Towing a Swift Challenger 500

[Renton_374310337]

I have been towing a Challenger 500, 1328kg MRO with a Mondeo ghia 2.0TDCi, kerbside weight 1531 kg. Great performance churning away motorway miles with ease and tackling the steepest hills without problem. However recently I have had problems on wet grassy sites particularly reversing uphill. Those who have this car will know how gentle you have to be with clutch control to avoid stalling and this is the problem when reversing up a gradient on wet grass. Clouds of smoke and a strong smell from the clutch tell me I' m not very good at this manoevre. Because of this I'm thinking of changing to a Honda CR-V 2.2i-CTDi and wondered if that vehicle would be OK for a 1500kg (fully loaded) caravan).

 

[Alan Partridge]

I have a diesel CR-V, albeit with only a 120Okg (MPTLM) caravan.

The only time I have had any smell from the clutch is after reversing 30 yards uphill, with some clutch slip to keep the speed manageable. On that occasion I was trying to avoid winding the mover on and off - I won't do it again, I'd rather preserve the clutch and use the mover.

Unless you have a low box or an auto, I should think it's very difficult to reverse any distance uphill without generating quite a bit of heat in the clutch(and you can't get a diesel auto CR-V - yet).

Fitting a mover would also be cheaper than changing the car ;-)

 

[Icemaker]

Don't go changing the car becouse of this Renton, if you read through the forum you will find many posts on this subject and it would appear that allmost all cars suffer from this problem when reversing up hill with a van on tow.

We had the problem with our 406 years ago and even the disco unless it was in low box, we have not had the problem with the alhambra tdi but then again like Alan we use the motormover if the slope is quite steep.