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 Topic: First tow with Kuga after Santa Fe
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11/10/2023 at 3:17pm
Location: London
Outfit: Lunar Cosmos 524
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Colin, I think it comes down to gear ratios matching the 'sweet spot' on engines where they operate most efficiently. I've certainly had cars in the past with horribly mismatched gear ratios to engine characteristics, practically screaming to red line and then virtually 'bogging down' on up change because engine revs had dropped out of optimum power band - not a scenario for good fuel economy! Seem to recall my 2 litre Sierra was one of those, strangely, the 1.6 litre engine had different power characteristics (and maybe different gear ratios) and was a MUCH sweeter drive! The more gears, the greater the likelihood of keeping engine close to sweet spot - and getting best fuel economy!
It's a fairly well known phenomena where the biggest (and usually the most powerful) engine is not always the most enjoyable drive compared to a smaller engined version! - all down to power bands and gear ratios and how well they match. And sometimes manufacturers 'tinker' with engine performance in the name of emissions/fuel economy etc. (which are done at very specifically defined lab conditions, not necessarily road driving conditions!) and change for the worse what was once a perfectly good car, recall Vauxhall doing that with Cavaliers! No mechanical changes, but tweaked engine characteristics to change what had been a fine drive one year into a bit of a dog the next year!
Don't drive the huge variety of cars these days as I used to do, so a bit out of touch with more modern stuff.
As to your X Trail, not sure if it's old enough to have suffered that legacy, but Japanese Diesels were pretty legendary for being very poor cousins of European Diesels, very crude, 'agricultural' beasts, extremely poor on performance and economy, and the noise! Took the Japs a very long time to up their game, and don't think I've ever heard of any rave reviews of a Jap Diesel to this day! Your fuel economy sounds pretty grim by today's standards, will say, my current PETROL Citroen (2017, 1.2L) towing a much heavier caravan than yours can match your economy on many a journey, and I don't dawdle to conserve fuel all that much as keen to get a typical 200-300 mile journey done!
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11/10/2023 at 4:19pm
Location: East Herts
Outfit: 1992 Elddis Wisp 450CT + X Trail
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Monty, our X Trail is a 2008 model and is quite quiet. Tyre noise virtually drowns out any engine noise. The engine is actually a Renault unit that is fitted to quite a range of different vehicles. Fuel economy is not its strongest point but it is quite a good and powerful unit. Being an automatic, and I don't think Nissan picked a particularly good gearbox to use, it is limited to a 1,350kg max towing weight. However, the manual-box version of the same car has exactly the same engine and is rated to tow 2 tonnes. I'm sure it would easily as ours barely notices our caravan on the back. It is a fairly heavy car, heavier I think than the Volvo, and it's quite chunky so that wouldn't make it particularly economical, although from what I hear the face-lifted version which looks virtually identical is apparently quite a bit better on fuel. It uses the same engine but Nissan did a few tweaks to the engine management system.
You are right about the gear ratios and the sweet-spot in the rev range. Our X Trail has quite high overall gearing and never gets into 6th gear with the caravan on the back because of the 60mph speed limit. In 5th gear it is only doing around 2,000rpm at 60mph and I think it peaks at around 2,500rpm. It really wants to be doing 70mph+ to be in 6th gear. It's only doing 2,500rpm at 70mph in 5th gear, which is the same RPM as our Volvo in top gear at 70mph.
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Best Regards,
Colin
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11/10/2023 at 8:42pm
Location: East Herts
Outfit: 1992 Elddis Wisp 450CT + X Trail
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Quote: Originally posted by birdman101 on 11/10/2023
Having towed with Auto Sorento and Santa Fe autos for 20 years there is a vast difference with the 8 speed Auto Kuga. Sitting at 1300 to 1350 rpm and doing 60 mph with caravan Previous motors achieved nowhere near this and with larger cc engines but 6 speed boxes. As said more gears finds the sweet spot for efficiency.
Wow, those revs are very low, even lower than my X Trail. The sweet-spot with the Xtrail, certainly with regard to torque, seems to be between 2,000 and 2,500rpm. That is why if I manually engage 6th gear at 70mph it will stay in unless the speed drops below 60mph. If it does it will drop down to 5th, even if the gear selector is in manual mode. There is little torque below 1,500rpm.
Strange then that my Volvo V70 with only a 4 speed auto-box was so economical by comparison. Peak torque with that also came in between 2,000 and 2,500rpm.
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Best Regards,
Colin
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via mobile 11/10/2023 at 3:01pm
They had one coming in October which we were offered. 
