Recommendations for a used petrol tow car, budget £8-10k

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Nov 6, 2005
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Freelander is a good car but they don’t do petrol which is what the OP is looking for. Surprised no one mentioned Insignia estate as one Forum member has an Insignia and reports favourably.
??
The mk2 Freelander had a choice of 2.0 or 3.2 petrol engines while the mk1 had a choice of 1.8 or 2.5 petrol
 
Aug 26, 2020
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Freelander is a good car but they don’t do petrol which is what the OP is looking for. Surprised no one mentioned Insignia estate as one Forum member has an Insignia and reports favourably.

Nice idea but it comes with a risk of hefty repair bills if things go wrong.
 
Jan 3, 2012
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I have had many different types of tow cars over the years, my best one by far is my Mazda 6, I got the sports estate and and this is my third Mazda and has been excellent in handling and performance,
i to own a Mazda 6 5 door hatchback it was a ex fleet car it use pull our caravan like there was nothing on back .
 
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Nov 11, 2009
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Nice idea but it comes with a risk of hefty repair bills if things go wrong.
Actually the FL2 was well developed by Ford and has been one of the few JLR vehicles that has developed a good reputation. Plus there’s lots of independents can work on them, and spares are widely available both OEM and pattern. But the only FL2 petrol 3.2 would be an expensive luxury.

Warranty Direct website gives a good idea of what problems occur in used cars and average repair costs.

PS oops your comment was regarding Insignia not FL2. 🤐
 
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Mar 14, 2005
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If Robg is only interested in a petrol model, then he will have to accept that especially when towing, he will experience significantly poorer MPG, than a comparable diesel powered vehicle.

This is also compounded these days, by the weight saving car makers are doing, to improve fuel consumption, lighter cars need less power to move then, thus reducing fuel needed. Unfortunately whilst this means we may see some cars with great economy, they have much less spare capacity to pull a caravan.

But having pointed that out, I can remember how back in the 1960's cars with much less power were towing caravans, and most of them were petrol, so it isn't a total lost cause. I suspect we have become used to having more than enough power, which has reset our expectations to a higher norm.

If Robg can be prepared to wait a year or two, there will be some PHEV cars coming onto the second hand market in his price range. Some have a modest towing capacity, but importantly, they seem to be petrol ice, but with the added benefit of the battery which for normal driving can make a big improvement to the economics. And the electric boost can provide useful extra torque needed to get a caravan moving.
 
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Mar 14, 2005
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If Robg can be prepared to wait a year or two, there will be some PHEV cars coming onto the second hand market in his price range. Some have a modest towing capacity, but importantly, they seem to be petrol ice, but with the added benefit of the battery which for normal driving can make a big improvement to the economics. And the electric boost can provide useful extra torque needed to get a caravan moving.

I had a Lexus RX400h petrol hybrid for over 6 years. Actually, it was a lovely car but it really only brought out the best in itself when driving solo where it achieved up to 50mpg in heavy stop/start traffic. But apart from the low speed torque assistance of the electric motors helping to move off briskly at traffic lights, its fuel consumption when cruising with the caravan in tow was disappointing (about 21mpg) . I never had a car with such a big variation in fuel economy.
 
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I had a Lexus RX400h petrol hybrid for over 6 years. Actually, it was a lovely car but it really only brought out the best in itself when driving solo where it achieved up to 50mpg in heavy stop/start traffic. But apart from the low speed torque assistance of the electric motors helping to move off briskly at traffic lights, its fuel consumption when cruising with the caravan in tow was disappointing (about 21mpg) . I never had a car with such a big variation in fuel economy.
This just goes to show how the drive for better solo economy means the power plant is more carefully matched to the solo car, and how adding the extra load of towing uses up the power.

I would expect most cars to lose between 25 and 60% of their economy when towing a caravan. lots of factors affect it , but the two biggest are increased mass and aerodynamic drag

It's not rocket science to understand that if you double the mass of a car by adding a caravan, not only is the extra mass going to sap more power to move it, you have also got vastly inferior aerodynamics, which are also going need a squared function of power as speed increases.
 
