What small car to tow and towing rig? (1 Viewer)

[Kerry9]

Hi All,

Our 2.7 litre Rimor Sailer has a tow bar. So, what is the lightesr used small car for towing, and what kind of towing rig would we need and electrical synching and steering synching? Thanks in advance and apologies if this has been asked elsewhere.

 

[Cheshirecat57]

Absolutely as you say one size doesn't fit all, over the years we have seen cars being towed behind motorhomes as they pull on a site and the car is never used, it has almost become the extra must have.
For us it just isn't worth the cost of buying another vehicle, having to insure and service it, the cost of a tow bar, a trailer or toad etc. you can hire a lot of cars for that amount and not have the worry of towing a car behind the motorhome.

Never can understand wasting money hiring cars...
Never can understand why people worry when towing...
But each to his own of course, if you want to waste money and worry all the time,, crack on it's a free world

 

[TheAleMan]

We tow a Hyundai i10 behind our van on a Tow Bars 2 Tow Cars A-Frame. Works really well and wouldn't be without it now. Glad we got the 1.2L version.

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[Reallyretired]

We have a tow car (Suzuki Alto) and have towed on the continent. We actually found it more of a hindrance than a help and now leave it behind.
It can be useful in the UK though as the UK is notoriously unfriendly to motorhomes, with campsites in the middle of nowhere and dreadful parking problems especially for larger vehicles.
In France and Spain however, there is nearly always somewhere to park within easy walking of wherever you want to go. Read Tam and Frankies very long post on here to see the places he managed to get his 8m odd motorhome.
As already mentioned ad nauseum on the forum, there are potential legal problems with towing other than on a trailer, and trailers are not really supposed to be on aires and are a bl**dy nuisance on sites with small pitches (I have seen them being told to leave aires on a couple of occasions.)

 

[DDJC]

Suzuki Ignis automatic on the Towbars4Towcars setup. Great car. Dry weight is 860 kg. Four doors, 4 adult sized seats in a tardis-like interior. Our moho is 150hp, so we don't notice it.

 

[Doozer]

Like the Kerry9 post we to are looking at a tow car option. Had Motorhome for couple of years now and with the wife’s limiting health issues found it difficult to find sites that she could get about and with public transport on the decline, even got folding mobility scooter but that has its limitations.
So many things to consider, it is useful for those that are seasoned travellers to air their views without being negative. We haven’t ventured abroad so many wonderful places in the UK to see, so to allow us to enjoy our Motorhome and leisure a tow car may well help us to enjoy our trips more.
So any recommendations are helpful in making our minds up.

Thanks to this forum for being a source of information.

If you need a tow car with some luggage space and the option to carry four people then I’d recommend the Peugeot 107 with a kerb weight of only 790 kilos. I’ve used one as a daily runner and towcar when in the Uk for the last six years.
In that time I have had two occasions when I’ve encountered a car coming the other way on a narrow road, both time’s I got out and explained I was towing so they kindly reversed back to a passing space and I was able to carry on. There are other scenarios where this may not be so easy, so it’s something you need to consider.

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[Geo]

Had the very same Scenario when Visiting @scotjimland at the Pub he managed I was towing a Sooty Van with a 35foot RV another 35 footer in front of me and the Yokel refused point blanc to revers till the front RV closed the windscreen Curtains and put the Sat Dish up
He realised he was going to be in for a long wait and capitulated

 

[Rosemary1]

We don’t always take the tow car - depends on the journey e.g. touring round Scotland stopping at places 1 or 2 nights - a big no no. However going to a site for a week and wanting to look around the area - definitely .

Looking at what other people have said - we wouldn’t it abroad either.

 

[Wellington]

I am still in two minds about tow cars. I bought a motorhome because I didn’t like towing a caravan.

1) You need a great big heavy car with a powerful engine. For three weeks a year and a few weekends. The rest of the time, we could easily manage with a Smart, but we had to drive the tow car all the time.

2) reversing it turns your brain inside out

3) you have to concentrate all the time. If a off camber, a lorry coming up the outside of you or a gust of wind hits you that you haven’t noticed coming up, it can really knock you off the road.

4) You can’t drive anywhere fast. 60 is your max, and realistically, you need to stick to 55 in any sort of less than perfect conditions (hills, wind, rain, traffic).

From this perspective, a MH works so much better for us. But it is a bit of a fag having to pack everything up every time you want to go off for the day, and finding somewhere to park it. We also camp with friends, who have a caravan, so they want to go out for the day all the time, whereas we camp near where we want to go, and take the bikes.

