what car do you tow your caravan with?

[poocatcherchampion]

Particularly if it is a 7 seater? We are thinking about upgrading to a caravan and are in the middle of choosing a car which could do that if required.

I'd love to know - it sounds complicated. Every car seems to weigh something different and it looks like 4 berth caravans are about 1500kg.

My four berth is 1250kg, I tow it with a Ford Focus.

Have you looked at Lunar caravans? Not that Id suggest getting a focus, it does limit your choice of van. You've got to think your car you will be using all the time, the caravan less frequently.

Id have thought that most seven seaters would be heavy enough to tow a wide range of 4 berths. Find a car you're happy with, or cars. Check their kerb weight and then buy the diesel model if it's heavy enough for what you want to tow.

Have you found the tow car matching website? Think it's called whattowcar?

We used to tow ours with a Ford S Max. I can't remember how much our caravan weighs but it's large and has twin axles, so probably heavier than most. We didn't have any problems with the S max - it was a good towing car and has 7 seats if you need them.

We have a twin axle caravan and tow it with a discovery.

Vauxhall Zafira 2.0 diesel, tows really well. Load heavy kit in car as well as van though to distribute the weight.
Think we can tow 1,450kg safely.

6 berth caravan towed with a Discovery.

6 berth Swift Charisma towed with a Nissan Pathfinder (7 seats/4x4)

This is all fab thanks! Keep em coming.

Any weights also appreciated

Gosh, we've got a Focus and I can't imagine towing a 4 berth with it, or even a 2 berth. Is it legal to tow that weight? (Not being rude, just amazed).

We have a Discovery and tow a heavy double axle monster!

Hi Spotty
Another 6 berth Swift Charisma here but towed by a Volvo XC90 (7 seats). But thinking of getting an XC60 next time as we don't use the 7 seats.

honeyroar. Yep, legal. According to the tow car matching service im at 87%. I work it out as slightly higher at about 90% but definitly legal.

I've got an estate so not sure if that makes a difference to the car kerb weight but there's something like 250kg difference between the car weight and the MIRO of the caravan. I just have to make sure I don't carry heavy stuff in the caravan when towing. My 4 berth is lighter than my old two berth.

We tow a Bailey Ranger with a Touran - dunno the weights though. I'll ask DP.

My parents used to tow their caravan with a vw sharan, apparently the seat alhambra is the same car but cheaper. Before that a ford s max, renault espace, land rover freelander. We're about to "upgrade" from a T 5 camper which we converted ourselves so it has 7 seats to a caravan (once upon a time we could all sleep in the van but mostly the biggest too sleep in their own tent). We are going to tow the caravan with our T5 so I expect we'll get a few looks when we arrive on sites. ??

We used to tow our Sprite Musketeer with a Volvo V70 (7 seats but 2 of them were child seats in the boot!), very powerful car, had no problems accelerating with the van on but they are low at the back so the van always looked slightly tipped forwards when it was attached.

Then we swapped it for a Hyundai Santa Fe (7 seats), what this car looses in power it more than makes up for in being 4 wheel drive. Great car and just as reliable as the Volvo.

I tow a big old 5 berth caravan with a 20.lt diesel Zafira. We worked out the wieghts and it was fine but I cant remember what the actual figures were.