First we had a tent then a motorhome which we have just had to sell due to age/rust etc. We are now thinking about trying a caravan as a new motorhome is such an expense and we need to buy a new (used) car in any case.
The car is becoming fairly urgent and so that we can then look at buying a caravan if we want, what used cars do people suggest? We would only want a two berth caravan and have looked at an Eriba Ocean. This van has a MIRO of 1035, nose weight of 100 and 1300 technically permitted total mass - I am completely new to caravan terminology so forgive me if I have got anything wrong! We may end up looking at other small caravans.
I would be really grateful for any advice on cars. We have looked briefly at a Ford Kuga 1.5l but I am not sure this engine size would be sufficient to tow comfortably?? We feel obliged to go for petrol as are worried about the ULEZ area around London being extended. We are looking at buying around a 3 year old car and would keep this for years most likely.
We had a 1.5l diesel qashqai to pull our 1350 kg (fully laden) 2 berth and it did it but I wouldn't say comfortably and even though it was economical I was never really happy with it.
We now have a new 2.0l 150 hp Seat Ateca which will pull up to 1900kg although I haven't tried it yet.
General thinking is that petrol engines do not usually have the required torque for towing.
I would have thought that at your caravan weight the choice of towcar is very wide
In my opinion petrol engines are ok for towing but you would probably have to use the gears a lot more than with a diesel, and you would certainly use more fuel. Petrol engines develop most of their power at much higher revs than a diesel. You would also find there was a bigger difference in fuel consumption between towing and non-towing mileage than with a diesel. I towed for years with a petrol car, but that was decades ago. I have had only diesel vehicles since 2004 and I haven't towed with a petrol car since 1989.
Yes, I drive/tow with a petrol car, 2017 Citroen C4 Grand Picasso, 1.2 litre 130Hp engine, 6 speed manual gearbox, towing a 1310Kg MTPLM Lunar 4 berth caravan.
Can't claim it's dynamic from standstill but perfectly fast enough to pull out into traffic safely and without worries, doesn't struggle on hills if you select right gear, would probable cruise at 80mph if reckless enough to do so but certainly seems all too willing to do 70mph if you don't keep an eye on speedo, usually I set cruise control/speed limiter to stay legal! Cruises flat motorways/A roads in 6th (top) gear quite happily at 60mph, returns 27-34mpg depending on road type and how fast I push it. I've done over 5000 miles towing the van all over the country and it has never shown any weaknesses, in fact it's a great towing outfit that is rock solid stable when loaded correctly. Not a real issue, but a challenge to achieve is the rather meagre (but not terribly uncommon) 75Kg max nose weight on tow hitch, especially as my bare van tends to exceed even the caravan chassis limit of 100Kg all on it's own! - careful loading of van needed to balance things up.
I'm a very experience tower over many decades so not too bothered by pushing trailer weight close to car limits (mine's around 94% match), but would advise a novice tower to give some heed to the 85% 'rule' (it's not an enforceable rule, only guidance) which advises not to exceed 85% of the car's towing capacity on the trailer weight. It lessens some of the 'tail wagging dog' risks and makes recovery from a wobble (snaking) easier.
The critical figure for a trailer is the MTPLM (Maximum Technically Permitted Laden Mass), which must not be exceeded, and is the figure for a caravan and all it's contents (otherwise known as Payload), ignore MIRO (Mass In Running Order) it's only vaguely useful (the quoted figure is often inaccurate anyway!) as a guide as to how much your Payload may be. MTPLM is the figure you match to your car's towing capacity, which is usually in your registration document and sometimes on the car's VIN plate, it's also the figure used to judge the legality of your outfit. BEWARE of taking car max towing capacity off internet sites, it varies significantly with things like year, engine power, gearbox type, trim level etc. and is notoriously inaccurately misreported on some caravan-car matching sites! You need the EXACT specification of the tow car to get a true figure.
Many smaller/lighter weight cars have VERY low max tow ball nose weights that may be near impossible to achieve with some caravans, AND make for unstable towing! It's a figure to watch out for, and under say 75Kg starts to become potentially problematic on choice of caravan.
As a minimum, the guidance is 40 bhp/ton of the train weight (car and caravan combined weight) for satisfactory performance, so that governs what car/caravan combination you should be looking at. Mine's about 45 bhp/ton and perfectly adequate.
Modern petrol engines (that's new generation ones, as opposed to old designs lingering on!), say in past 5 years are markedly better tow cars than some of the older ones, where diesel was without question the way to go. I swapped a much loved diesel for a new petrol car because of the ever more draconian hatred for diesels in London where I live, without the official hatred/penalising of diesels, I'd still be driving one, but have to say my Petrol car does impress and not fall short in many ways.
Thank you very much for detailed reply Monty15. We too live in London, or at least Greater London so hence our petrol / diesel dilemma. For the last 13 years we have been driving a diesel Citroen Berlingo which now needs replaced. We would love to have another diesel but it doesn’t seem sensible with the current diesel situation.