Using a big vehicle to tow a small one, only when you are going away makes much more sense. It’s much more stable and safer. You can uncouple to reverse if need be, you don’t need to secure everything to pop out for a pint of milk, and the weather doesn’t matter. I’d happily tow on an A frame, but I can't be bothered with a trailer, so it hardly seems worth it. Even though I could pinch my mum's Smart (or even tow the Beetle, it’s hardly a big car) the cost of the towing gear, C1 training and test will pay for taxis for the times bikes won’t do.

So we won’t bother with a toad for the moment. I can certainly see how it would work for some people though. I much prefer the MH to our caravans, though, so I wouldn’t rule it out in future.

As an academic point, I think I may have misunderstood my post 1997 restrictions, though. I thought I could drive a vehicle up to 3.5t, and tow an unbraked trailer up to 750kg, or a heavier braked trailer so long as it doesn't exceed 85 percent of the towing vehicle's kerbweight, and the whole shebang didn’t exceed more than 3.5t. So no towing anything with MH. But something I read recently suggested that I could drive a vehicle up to 3.5t AND tow a trailer up to 750kg on top (well, behind. One hopes, at least) but I can’t remember where I read it, now. That would be very useful, as I could use the MH to tow the small trailer to the tip, or to Ikea and suchlike. I was going to get a tow bar fitted to the Beetle, but apparently it’s a pig of a job and they have to cut into the bumper to do it, which I don’t fancy.

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[Mr Chrysalis]

Never quite got our head around a Motorhome towing a car be it on a trailer or toad, surely the answer is Car and Caravan, hell of a lot cheaper option.
If we feel the need for a car when travelling around we just pick up the phone and hire one, in most cases they deliver it and pick it up when you have finished with it.

It gives you the choice to tow or not tow depending on where you are going and for how long. With a Caravan, driving it without a car is not an option. Although I did try it once when we lived on a steep hill, but that is another story.

 

[DuxDeluxe]

We are currently on our third toad .. Peugeot 108 Allure Top from http://www.tow-bars2tow-cars.co.uk/ .. great little car with 5 doors and full sun roof, cheap to run with free RFL.
Great service from T2T who usually have a large quantity of used & nearly new toads of many different makes.

They are great to deal with. Doing tow bar and convert i20 in June for me

 

[DuxDeluxe]

Using a big vehicle to tow a small one, only when you are going away makes much more sense. It’s much more stable and safer. You can uncouple to reverse if need be, you don’t need to secure everything to pop out for a pint of milk, and the weather doesn’t matter. I’d happily tow on an A frame, but I can't be bothered with a trailer, so it hardly seems worth it. Even though I could pinch my mum's Smart (or even tow the Beetle, it’s hardly a big car) the cost of the towing gear, C1 training and test will pay for taxis for the times bikes won’t do.

The great thing is (as explaining to a couple of caravaners last weekend) is that the toad one of the daily drivers plus we can either choose to tow it or not, depending on where we are going so have the best of both worlds. Upfront cost can be high though

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[Cheshirecat57]

@Wellington
You can indeed tow a trailer up to 750 kg behind your 3.5 tonne Motorhome on a restricted (not C1) licence
The 750kg trailer can be braked or unbraked

Remember though that a towed vehicle on an A frame, for the purposes of UK legislation is treated as a trailer as a whole, so will weigh more than 750kg ( unless a bubble car or something)

 

[Pausim]

@Wellington
You can indeed tow a trailer up to 750 kg behind your 3.5 tonne Motorhome on a restricted (not C1) licence
The 750kg trailer can be braked or unbraked

Remember though that a towed vehicle on an A frame, for the purposes of UK legislation is treated as a trailer as a whole, so will weigh more than 750kg ( unless a bubble car or something)

If you have BE on your license you can tow a lot more than 750kg and anyone who passed their test before 1 January 1997 should have this category. Unlike C1 the BE category does not require medicals at 70 and renews with the ordinary license.

 

[GPW]

An interesting idea, I think it only makes sense however if you can ditch the family car entirely and buy a small car that you can sometimes tow behind if you want to, and connect it up with a lightweight quick to use system so you can unhook it at a moments notice.

That way the fuel costs will average out better too.

Another option than towing is to phone for taxis or try and buy a motorhome with a garage but they are a bit rarer.

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[Wellington]

@Pausim that is amazingly useful to know.

Our current MH is two seats, but our new one will be four. So we could go for a two seater, using the MH as a back up for when I have an extra passenger. I’ve also wondered about getting an electric car for a runabout. I could use the MH if we needed more range. I wonder what the lightest electric vehicle would be, and if I could tow it? There’s that Twizzy thing, but I don’t think we could both get in it!

Taxis are probably cheaper. Although possibly not if you factor in the fact that I can drink (it’s such a novelty, I get carried away. I’m the only driver, so I always drive!)