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Hi everyone,

We recently purchased a lovely second-hand van, it is a Avondale Leda Grampian 98 Four Berth, we are really thrilled and can't wait to get away in in for the first time! however the problem is that our previous van - an older but lighter Swift Pirouette was easly towed with our Ford Mondeo Estate with a V8 engine,  however when we collected our new van a week or so ago, when reversing it up a slight slope the car's back wheels did not like it at all, and did a skid!!  This made us concerned that perhaps our Mondeo is not man enough for the job of towing the new van, although the salesman who sold us the van said is would be fine, when we looked in to the weights it turned out that our car and new van are evenly matched! therefore we have decided to buy a new tow car, haven't got loads of money to spend at the moment, but wondered if anyone had any ideas of what we should go for? our new van weighs 1086 unloaded, and has a max loaded weight of 1250, i am going to try and find a outift matching service if i can, we thought that a Volvo 850 or V70 might be good, and also considered an older 4 x 4 like a Range Rover, any advice would be great? especially if you have the same van, what do you tow yours with?

Hello there,

Yes, if the weight's of your van and car were evenly matched then a bigger car is definitely needed, the salesman was wrong in telling you it would be fine, and i'm sure only said that so that you would indeed buy the caravan! - i would avoid that particular salesman in future as if he knowing lied about that, what else has he lied about?

Re: the Volvo's - great cars! (I am biased though) ha ha...but in all honesty they are excellent tow-cars, have reliability second to none, and are a lot less 'thirsty' than the the Land Rover etc you speak of getting, - although Land Rovers and the like are also great workhorses.

Why not go and view a few cars and see which one 'feels' best.

All the best,

Grub.

Quote: Originally posted by Mirabelle on 06/2/2006

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Hi everyone,

We recently purchased a lovely second-hand van, it is a Avondale Leda Grampian 98 Four Berth, we are really thrilled and can't wait to get away in in for the first time! however the problem is that our previous van - an older but lighter Swift Pirouette was easly towed with our Ford Mondeo Estate with a V8 engine,  however when we collected our new van a week or so ago, when reversing it up a slight slope the car's back wheels did not like it at all, and did a skid!!  This made us concerned that perhaps our Mondeo is not man enough for the job of towing the new van, although the salesman who sold us the van said is would be fine, when we looked in to the weights it turned out that our car and new van are evenly matched! therefore we have decided to buy a new tow car, haven't got loads of money to spend at the moment, but wondered if anyone had any ideas of what we should go for? our new van weighs 1086 unloaded, and has a max loaded weight of 1250, i am going to try and find a outift matching service if i can, we thought that a Volvo 850 or V70 might be good, and also considered an older 4 x 4 like a Range Rover, any advice would be great? especially if you have the same van, what do you tow yours with?

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a V8 Mondeo rear wheel drive ???

new one on me !

 The car and van look like a good match to me. If you reverse up a hill its not unknown for the caravan brakes to come on (that means its happened to me). Check this out before spending any money.

Good luck with your new van

John

Thanks for that John, we will check this out.  I got it wrong Campobolten it is a V6 engine!

We have decided that a Volvo is a good bet and we are going to look in to this.