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27/4/2022 at 10:48am
Location: London
Outfit: Lunar Cosmos 524
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Same car, but not quite the same spec, but close enough to give some insight on towing manners if not performance (the extra torque of a diesel makes for better towing), and with coming up 4 years and many thousands of miles towing with it across length and breadth of the country, got to know it pretty well.
I tow a 1310Kg MTPLM largish 4 berth caravan with a 2017 C4 Grand Picasso Flair 1.2 litre PETROL (130bhp/170ft lb), 6 speed manual gearbox, with a tow limit of 1350Kg, and it's absolutely fine, and a joy to tow with. Not the fastest off the line, but perfectly adequate and safe for pulling into moving traffic, happy to cruise on the flat in 6th gear, never come across a hill it truly struggled with (been to Lake District, South Wales and North Devon - none of which are exactly flat!), more than enough poke to overtake slowish traffic without difficulty, I can go past a struggling truck on uphill sections, in fact unless I constantly watch the speedo I have to use speed limiter/cruise control to stop it reaching silly speeds, it's so willing and capable (top end solo is 125mph), I've accidentally exceeded 70mph, reckon it'd probably get to well over 80mph with ease, so Colin21's comment above about 'low power' struggling does not apply to my car at least!. Returns a respectable 27-35 mpg (plenty of diesels can't match that!) depending on road type, so clearly not being thrashed to make progress, in fact usually cruise at 2200-2500 rpm in 5/6 gear. OK, so I have to use the gearbox a little more than if I had more power/torque, but not excessively so. It's also a very stable towing outfit that's never given me a moment to worry about, but to some extent that is a variable down to the caravan and how it's loaded. Seem to recall the C4 Picassos were rated as good tow cars in magazine tests/reviews. Never yet had any traction issues with front wheel drive on grass pitches, or pulling away on hills.
You've got a little less power, but quite a lot more torque than me, which is what counts more with towing. I did consider the EAT6 auto box when I bought my car (new), but reports said it was rather jerky when trying to reverse with a trailer, and certainly the courtesy cars I've driven (obviously without towing), the EAT6 gearbox did not impress one little bit in it's overall smoothness. Only thing with these cars is a rather meagre tow ball load limit of 70Kg, which makes balancing the caravan load a little challenging to keep nose weight down.
It's a oft ask question of how good is a certain car as a tow car, but that's not an easy question to answer reliably, so much comes down to the compatibility of the overall outfit. I used to tow the same power boat with quite a few different cars, all supposedly capable and the boat never changing it's load characteristics, but some towed like a dream and hardly knew boat was on the back, others were more of a white knuckle ride and really didn't inspire to go over 40mph. Taught me that there is more to towing than just making the numbers right! My outfit is pushing the numbers close to the limit (I've decades of towing experience with an assortment of trailers, so not restricted by the 85% 'rule'), but it's a brilliant stable and perfectly usable outfit, if I towed a different van, it might be awful!
Your car has a very capable 1600Kg towing limit, but the above advice from Rob and Tina is sound about sticking to the 85% of kerb weight if a novice tow driver (it's the caravan industry recommendation, it's not law or enforceable, but wise in order to minimise risk of trailer having undue influence over tow car (the infamous snaking for one!) and novice driver not knowing how to correct dangerous situations, it's also not cast in stone, so 87 or 88% match is not guaranteed disaster!). Rob and Tinas figures appear to be correct, so you should be considering vans of sub 1160Kg MTPLM. BTW, the 85% 'rule' applies to car KERB WEIGHT not it's tow limit if that is higher! With such a light van, I would expect it to be a very good towing experience.
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27/4/2022 at 2:54pm
Location: London
Outfit: Lunar Cosmos 524
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Slightly off OP topic, but in response to your post Colin, prior to having a test drive of my car before purchase, and subsequently towing with it, I was firmly of the opinion that it was going to be an awful car to drive with a nasty little buzzy engine that had to be thrashed to the red line to get anything like progress out of it, being only 1.2 litres AND 3 cylinders, but the test drive opened my eyes VERY WIDE indeed, it was a revelation, if you'd have told me it was a 1.8 litre or bigger with 4 or more cylinders I'd have had no reason to doubt you, it's one of the most 'drivable' cars I've ever driven (and there have been an awful lot over 50 years, some of them dire examples from the 1950s to modern supercars!), it pulls from low revs, has a beautiful power band, and is well matched with the gear box ratios, I was hooked.
I'm (or was!) old school, with the firm belief in no substitute for cc's and a love for V6s or V8s or the sheer torquey grunt of a well turboed Diesel, I've always loved big powerful engines with 'lazy' from tickover grunt, quite simply I was wrong, small modern engines have come on so much in past few years. I actually went for the test drive in my car as the final stage in dismissing it from my list of new car options, as a car it ticked all the boxes and very much appealed, EXCEPT the only petrol engine option was that 'tiny' engine and I couldn't believe I'd be happy living with it, so a drive of it to confirm all my worst suspicions was going to be the death knell for that car option, but didn't turn out that way at all, more the start of a mechanical love affair!
