Hanging onto my Towcar
Just me, or are others of the same view?
Maybe why less people are buying caravans now because they don't have a decent Towcar?
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Likewise @SwedishMetal. Our Disco is now 14 years old and no plans to change it atm.
David
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@SwedishMetal And the same for me, my Kia Sorento is 8 years old and as long as it behaves itself it will stay. I've looked at a Hyundai Santa Fe but the towing weights are not enough (they are hybrids), Kia do do a diesel version with a good towing weight (2000 Kg+) but again until there are signs that it needs replacing it will stay.
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I'm also hanging onto my petrol towcar for a couple of years more. It is not your usual towcar with only a 1.5L petrol in my Audi A3 but it happily tows my Eriba Feeling at 1350kg, returning 30 to 36mpg. Each summer I regularly do a single day tow of up to 400 miles and fill up once, taking only a few minutes to do so.
When it comes to replacement it will probably be the same engine in a Skoda Karoq, or if funds allow a Volvo XC40 B3 would be nice as it has a bit more weight.
All the reviews I read consistently say how wonderful an electric vehicle is at towing, but at the present the vehicle is not the slave but the master. It defines your journey and that is not for me.
Colin
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I‘ve had my BMW from new for 10 years now and it won’t be changing it so long as I need a towcar. I‘m just short of 80 so my caravanning career will be coming to an end in the foreseeable future. There seems little point in buying a new car for the remaining years while the Beemer serves me so well. I‘ve done 150,000 miles in it and it’s never let me down. No repairs other than replacement of wear and tear items (oh, the retractable towbar unit did have to be replaced a year or so ago due to a motor failure).2
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Lutz, you have more than a few years ahead of you. My uncle and Godfather is 85 years young and pulling his caravan with a 2018 Mercedes E Class AMG 270 diesel. His toy is a V8 Range Rover diesel, which he tells me is not as good at towing. He is considering swapping them in for one vehicle to do the job of the two.
I'm 64 and would love to reach the position he finds himself in.
Colin
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I bought my Touareg new in 2015 and it's now done 75k miles. It is, by far, the best tow car I have had - having previously had a succession of Discos with all the associated problems of reliability. I was into serious off-roading at the time and regularly went 'picking up' on the shoot so went for the Escape model which has a low ratio gearbox, diff-locks, raised and stiffened suspension etc etc etc. It was discontinued by VW in 2016 - so I can't replace it.
Although I no longer do much off-road, I like the security of knowing I can get out of any trouble I am likely to encounter and this has proved its worth on a few occasions when towing the van off a field which has become muddy - both for me - and others!
I used to swap my cars every three years but having looked around at alternatives to the Treg, we're talking about something upwards of £80k to get something that appeals - and matches the performance - and at 75, I am having difficulty justifying that sort of expenditure when I probably won't be towing that much longer.
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We replaced our 12 year old Volvo 940, back in 2007, with an XC90, only because we planned to move to a heavier caravan on retirement. We reckoned it would “see us out”, but it was disappointing. It was an excellent tow car, but not as reliable as our 940, which never needed any major repairs in the 13 years we owned it. The XC90 had more problems than all the other Volvos we had owned in total, and we had owned only Volvos since 1972. (Our daughter inherited our V40, it was 22 years old when it had to be written off due to being hit by another car.)
After almost 10 years we decided the XC90 had to go, so bought a Touareg, which was great for the first 5-6 years, but is now giving us lots of “problems”, fortunately nothing that stops it running, but still annoying and expensive to fix.
Having a heavy van, choices are limited, and at the age of 83, and the caravan now being 17+ years old, I am not inclined to buy another large and expensive tow car.
If you have a good one, hang onto it!
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Our current tow car is a 2016 Volvo XC60 with 70k on the clock and all going well we don’t want to be replacing it any time soon as it would be a big outlay to replace with something similar. Hope to have a few more years towing ahead of us but like others on here our time of towing will be coming to an end at some point so may not be worth replacing the car. We had our previous tow car for 6 years and loved it it was a Volvo V70 only replaced it because it was costing a lot to maintain with a few things going wrong with it but it served us well
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A local garage selling Used cars has stopped selling Diesel cars. It's well established and only sells cars up to 6 years old. They told a neighbour the interest in diesel had fallen through the floor. Admittedly, a hearsay piece of talk but the neighbour did buy a Petrol car from him.
I think that come the time for the bans to kick in whatever government is in charge will make it very expensive to own Diesel tuggers, both Road Tax and Fuel wise, probably with a hefty Environmental tax as well. This will be in addition to towns and cities imposing their own charge and Europe probably treating them even more harshly than the UK, if they allow them at all. Many of the European countries are way ahead of us in Infrastructure and "Green" issues carry more weight over there.
I can fully understand the wish to keep reliable tow cars but I think your resolve will be tested by financial hits. Mind you it's not due to happen for a while yet so there's no need to panic.
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Seems I'm not alone then 🙂
I'll hang onto the XC70 for as long as it stays reliable. Maybe I'll go for a motorhome after that if there are no decent towcars available...
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I'm heard that the current crop of hybrid Volvos make good tow cars but also that they have reliability issues with the electric drive to the rear wheels. From memory it's a sealed unit which cost around £7k to replace - anyone suffered this?
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We have had 6 Volvos over the years, 4 of them 5 pot diesel, one 5 pot petrol and one 4 pot petrol. We actively towed with the XC90 D5 and the V60 D6. They were both excellent tow cars. However we moved the XC90 on when it started to get expensive on repairs at about 12 years old. The V60 is still in the family and going strong.
While your tow car continues to suit you (towing capability, cost to run, cost to maintain etc)- keep it. If that changes, take another look at the market and see what suits. We switched to an EV as I had the opportunity through work and it was pretty much risk free. It turns out to have been the absolute best choice for us, and we are now on our second EV with no wet fuel car left in th household .
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