nissan at 2000 rpm makes around two thirds of peak power, say 90hp whereas the Celica makes less than a third say 45hp.
At 3000 rpm the Nissan will be making approx 125hp while the Celica will be approaching 65hp.
That's a huge difference in how the car feels to drive.
To compensate you need to change down a gear or two and use the revs to maintain the work rate. 5th and 6th gear are likely redundant while towing and I'd have no surprise if you needed 3rd gear on a significant motorway climb to ensure you have enough rpm x torque to satisfy the work requirement.
You have a couple of options, use more rpm to the extent your comfortable with, 4.5k should be fine for a short sustained climb (though your fuel consumption will take a battering). Or ease off a little and let your dream car make it's own pace. There aren't all that many really steep high speed hills so I expect it will make less then 10 minutes difference to your total journey time... you're on holiday after all.
As a side note, petrol turbo cars are a reasonable compromise, the turbo endows them with a decent amount of torque across a wide rev range so while not as relaxed as a diesel, they can be effective tow cars for the mid range. The main penalty is fuel consumption as diesel fuel containes 18% more carbon than petrol, you get a lot more carbon to burn for your cash. Diesels are also naturally more efficient and helped by the lower engine rpm.
dectos advice is spot on so nothing much to add, except....
when you hear caravanners say 'my tow car is so good i cant tell the caravan is on the back' take it with a massive pinch of salt.
i have a huge heavy torquey tow car that is rated to tow 3300kg. if crusing in a straight line i could say the effect on the car is neglegable but the standing start accelleration and its automatic gear selection on hills is definately noticable when i am dragging an additional 1600kg "barn door" behind it.
and anyone with an modicum of engineering or physics nowledge would know there isnt going to be a case where the presence of a caravan is not detectable.
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Topic: Re. Toyota Celica Tow Car
