Engine Power BHP and Engine Torque Lbs./ft. Caravan Towing?

Its really all about "Torque", althow you obviously need a certain am mount of "BHP" to carry it off properly. Diesel Autos often make the best 'Tugs'.

My personal opinion is that many of the "Guidelines" given by the Professional bodies are misleading.

Basically the more power and torque you have, the better.

The 'Caravan Club' website is very good and definitely worth a look, but as I said previously, some of their advice on matching car to caravan I think is 'pushing it a bit'.

Many 'legal' outfits would leave you in a disastrous situation if you had to stop on a steep hill and needed to restart. Or had to stop quickly in an emergency.

The best advice is Don't try and tow something too big for the car 75% of the weight of the car is ideal and certainly no more than 85% (caravan club recommendation).

*Neil B. A big heavy car is fine for stability but is of little use as a towcar if it doesn't have the power (or torque) to restart on an incline

Neither!

The size and weight of the vehicle is far more important to help keep things stable, and as larger cars almost always have bigger engines, and you don't need or want to accelerate hard with a caravan on the back, the engine size makes for barely a glance unless you're towing something huge!

Torque is "pulling power" so that's the one to look for though - my motorbike has 110bhp, whereas my old Mercedes had 136bhp (only a little more), but the Mercedes would (and did) tow a trailer happily weighing over a ton, whereas my bike wouldn't tow much of anything!

Torque Bhp

The most important factor in choosing a towcar is it's ability to pull the weight you're intending to tow. Lots of modern 'mid range' saloons & estates have a very low rating, and many new large caravans, especially once loaded, are very heavy!

Most conventional cars are front wheel drive, which is fine for towing light trailers on dry, firm surfaces, but can struggle when doing basic things like manoeuvering around a grass camp site.

As has been said, medium & large 4x4 vehicles are a popular choice, and with good reason: Diesels are far better at towing, especially modern common rail, low pressure turbo diesels with huge amounts of torque across the rev range, improving tractability & meaning they are far more economical compared to a petrol vehicle of similar type.

Something like a Nissan X-Trail 2.2dCi will tow 2,000kg, and return similar economy to something like the commonly used Vectra 1.9CDTi, which is only rated to tow 1,600kg.

For the bigger stuff, one of the large 4 door pickups would suit - most of these are rated to tow between 3,000 & 3,500kg. More torque makes them very easy towcars.

Controversially, automatic vehicles are very good for towing: The carvan club usually now select an auto as their towcar of the year - autos offer a degree of 'torque amplification, and the quicker up & down gear changes in an auto 'box make towing a lot easier & safer.

Definitely you want a good torque figure at low rpm like you get in a modern turbo Diesel. Ideally the biggest heaviest one you can afford. Good towcars for a decent size van are things like big 4x4s (Discovery, Shogun etc) or big Diesel estates (Mercedes E class, Volvo V70, even one of the bigger engined Mondeos)

Depends on what you're wanting to tow, a small van is obviously a lot easier to tow than a big heavy one.

1