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27/4/2022 at 5:06pm
Location: East Herts
Outfit: 1992 Elddis Wisp 450CT + X Trail
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I must admit Monty, I don't have any experience with cars any more modern than my 2008 X Trail, but I do know that there have been many advances in both petrol and diesel engines over the years. When I think back to 1960s diesels for instance, they were awful things. No comparison, even with my 2008 diesel. I've never driven any of these tiny petrol engined cars they build today, so I haven't a clue what they are like. Is there much difference in mpg when towing for instance? With my X Trail I hardly notice any difference at all whether the caravan is on the back or not. It always seems to average out at about 35mpg whatever. I consider that to be good when I think back to my 1957 100E Anglia that only did about 25mpg on its own. I never tried towing with it. The Anglia was flat-out at 70mph too, and it only did that on a good day and probably down hill. The X Trail hasn't even gone into 6th gear (when in auto) at that speed. You have to put it in manually, then the revs drop to about 1800. At 70mph in 5th gear the X Trail is doing about 2500rpm, the same as my previous Volvo V70 in top. If you put the X Trail in 6th at 70mph and you let the speed drop below 60mph, it drops back into 5th.
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Best Regards,
Colin
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27/4/2022 at 8:14pm
Location: None Entered
Outfit: Volvo V60 & Swift Challenger 565
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Funny how perceptions of what is needed to tow has changed over the years.
In the mid-nineties I had a Peugeot 406 TD, 92 bhp, 134 lb/ft of torque as memory serves, and towed a 1050kg Lunar Sunbeam with absolutely no issues. Two adults, two teenagers, full Isabella awning, bikes etc and no problem on or off the motorway. Happy at 60mph on the motorway and easy to keep up with traffic on the A roads. From Halifax we did Wales, Devon, Cornwall, Oban, Fort William etc quite happily.
The `old` advice used to be a minimum of 45 bhp per tonne for car and caravan. Very rudimentary but it sort of worked. Also, cars now generate far more torque than they used to (isn`t the Picasso 221 lb/ft?) but the topography hasn`t really changed enough to warrant a sea-change in thinking.
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28/4/2022 at 9:54am
Location: London
Outfit: Lunar Cosmos 524
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It's not just perceptions that have changed, I've been towing long enough to remember max 50mph towing speed limit (on any road) with a '50' sticker on trailer (I believe it may of only been 40mph Max without the sticker!), and tow car and trailer weight figures sticker in car windscreen! That in turn reduced our expectations of tow cars, and indeed lessened the power necessary to reach those speeds. Power to speed is a bit of an exponential curve, so the faster you go MUCH more power is required. Don't remember when, and couldn't find an answer on Google as to when the towing max limit was raised from 50 to 60mph, but certainly 40/50mph in force in the 1980s when I got my power boat.
It's a very different world now, the power and fuel economy from tiny modern engines compared to much larger old engines is a quantum leap, my 1973 Stag produced about 140bhp from a 3 litre V8, my late 1980's Sierra 2 litre produced just over 100bhp, and anything that could exceed 100mph was considered 'sporty', whereas my current 1.2 litre 7 seat 'mundane' family car produces 130bhp, tops out at 125mph and can return mid 50s mpg. As to old diesels, 30/40bhp and a calendar instead of a speedo before the turbos started to make them quite exciting, I loved my mid 1990s 92bhp 1.9 turbo diesel Xantia.
I think the minimum of 45 bhp per tonne for car and caravan is still a perfectly valid figure, my current outfit is about 50bhp/ton and perfectly adequate, but I wouldn't want it to be any less.
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28/4/2022 at 1:05pm
Location: East Herts
Outfit: 1992 Elddis Wisp 450CT + X Trail
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Nothing I would disagree with there Monty. I always fancied a Stag but couldn't afford one. I did have a Triumph 2000, a 2.5TC, and a Dolomite 1850 though. The Dolomite engine being virtually half a Stag engine, as it was an inclined OHC 4 cylinder. I too remember the 40/50 as well, but I can't remember when it changed to 60.
Most cars from the 1960s were very low geared compared to today's cars, and smaller engined too. 1500cc was the cut-off point for road tax classification. Anything below that was considered "small", and above it "large". Few ordinary cars had engines larger than 2 litres, that was the realm of large luxury cars like Jaguars, Bentleys, and the like. The vast majority of cars couldn't do 80mph, whereas today virtually everything can.
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Colin
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 via mobile 28/4/2022 at 5:24pm
Location: None Entered
Outfit: Weinsberg CaraOne 400LK
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If I remember correctly this car is built on the PSA EMP2 platform, which is the same as the 2nd generation 5008. I had a 5008 as a company car with a factory fit towbar, 1.5 diesel with EAT8 auto box. Towing limit was 1,200 Kg. I’ve towed our Weinsberg loaded to about 11,50 Kg (MTPLM of 1,200 Kg) with no real issue - at least in my two years of experience.
I also completed a B+E course and test early 2019.
I did notice that it would need working quite hard on an incline and would likely be working much harder than the equivalent Range Rover or similar. With that said, I also feel it largely depended on planning ahead for driving. If I see an incline coming, I manually down shift rather than wait for the EAT8 to figure out we’re running up a hill by which point a lot of momentum is lost and the incline isn’t going to be completed at 50 or 60 mph (I’m looking at you A30 Connor Downs). Cruise control and speed limiting also helped with this a lot.
Stopping and starting on an incline again was not usually a problem.
I would avoid somewhere like the climb out of Solva and Newgate on the way to St David’s but then both clubs don’t recommend this route for caravans anyway…
Based on my own 2-3 years experience with a very similar car, I’d say you’d be fine for the most part. Just plan ahead and make gear changes in well in advance if you can.
As an aside, I’ve changed jobs now and have a 508SW Hybrid, which is still the same EMP2 car platform but with a different drivetrain. 1.6 petrol with electric motor, supposedly able to tow 1,350 Kg. I’ve had a towbar fitted and will be trying out the towing over the weekend…
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