Dazecoop – Blog of David Cooper – Photography, Videography, Drifting & modifying cars

First up, apologies for the lack to updates just lately. A few things have been going on in my life recently and I haven’t quite had the time to do anything with this blog.

Anyway, on with the post! For some time now I have been thinking about replacing my faithful Ford Fiesta with something larger to use as a tow car with a trailer for my Mini. With Sylvester at the moment (1380cc Black Mini Checkmate) it is costing me a lot in fuel to do the long distance trips to go to the various national Mini events around the UK and Europe already, and bear in mind that Sylvester is not as highly tuned as what my red Mini will be (aka, The Mig – 1380cc MED race engine, Miglia replica).

So, a tow car was in order to replace my Fiesta. I was looking for something modern, and by that I mean with mod-cons since I really miss electric windows, air-con, etc in my Fiesta. I also needed a car which has a good towing reputation, and I quickly found the website WhatTowCar.com. The site is mainly based on caravan owners, but what I was doing what choosing a random caravan with roughly the same weight as the gross weight of my trailer (gross weight = trailer & load combined) and then seeing what cars the website was recommending.

Its in my nature not to buy a French car, I can’t explain it but I just couldn’t buy one plain and simple, so they’re out. I also wouldn’t buy a people carrier or 4×4 since I like to sit quite low to the ground with a car with the low-ish centre of gravity (just like the Mini). You’re then left with the obvious, Ford Mondeo, Skoda Octavia, VW Passat, VW Bora and a few others. The Bora was swiftly ruled out since I really couldn’t get on with the look of the front of it.

My main choice, first of all, was a Ford Mondeo. Although my Fiesta was lacking in mod-cons, I couldn’t fault it at all. With 2 years ownership and almost 20,000 miles, I’ve had zero faults with it and I’ve really enjoyed driving it. A lot of people slate Ford’s for being outdated compared to the competition, being known for unreliability issues and generally a cheap-feel to them. I would disagree with all of that, considering the price you can pick up a 2nd-hand Ford for, I find it really difficult to mark them down.

Photos taken from Parkers.com

Anyway, with a Mondeo in my mind I was set, but now which model? I wanted something that went round corners well when I wasn’t towing, and also a car which looks good. I’m not fussed if it doesn’t stand out in the swamp of other Euro boxes out there, but I wanted it to be noticed when compared to most of the other Mondeo’s. A Ford Mondeo Zetec TDCi 130 (year 2001-2005) was looking almost perfect – it was affordable, it looked great (although not the best looking Mondeo) and according to the specifications and WhatTowCar.com, it could easily pull my trailer & load with ease, thanks especially to its powerful 130bhp turbo diesel engine and 6-speed manual gearbox.

However, with a little research on the internet, the same story was emerging about this car, and its bad reputation for towing. Although it could tow my load with ease (according to spec sheets, etc), many different forums had people complaining about their broken Mondeo’s when on a trip with their families with a caravan on the back. Blown clutches & flywheels were the order of the day, and as I was reading more and more, it seems this year of Mondeo’s (2001-2005) had issues with dodgy clutches & flywheels. I then found out that it could cost in the region of £1500 to get it fixed at a Ford main dealer, and what’s more, some of the people on these forums that had a broken Mondeo due to towing with a mileage on their cars of between 20,000 and 90,000 miles – not much for a modern Diesel family car is it?

My thoughts went on to the Skoda and VW options. I’ve been a great fan of the Skoda Octavia vRS for a long time now (the first version), it looks fantastic, goes really well, comes from a good company family (Skoda-VW-Audi) and is affordable. One popped up for sale on Autotrader very close to where I live and a day later I decided to take a look at it in life (at night, so no sales men!). It was a 2002 Skoda Octavia vRS diesel in white, with stunning white alloy wheels offset by the trademark green callipers. Priced within my price range and well within my mileage gap, it looked perfect and according to the towing website, it would tow my load easily.

Photos taken from Parkers.com

Insurance was the next thing, so I quickly entered my details and the car’s registration into confused.com. Confused.com is not my first choice for car insurance, but I found their system one of the easiest systems to use when entering so many details about you, your life and your car, what’s more is their system saves your information for next time which is great. Anyway, the quote was a full 3 times more than what I was paying on my Fiesta! I was annoyed and put off – could this even be done at my age? Getting a large "sports" family car at a young age with a "sports" badge?

I forgot the idea for a week, but kept my eye out on the roads for cars which would suit the bill. What do non-vRS Octavia’s look like in real life? What do basic VW Passat’s look like? Pretty dull actually, I can tell you. I didn’t want that. I then turned my head onto the VW Passat. Based on the Octavia’s bigger brother, the Superb and the Audi A6, the Passat is larger than both the Mondeo and the Octvia although retains pretty much the same engines. Without making the same mistake again, I entered the details of a "sport" 130bhp model into confused.com (not knowing at the time how much, exactly, a "sport" 130 would cost me). It came out at just £70 more per year than my Fiesta’s insurance premium. Awesome. Plus, with a Passat, when reading about those dodgy Mondeo’s everyone was advising that "you should have bought a Passat", over and over again. This seamed great, but now what model could I afford and what one looked good?

