Picking the ideal tow car is a balancing act. Unless you have a car just for towing, you need to weigh your everyday needs against towing ability. The perfect car for you will meet both sets of requirements.
Your car needs to be a good match for your caravan, but there’s more to a happy motoring marriage than weights and measures.
The best cars for towing a caravan often have certain features in common. These are the factors to consider when making a shortlist.
Weighty matters
The heavier your car relative to the caravan it is towing, the more stable the combination will be. Most caravanners are familiar with the 85% guideline – for secure and stable towing, the loaded caravan should weigh no more than 85% of the kerbweight of the tow car. This is particularly important for newcomers to caravanning, but it’s sound advice for all. A car/caravan match of up to 100% are considered acceptable for experienced tow car drivers.
Being heavy is a plus for towing, but it’s a drawback in other ways. More weight makes a car slower and less fuel efficient. It also means a car will be more dangerous to vulnerable road users in a collision if every other factor stays the same.
So, while the more favourable the matching ratio, the more stable the outfit should be, there’s no need to use a very heavy car to tow a light caravan. If your matching ratio is in the range of, say, 75-85%, you can be quite confident that the outfit will be stable.
Towing capacities
There’s often confusion between the 85% match figure and the car’s official towing capacity. The latter is set by the manufacturer after testing a model’s ability to tow a trailer up a slope repeatedly. It is not an indication that a car will be stable towing a van or trailer of that weight at 60mph on a windy day.
As diesels have become less popular, more of us are towing with hybrids. In general, hybrid tow cars have lower towing capacities than their diesel counterparts to protect the electrical components from overheating. Go back a decade or so and most family hatchbacks and SUVs had towing capacities that easily allowed for towing an 85% match. Today’s lower towing capacities mean that’s often no longer the case. If the towing capacity is less than 85%, you should abide by this lower figure.
Check the towing capacity on the manufacturer’s website or use a database such as Towsafe.co.uk. Before buying a car, you can make absolutely sure of the towing capacity by checking the VIN plate (often found on a door jamb). It will show four weights.
The first one is the gross vehicle weight (the most the car should weigh when loaded) and the second is the gross train weight (the most car and trailer should weigh). Take the first figure from the second and you have the towing capacity of the car when fully loaded.
When buying a used car, always check the VIN plate before you commit. Some cars, such as modern Škodas, need to have towbar preparation from the factory or they will not be approved for towing. You also need to be careful if a car’s towing capacity changed with a model year update.
For example, the current-shape Hyundai Santa Fe launched with towing capacities of just over one tonne. After recent spec improvements, this hybrid SUV now has a much more useful towing capacity of two tonnes.
Pay attention to the maximum noseweight, too. This is the heaviest weight that is permitted on the towball, sometimes referred to as the download. As a minimum, this will be 4% of the car’s towing capacity, but a figure of 5-7% is preferable for the sake of stability.
Power and torque
Look at the engine’s power and torque figures. Torque (or rotational force) is the more important of the two. Cars with high torque figures will tow with less apparent effort and won’t be so sensitive to being in exactly the right gear ratio. Think of a powerful engine as being like a racehorse, while an engine with lots of torque is more like a carthorse.
Around 80lb ft of torque (108Nm) for every tonne of car and caravan should give respectable towing performance.
Two vs four
New caravanners often assume that 4x4s make ideal tow cars. While there are clear advantages to having four-wheel drive, how important these benefits are depends on the type of campsites you choose and whether you plan to enjoy winter caravanning.
Four-season caravanners who like to stay on farm campsites will benefit most from four-wheel drive, because it will help them to tow away from a wet or muddy pitch and will cope better with typical winter weather. On the other hand, if you plan to pause your caravanning between autumn and spring then most of your journeys will be completed just as easily towing with a two-wheel-drive car.
Towing-friendly features
There are many technical features that contribute to a car’s towing ability. One that’s worth checking for is self-levelling suspension. This can really help with stability when a car is heavily loaded, because it stops the car sagging at the rear.
Trailer stability control is another. This is a specific mode for the car’s stability control system that combats caravan snaking – when the caravan begins to sway worryingly from side to side.
Don’t overlook the quality of the towing gear, although this isn’t always easy to assess before purchase when buying a new tow car. How far under the bumper is the electrical socket? Is the breakaway point easily accessible?
Something else to keep in mind is the ease of fitting the best caravan towing mirrors. Take your mirrors with you when you test drive a potential purchase and make sure they fit.
Several modern cars come with a driver aid called ‘Trailer Assist’ or similar. This makes reversing a caravan easier, as it does away with the need to turn the steering wheel in what instinctively seems to be the wrong direction. It’s nice to have but won’t see much use if your tourer has been fitted with a motor mover, a gadget that our contributor, John Sootheran, picked out as one of his favourite caravan upgrades.
Nice, but not essential
There are a few characteristics and features that help make towing easier but aren’t necessarily deal-breakers.
A good quality reversing camera is hugely useful when hitching up a caravan on your own, and it’s helpful even if you have someone to guide you.
Go back 15 or 20 years and many cars had full-sized spare wheels, or a proper spare could be ordered as an option. These days full-sized spares are rare, and some cars don’t even have the option of a space-saver wheel. If carrying a proper spare rather than relying on a tyre repair kit is important to you, remember to check the specification before you buy.
Conclusion
Checking the weight and towing capacity of any potential tow car is the cornerstone of outfit matching, but those aren’t the only considerations when choosing a tow car. Look for an engine with plenty of pulling power and check the specification for towing-friendly features such as self-levelling suspension.
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