Used tow cars Choosing the best secondhand tow car

Looking for a pre-owned tow car? There are so many excellent models on the market, it can be tough to decide which one is right for you. Start your research with our expert tips from David Motton

THE RIGHT TOW car isn’t going to make your caravan holiday, but the wrong one could quite easily break it.

A vehicle that is stable, practical and reliable means every journey should start and finish without stress. But choose a car that’s sluggish, unstable or unreliable, and every towing trip will be something you simply have to grin and bear.

Making the right choice is important, whether you are shopping for a new or a used tow car. If you are looking at the secondhand market, though, there are some additional pitfalls to be aware of.

You’ll need a car that’s suitable for the task, and one that’s been well looked after by its previous owners. Older cars might not come with any warranty, so choosing a car that won’t let you down becomes even more crucial than when you’re buying new.

Here are our tips to make sure that you purchase a used tow car to be proud of.

1

Start with the caravan

Whatever age of car you are planning to buy, the first question you need to ask yourself is: “Will it safely and legally tow my caravan?”

To find the answer, you need to start by knowing the weight of your tourer.

Don’t match by Mass in Running Order, use the Maximum Technically Permissible Laden Mass (MTPLM). This is the heaviest the van is allowed to be when fully loaded.

Let’s say your caravan has an MTPLM of 1350kg. To abide by the 85% guideline, which both of the big caravanning clubs recommend for safe and stable towing, means choosing a car with a kerbweight of 1588kg (1350 divided by 85, multiplied by 100). So you’ll be looking for a car with a kerbweight of 1588kg or more.

To stay on the right side of the law, your vehicle will also need to have a legal towing limit of at least 1350kg.

2

FWD, RWD or 4WD?

Most modern cars are front-wheel drive. Some vehicles, usually executive saloons and estates or high-performance cars, are rear-wheel drive.

SUVS are often, but not always, 4x4s. Some estates and MPVS have 4x4 versions, such as the Volkswagen Passat Alltrack.

Setting aside the question of value for a moment, 4WD vehicles generally make the best tow cars, especially if you plan to tour all year or you often stay on farm campsites. They also weigh more than 2WD models, which helps with matching ratios.

However, a 4WD model isn’t necessarily going to be the right choice for everyone. A 2WD version will provide better fuel economy than a 4WD, and will generally cost less on the used market.

In addition, if you are considering a

4WD version of an estate or MPV, you might have to search far and wide to track down a good secondhand example, whereas 2WDS will be more plentiful.

If most of your towing takes place in the summer months, and you generally stay on hardstanding pitches, you might not derive enough benefit from 4WD to justify the higher purchase price and running costs.

3 Manual or auto?

There’s really no hard-and-fast rule when it comes to the question of whether a manual or an auto is better to tow with. This simply comes down to the driver’s personal preference.

That said, always carefully compare the towing limits of manual and automatic versions of the same model. You can’t assume they will be the same. For example, a 2011-2015 Honda Accord 2.2 I-DTEC manual has a legal towing limit of 1500kg. That drops to just 1100kg for the automatic.

4

The right fuel type

There’s no doubt that diesel engines aren’t nearly as popular as they used to be, certainly among new car buyers.

Falling sales in the new market have also made secondhand car buyers more cautious about choosing diesel, because of quite understandable fears about resale values and whether cars will be allowed into clean air zones in towns and cities.

Values of diesel cars have weakened over the past few years, although they started out from a position of strength, typically holding on to more of their original price than their petrol counterparts.

That has now flipped around, and petrol values are usually a few percentage points stronger than diesel values, but the price of used diesels hasn’t collapsed.

What’s more, this softening of diesel prices can play into the hands of the canny tow car buyer. You pay less than you would have done a few years back for a similar car, and still get the benefit of better fuel economy. If you recall our petrol versus diesel comparison of two Volkswagen Tiguans in 2018, the diesel returned 30.3mpg and the petrol 20.8mpg towing the same caravan on the same route.

So for our money, with more pulling power and greater fuel economy, diesel is a better bet for regular towing.

You can also tow with a handful of pure electric cars, and some self-charging and plugin hybrids. Of these, on the used market, the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV (for example) might be on your shopping list. Although it’s no better than middling as a tow car, it could make sense for an owner who mostly completes short journeys and can regularly rely on electric power alone.

5 Read the reviews

Every month, we put two new tow cars to the test – and all of our assessments are extremely rigorous. What’s more, each issue of Practical Caravan also includes a buyer’s guide to a particular used model.

6

Satisfaction and reliability surveys

Check reliability and owner satisfaction surveys to narrow your shortlist of cars. Reliabilityindex.com is a good source, based on claims made by owners of the thousands of cars with Warranty Direct cover.

7 Towball, or not?

One of the oldest clichés in used car buying guides is to walk away if the car has a towball. While this is nonsense, it does pay to check what the car has been towing.

If you are buying from a private seller, ask what they tow and make sure it’s not more than the car could reasonably handle.

If the car has a towball, be sure it has been maintained, especially in terms of the clutch and the gearbox. If it doesn’t have towing gear, look into the cost of having this fitted before you buy. Check with the manufacturer if cars with factory-fit towing gear have additional cooling fitted, because this can be extremely expensive to retrofit.

‘There’s no hard-and-fast rule on whether manual or auto is better to tow with. This comes down to personal preference’