Tow Cars

[APort]

I have a caravan with max laden mass of 1378kg (27.1 cwt).

My Rover 820 after 10 years of faithful towing is fading fast and with retirment just around the corner I am looking for a nearly new tow car. I am thinking of a Passat,Signum or Audi A4 Diesels. Can any one help me with their experience of any of these cars please?

Allan

 

[rob_jax]

Hi Allan,

I had a VW Bora TDI (130 bhp) until two years ago and nothing but praise for the engine - efficient, powerful, quiet.

The Passat and Signum are similar sized cars, so I have a question for you about including the A4 - it's based on the Golf / Bora floorpan and is quite a bit smaller than the Passat.

The A6 would be physically closer to the Passat (same or similar floorplan), but if you don't need the extra space and kerbweight - they why not.

The nice thing about the Audi is the Quattro drive system fitted to certian models - especially if you can find a 2.5 TDI Quattro in A4 or A6 guise.

Robert

 

[whitetop]

Hi Allan. I currently tow with a 2.2 DTi Signum Elegance on a 53 plate. I find it a great car and I am told that the newer 1.9CDTi (150ps ) is even better. One thing to bear in mind is that it is only a 4 seater in genaral use. Both back seats recline and slide which can effect the boot space, but if there are no kids to worry about, shouldn't be a problem. Comes fairly well spec't as it was originally sold as an "exec" model. Not sure about the exec bit but it's fairly well spec't.

We have a dealer in the Glasgow area selling pre-registered models in the region of 10k. This is how I bought mine and saved about 7k on the showroom price. It had 9 miles on it. 30,000 miles later, only the Turbo failed....covered under warranty.

If you are going second hand, bear in mind that the residuals are not all that great.

The Passat and Audi options will probably cost more, but this may be offset by the resale value.

Hope this is of some help

David