Nissan X Trail
In March last year, I took delivery of a brand new Nissan XTrail 2 litre diesel for towing my Swift Callenger 565 caravan. The electrics to the van would not work the fridge or charge the caravan battery whilst towing. Tests were made and the car manufacturers contacted. The outcome was that it is a built in problem with new X Trails, It is something about eco or energy conservation. Try as they might, the expert tow bar fitters, who I have used many times, could not come up with a solution to this problem, which they had encountered with several new X Trails. To add to the problems, the gear box was awful, grindy, lumpy, difficut to get in and out of gear. The ride was so harsh that it hurt my spine. There was tremor through the footbrake ( not ABS ). It was an all round awful car, the worst of the very manyI have had in over 40 years of towing. So bad was the Nissan, that after 11 months I changed it to a Ford Kuga 2 litre diesel. A very superior tow car indeed, better in every way. What relief !!
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More and more posts are appearing about new cars and towbars or to be exact the electrics, the safest policy now seems to be to have a factory fit towbar. Some are expensive others surprisingly not so e.g. fully electric from Merc is around £750 for a GLC and a semi electric from Volvo over £1000, the one thing from my experience is they do function correctly and if they don`t you should have a better chance of some rectification. The electric harness no longer simply powers some lights, fridge and charger on the caravan but adjusts / shuts off some of the cars systems once connected e.g. BLISS, auto stop/start, park assist etc etc with additional clever items such as auto trailer light testing and trailer control.
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Duplicate Post Deleted User
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The Ford Kuga. A good choice. We love ours. But is has an after fit towbar and our Ford dealer can't upgrade it to provide full time battery charging and fridge power. It's a function of the euro 6 engine managment on most diesel SUVs. At lease we're saving the planet! We just fill up the fridge and keep the door shut.
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We do that too. Our Jeep is the same. Can’t switch off ‘eco-mode’. Have tried alsorts, headlights on fuel, switch off stop/start, engine running and so on. Now just fill fridge and keep it shut.
Very frustrating though
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Blind Spot Information System (Volvo).
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We used to have XTrails until they decided to change them into "fur coat but no knickers" type of cars! The last one we looked at wasn't even capable of towing our caravan and had practically no boot space.
We now have a Mitsubishi L200 and I'm dreading the thought of replacing it as they just don't make 4x4's like they used to.
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