I know there have been a few posts on towing caravans on the forum, but thought I would start a new thread.
I have a 2015 PHEV that I have owned for just over 2.5 years and have been generally really happy with it. My only issue is caravan towing which I have been doing for most of time I have owned the vehicle.
Obviously it is never going to be the perfect tow car, but I know from the forum that many of you get on very well. I tow a caravan just over 1300kg so well under the limit. I have towed about 5000 caravan miles all over the UK and France and it has been a mixed bag. On average I have achieved 20mpg but this has varied significantly. If running in parallel mode it really is a joy to tow, powerful and achieving around 23mpg – which is not much less than I would expect from a standard 2 litre diesel vehicle. The problem is that you can invariably only run for around 100 miles (at 60mph) before the battery becomes fully depleted (even when always running on charge) and the PHEV then cycles between serial and parallel with horrendous impact on mpg. This obviously is worse if the terrain is hilly.
Last weekend I did 400 miles from northern France back to the UK midlands and the wind was particularly adverse. The battery depleted more quickly than usual and the engine had to work harder the whole journey. I ended up at 17 mpg, but given at around 150 miles in I was at 23mpg, I must have dropped to around 15mpg for the second half of the journey.
Now I only tow the caravan around 6 times a year and when not towing the car suits perfectly, but after that journey it has got me thinking about alternatives – particularly given I would like to stretch my caravanning legs over the next couple of years to Spain and Italy. The issues is really compounded by the small fuel tank – at 15mpg you are going to want to be stopping for fuel every 110 miles – particularly as this is made worse by the PHEV telling you to fill up when there is over 2 gallons left.
The PCP on my PHEV runs about March next year so what do I do:
1) Go for a new MY19 PHEV – it doesn’t solve the fuel tank issue but I am intrigued to understand whether the new 2.4 litre makes any difference to economy – in theory the slightly higher torque and more efficient serial running (in Atkinson) should help
2) Go for a different PHEV – but what? The XC60 would seem to be the perfect vehicle but realistically out of my budget
3) Go back to the dreaded diesel or petrol engine – something I really don’t want to do
Apologies for the long post, but any thoughts any of the above would be really appreciated
PS – I only need 1 car so duel vehicles is not the answer.
I have a 2015 PHEV that I have owned for just over 2.5 years and have been generally really happy with it. My only issue is caravan towing which I have been doing for most of time I have owned the vehicle.
Obviously it is never going to be the perfect tow car, but I know from the forum that many of you get on very well. I tow a caravan just over 1300kg so well under the limit. I have towed about 5000 caravan miles all over the UK and France and it has been a mixed bag. On average I have achieved 20mpg but this has varied significantly. If running in parallel mode it really is a joy to tow, powerful and achieving around 23mpg – which is not much less than I would expect from a standard 2 litre diesel vehicle. The problem is that you can invariably only run for around 100 miles (at 60mph) before the battery becomes fully depleted (even when always running on charge) and the PHEV then cycles between serial and parallel with horrendous impact on mpg. This obviously is worse if the terrain is hilly.
Last weekend I did 400 miles from northern France back to the UK midlands and the wind was particularly adverse. The battery depleted more quickly than usual and the engine had to work harder the whole journey. I ended up at 17 mpg, but given at around 150 miles in I was at 23mpg, I must have dropped to around 15mpg for the second half of the journey.
Now I only tow the caravan around 6 times a year and when not towing the car suits perfectly, but after that journey it has got me thinking about alternatives – particularly given I would like to stretch my caravanning legs over the next couple of years to Spain and Italy. The issues is really compounded by the small fuel tank – at 15mpg you are going to want to be stopping for fuel every 110 miles – particularly as this is made worse by the PHEV telling you to fill up when there is over 2 gallons left.
The PCP on my PHEV runs about March next year so what do I do:
1) Go for a new MY19 PHEV – it doesn’t solve the fuel tank issue but I am intrigued to understand whether the new 2.4 litre makes any difference to economy – in theory the slightly higher torque and more efficient serial running (in Atkinson) should help
2) Go for a different PHEV – but what? The XC60 would seem to be the perfect vehicle but realistically out of my budget
3) Go back to the dreaded diesel or petrol engine – something I really don’t want to do
Apologies for the long post, but any thoughts any of the above would be really appreciated
PS – I only need 1 car so duel vehicles is not the answer.