Take into consideration that after a couple of months use you may decide that the layout of the caravan you chose is not for you and you want to trade in for a more suitable layout. However the caravan with the better layout may have a higher MTPLM than the Eriba. Problem is that as the vehicle can only tow to a certain limit, you cannot get the caravan with the layout you want so you are snookered.
Always best as a first timer to get a vehicle that can tow a caravan with a higher MTPLM than the caravan you are thinking of buying than a vehicle that can only just tow that MTPLM.
Hopefully you can understand what I am trying to put across. Our first caravan was really old and a cheapy, but it gave us a good idea of what we really wanted.
We worked off the maximum permitted weight from our logbook (V5C), as it would be cheaper to change a caravan than change the car.
We then decided upon an arbitrary weight of 70% of the permitted weight for the caravan.
Next we looked at 'vans that fell within that weight category and then chose layout etc.
Add in any special needs and it is surprising how limited the choice becomes.
Go as light as possible because you get less mpg from petrol driven vehicles and less torque.
iank01 has a very valid point, and a fair number of people do find their first van less than ideal in a short time and swap it for something different.
I spent well over a year researching caravans, starting with intentions of a two berth, looked at folding vans, pop top vans, conventional but small vans, mostly a few years old, then ended up with a only two year old quite large 4 berth which pushed my car to it's towing limits. As I'd not long bought the car new not necessarily with a caravan in mind, but was thinking more trailer tent at the time, I was not inclined to change car to something with a larger towing capacity any time soon.
As my first caravan, nearly 4 years on, I made the right choice first time, and would happily buy the same again. I was no stranger to caravans, had holidays in borrowed/hired ones when I was a kid back in the 60's, got a few friends with them that I'd spent time in, and had camped in tents for most of my life, so the 'lifestyle' was familiar. But the many months research into my own caravan choice was time well spent, eliminating things that just didn't suit me like tiny side bathrooms with shower over toilet/basin which basically I couldn't comfortably fit in, from being of no great importance, a spacious end bathroom became a must have to me as the other options just niggled me, and ensuring beds where big enough, not all are, I'm a big bloke, if I don't fit well, I'm not going to be happy!
Spend enough time looking at vans, that's real time in real vans at dealers and shows, not just browsing brochures and photos in ads, you begin to get a feel for what feels right and wrong to you, and hopefully your first van will serve you well for some time. Moving from a motorhome gives you a head start as you will already realise that caravans are equally full of compromises as a MH is, but you may overlook that some caravans are more spacious than others and generally much better than a MH, and that space becomes quite a desirable feature, even more so if you don't have it but you could have done!
Thanks for the help everyone. I should also say that we are restricted to 21ft in our storage space. We could possibly get a longer spot but not probably till next year. That reduces our choices quite considerably. I think the idea of buying one second hand would be good - husband has never really fancied towing before but now willing to give it a go. I dare say he may not enjoy it so the less spent to find this out, the better! Our motorhome was small so we are not used to a lot of space and mainly go to Europe and spend most of our time outside. Just need a bed and a loo tbh and somewhere to shelter in a storm.
Quote: Originally posted by lizzie on 14/2/2022
...... - husband has never really fancied towing before but now willing to give it a go. I dare say he may not enjoy it so the less spent to find this out, the better! .......
Not a lot of time left to organise and/or book (if any slots still available), but you can take a free towing experience drive at the NEC caravan show 22-27 Feb. You are accompanied by a qualified instructor who will advise and critique you, well worth the experience to get a feel for towing a caravan. I did it before I bought my caravan just to get a feel for it, I'd decades of experience of towing all sorts of things from small camping trailers to horse boxes, but never an actual caravan, bit chuffed, got commended for being an excellent driver!
Both the caravan clubs do instructional courses on towing, probably worth investing in one of those if a complete novice at towing. Towing is not difficult, but you do need to adopt a slightly different driving style, for one thing you will be driving an outfit that weighs close on twice a solo car, so acceleration and braking take longer, you need to swing wider around corners to avoid clipping van on kerbs and obstacles etc., and of course, reversing an articulated outfit, that's always fun!
I remember my first experience of towing a caravan back in 1975. I was a 25 year old bus driver so I was used to larger vehicles having driven them for 3 years, but I'd never towed anything before. It was a very different experience.
I bought the caravan in Turnford, Hertfordshire and towed it back to Kings Lynn where I was living at the time. It was about an 80 mile journey on mainly main roads, but no dual carriageways or motorways, and I had to drive through Cambridge, Ely, and Littleport on the way. No bypasses in those days.
I have been towing a Trigano Rubis 310 (850kg) for the past five years with a Skoda Fabia 1.2 TSI petrol engine. Having an automatic gearbox makes all the difference. I would have thought that either the Ford or Skoda 1.5 petrol would be fine as they both develop good torque at fairly low revs.
A day of all things motorhome and campervan. The show is held both in the main indoor arena and across the grounds. Catering, hot drinks and food options are available. Easy access to the site and free parking included. Win one of five pairs of day tickets
Topic: Starting with caravan
via mobile 13/2/2022 at 2:26pm
