Selecting the right vehicle for your van

You’ve purchased your perfect caravan. Now you just need to find the ideal car to tow it! David Motton has expert advice

FINDING THE RIGHT tow car won’t necessarily make your caravan holiday, but the wrong one could quite easily break it.

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

With that in mind, here are our expert tips to help you buy a tow car to be proud of.

1 Start with the caravan

Whatever the age of car you plan to buy, the first question to ask yourself is: “Will it safely and legally tow my caravan?” To find the answer to that question, you need to begin by knowing the weight of your tourer.

Don’t match by the Mass in Running Order (MIRO); instead, use the Maximum Technically Permissible Laden Mass (MTPLM). This is the heaviest the caravan 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 major 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 vehicle with a kerbweight of 1588kg or more.

To stay the right side of the law, it will also need to have a legal towing limit of at least 1350kg (see p68 for details).

2 FWD, RWD or 4WD?

The majority of modern vehicles are front-wheel drive. Some cars, usually executive saloons and estates or high-performance models, 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 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 4WD, and will generally cost less on the used market.

3 Manual or auto?

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

4 The right fuel type

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

That has now flipped around, and petrol values are usually a few percentage points stronger than diesel, but the price of used diesels hasn’t collapsed. What’s more, this softening of diesel prices can play into the canny tow car buyer’s hands.

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.

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 small handful of pure electric cars, and some self-charging and plug-in hybrid models.

5 Satisfaction and reliability surveys

Clearly, new car buyers don’t want their vehicle to break down. But reliability has to be an even bigger factor when choosing a used car, especially one that will face the additional wear and strain of towing.

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

6 Towball, or not?

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

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

If the vehicle already has a towball fitted, be very sure that it has been maintained properly, especially in terms of the clutch and the gearbox.

If the car doesn’t have towing gear, check the cost of having this fitted before you buy.

In addition, find out from the manufacturer whether vehicles with factory-fit towing gear have additional cooling, because this can be very expensive to retrofit.