The VW Passat Sport 130 did appeal to me a lot actually. They are made with a lovely colour of blue (Ink Blue I believe) with a 130bhp diesel engine (same as Mondeo) and again with a 6-speed gearbox and more mod-cons you could think of. Not exactly an after thought here either, but on Autotrader they did seem to be affordable as well, although those 2001-2005 Deisel Sport models are quite rare it seemed. I notice that VW also produced a 4motion model – a 4 wheel drive, sport, 6 speed, 130bhp diesel engined beast, with 4 wheel drive even better for towing, surely. WhatTowCar.com again provided a useful reassurance and it indeed was a decent tow car, although only very slightly better than the sport non 4 wheel drive.

Photos taken from Parkers.com

Considering the difficultly on finding a 4motion, and also considering that its just something else to go wrong, I didn’t bother and began seriously looking for the sport non 4motion Passat’s. The next, and final problem I came across was deciding between an estate and a saloon version. They’re exactly the same wheel base, so in theory the same size, although the body overhang’s very slightly more on the estate, making it a few inches longer, and of course larger inside due to the box-shape rear end.

After a lot of thinking, and still no final decision, I found an Autotrader advert for an estate 130 sport just 8 miles away from my house from a proper garage (not a private sale), it was within my price range and a seriously frightening low-mileage of just 49,000 miles! 49k miles on a 2002-plate German made Diesel estate car is nothing, so this was quids-in! After test driving the car twice, and looking at it more than four times, the owner of the garage finally agreed to a truly brilliant trade-in part exchange price for my Fiesta and I went for the deal! Well happy, I think I’ve really found a total bargain, with 12 months warranty, 6 months tax, 8 months MOT, a full AA HIP check clear, 4 brand new tyres, a genuine 49,000 miles on the clock, in the colour I wanted, with the exact model I was looking for with a full VW service history and an awesome part-ex price, I am well chuffed.

Read on to part two (not yet written!) where I’ll talk about the car itself, its features, how it drives, etc. Since buying the car and writing this, I’ve owned the car 2 weeks to the day and have covered 600 miles and so far its superb (Passat I mean! – Ok, bad joke - but honestly its fantastic). I hope you’ve found this article useful in your quest to find the perfect tow vehicle for you, finally to end this article below are some useful facts and numbers.

The following information is based on my knowledge, so therefore maybe incorrect. This information is also based for use in the UK.

• Laden Weight is the weight of the trailer and the load combined.
• Kerb weight is the weight of the towing vehicle as stated in by the manufacturer. This usually includes the approx weight of 1 driver, all vehicle fluids, a full tank of fuel, spare wheel & tools, etc.
• Gross Weight or GVW (Gross Vehicle Weight) is the kerb weight of the vehicle plus the maximum load it can take (max. passengers and cargo). This is usually 300-400kg more than the kerb weight.
• Unladen weight is the weight of the towing vehicle when not carrying any people or goods, as the car stands in its own right.
• Maximum towing limit, as the name suggests, is the maximum weight the vehicle can tow.

There are two types of trailer:

• Unbraked trailers. The laden weight of the trailer must not exceed 750kg, neither should it be half the kerb weight. Also must not exceed the maximum towing limit
• Braked trailers. The laden weight should not exceed 85% of the kerb weight (recommended only), but must not exceed the kerb weight. Also must not exceed the maximum towing limit

Licence laws:

• Licences passed before 1st Jan 1997 can drive vehicle and trailer combination of 8.25 tonnes
• Licences passed after 1st Jan 1997:
  • Vehicles which weigh 3.5 tonnes with a trailer of 750kg max.
  • So long as vehicle + trailer does not exceed 3.5 tonnes and trailer + load does not exceed unladen weight of vehicle
• Anything outside of these laws, a trailer licence must be obtained.

My Example

• Car: VW Passat 1.9 TDI 130 Sport Estate
• Kerb weight of tow car: 1461kg.
• Max towing limit of car: 1600kg.
• Trailer and load: Average single axle braked trailer with Mini (standard Mini weight, mine will be lighter)
• Trailer load weight (Mini): 686kg.
• Trailer unladen weight (trailer weight without load, approx). 400kg, although might be lighter.
• Laden weight (weight of trailer + load): 1086kg.
• Braked trailer 85% recommendation (85% of kerb weight of car – 1461kg): 1241kg.
• Total weight of outfit (trailer + load + tow car): 2547kg (2.80 tonnes)