New to all this!!!!!!!! Tow car recommendations PLEASE

[MadEggChaser]

Hiya All
I am very new to caravanning. I dont even have a van (is that the right termionology) yet. I am on the look out for a fairly lightweight 2 berth, just for me and my wife. Although I dont see that as my main problem. The car may be the issue.
At the moment I have a 2007 Renault Scenic 1.6 petrol. Whilst I like the car I am pretty concerned about its towing worthiness. Some reviews dont read good and I am concerned about it being powerful enough to actually tackle the job.

I THINK I understand about the weight issues and ratios, but are there any other things I need to look for in a car, i.e. Brake Horse Power and/ or Torque?

I want something similar to the Scenic, size etc, so a reasonably small and economical family car (Diesel pprobably as Im doing 20k miles a year without the van)
Any advice and reccomendations welcome.

 

[Tukums]

You could consider the Skoda Octavia Estate 2.0Tdi (138bhp) 4x4. K/weight 1,495kg, towing limit 1,600kg, noseweight 75kg, torque 320nm/1,750-2,500rpm. Nice small'ish car with plenty of room for luggage etc and I get 33/34mpg towing and of course extra traction on demand (Haldex). With my Sprite Alpine 4 (only two of us) MTPLM 1,230kg I have a towing ratio of 82%.
Standard Octavia's have a lower K/weight and towing limit, but still good towcars with a lighter caravan if you want to stay within the 85% guideline.

 

[Fatboy]

hi and welcome to the our world (or soon anyway) the "van" word does it for me thats fine, if you can think of any cars you might choose go to a website thats simply called "kerbweights" if you put that in google etc it will pull it straight up.
it has most cars on their and its simple to use it tells you the kerbweights and the towing max and the 85% weight which the car can tow, its a colour full site and its one that i trust when needing see what the recomended 85% weight is for a car im looking at.
hope that helps and hope you find your chosen car and van soon !!

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hi there.

I am absolutely certain that all these third party sites that offer technical data about cars and caravans have been set up with the best of intentions. But we have seen contributors bemoaning the fact that surprisingly often the sites data is either incomplete or at odds with information gained from other sources.

There are many possible reasons why there are problems with these sites , but in essence it is almost certainly partly down to human error by who ever loads the data into the system.

An old computer related adage is "rubbish in, rubbish out" which sadly when it comes to data manipulation is entirely true.

The moral is you cannot implicitly believe what you read and the results they give.

I have two quite ordinary cars, and I have not found a singe matching site that lists my exact models with data that agrees with my V5 or vehicle handbook.

 

[Gareth111278]

If you are new to it I'd look for a caravan that you like that your car is a 85% match for.
Only if you can't find a small enough caravan would I then look at changing the car. As you like the secnic why not make your next option a deisel secnic ? the heavier engine will give you a higher 85% figure & the TDi will pull much better than the 1.6 petrol.

If you find that you hate caravanning you only have a van to sell & still have a car you can live with as before.