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I would expect most cars to lose between 25 and 60% of their economy when towing a caravan. lots of factors affect it , but the two biggest are increased mass and aerodynamic drag

That's only true for non-hybrid vehicles. In the case of hybrids, they only really come into their own when their electric motors are providing the power much of the time and the petrol/diesel engine is off or just ticking over in the background. However, when towing, the power developed by the electric motors won't meet the needs and the internal combustion engine has to work at full load at the same time, hence the big difference when towing.
 
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Aug 26, 2020
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Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply. For some reason I haven't received any notifications for the past few days so have only just seen the last few replies.

Having spent a lot of time researching the local market, we've ended up changing tack and putting down a deposit on a 2-litre diesel Kia Sportage with automatic transmission. While in theory a petrol engine might have suited our overall needs better, the choice of suitable petrol vehicles is just so much more restricted – and, of course, diesels tend to deliver more pulling power at lower revs, making them typically better suited to towing.

So in the end we decided it makes more sense to go for a diesel and amend our driving habits and balance the use of our two vehicles (my wife has a petrol-engined car) to make sure the diesel gets sufficient longer runs to hopefully avoid any DPF-related problems.

We'll be collecting the car sometime next week and in the meantime have found and bought the ideal caravan, which we're due to collect in about three weeks' time. It's all coming together :)
 
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Nov 11, 2009
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Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply. For some reason I haven't received any notifications for the past few days so have only just seen the last few replies.

Having spent a lot of time researching the local market, we've ended up changing tack and putting down a deposit on a 2-litre diesel Kia Sportage with automatic transmission. While in theory a petrol engine might have suited our overall needs better, the choice of suitable petrol vehicles is just so much more restricted – and, of course, diesels tend to deliver more pulling power at lower revs, making them typically better suited to towing.

So in the end we decided it makes more sense to go for a diesel and amend our driving habits and balance the use of our two vehicles (my wife has a petrol-engined car) to make sure the diesel gets sufficient longer runs to hopefully avoid any DPF-related problems.

We'll be collecting the car sometime next week and in the meantime have found and bought the ideal caravan, which we're due to collect in about three weeks' time. It's all coming together :)

You will like the Kia they have a good reputation. We had a generation 1 Sorento never gave any issues at all and we now have a Rio petrol which is very economical and surprisingly nice to drive even on its titchy engine.
 
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Jan 3, 2012
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Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply. For some reason I haven't received any notifications for the past few days so have only just seen the last few replies.

Having spent a lot of time researching the local market, we've ended up changing tack and putting down a deposit on a 2-litre diesel Kia Sportage with automatic transmission. While in theory a petrol engine might have suited our overall needs better, the choice of suitable petrol vehicles is just so much more restricted – and, of course, diesels tend to deliver more pulling power at lower revs, making them typically better suited to towing.

So in the end we decided it makes more sense to go for a diesel and amend our driving habits and balance the use of our two vehicles (my wife has a petrol-engined car) to make sure the diesel gets sufficient longer runs to hopefully avoid any DPF-related problems.

We'll be collecting the car sometime next week and in the meantime have found and bought the ideal caravan, which we're due to collect in about three weeks' time. It's all coming together :)
Hi The Kia Sportage 2.0 diesel Automatic is fantastic i think you will be very happy with and getting caravan as well keep us updated how you get on
 
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Aug 26, 2020
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Hi The Kia Sportage 2.0 diesel Automatic is fantastic i think you will be very happy with and getting caravan as well keep us updated how you get on

Thanks! Hopefully it will prove to be a good choice. I'll be posting details of the van as soon as we've got it :)
 
Jan 3, 2012
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You can't tell engine from the outside of the mk2 Kuga.... The vast majority are 2.0tdci...
Actually you can when the owner of the car telling me it was a Ford Kuga 1.5 150bhp ecoboost 2WD 5 door because he asking about my car and we were compairing notes .
 

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