First tow

Well it had to happen eventually. We’ve hooked up a caravan and had our first tow.

It wasn’t our van – that’s still on order, due to arrive in July. We helped out our friend by moving her caravan from Swan Hill to Yarrawonga via Echuca. This caravan is somewhat shorter, lower and lighter than the van we are buying, but it made for good practice for Megan and I who have never towed anything bigger than a 6×4 trailer before.

The trip was uneventful, and the tug pulled this van as though it wasn’t even there. At least, it never felt like we were towing when accelerating or braking, but you could feel it subtly affecting the way the car sat on it’s suspension as it bounced around behind. I think this bodes well for towing our own van, but it’s hard to know not having any other experience to compare this to.

Fuel-wise, on the trip over to Swan Hill we averaged around 7.8 litres/100 km (36 MPG, 30 US MPG). On the return leg, van in tow, we averaged around 11.5 litres/100 km (24.5 MPG; 20.4 US MPG). I expect that to increase further when towing our larger van, but I’m pretty happy with that figure.

The only issue we had, in retrospect, was I didn’t check tyre pressures. Not of the car, nor of the van. With this light-ish van in tow the car was probably not too bad, but the caravan had been sitting for a while. Not checking was a mistake.

Still there!

Looking good

Set up look OK