Whilst it might technically be feasible, I'd be very wary. You'd be putting a hell of a lot of stress on the drivetrain - you'd almost certainly have to slip the clutch a fair bit to pull away even on the flat, and hills would make it even worse.

Add to that the additional cooling needs for the engine when working so hard, and you've got a fantastic method of killing the car quickly.

I have a 2006 Polo 1.4 TDi hatchback which I've just fitted a towbar to. This was done so that I can use my trailer to take the contents of our loft to the skip prior to having a new roof on the house - saves all the dust and mess getting in the car.

We also own a caravan which we haven't been able to use since my tow-car died a couple of years ago - it's just stood in storage, costing us money.

The caravan is quite light in weight - about 675Kg. It's a Silhouette Swift Diamond which has an aluminium chassis and was easily towed by my Peugeot 306 2.0 Hdi. I don't believe the Peugeot was much heavier than the Polo, which itself weighs nearly 1100Kg, but the Polo's engine only develops 70 BHP versus the 90 BHP of the Peugeot.

Apparently a VW Polo won the 'Tow-car of the Year' award for a couple of years running, but I can't find any details of this. More likely the 1.9 Tdi in my opinion . . .

So - my question. Has anybody any experience of using a Polo to tow a caravan please? Technically, the car/caravan weight ratio is do-able but are there any 'gotcha's?'

Have you looked at this site which I find very useful to get an idea of car/caravan matching and corresponding performance expectations all based on manufacturers published data re engine characteristics, laden weight of car, caravan and payloads etc:

www.towcar.info/outfitmatch.php

In essence it seems to suggest that even limiting your gross train weight by keeping no more than 150 kg passenger payload in the car and a maximum laden weight of 800 kg for the caravan, the likely performance of the outfit is not promising and you will be driving in 3rd and 4th gear at between 50 mph and 60 most of the time.

You can adjust the weights after doing the calculation on the whattowcar site, which is useful.

You have towed before, your towing limit is 800kg. If you can stay at that or below then there is no reason not to tow with your Polo. Use the full noseweight allowance of 50Kg for stability.

The main issue will then be power rather than stability if you load carefully and check the noseweight. It will help if you are two up, and you will need to be aware of the car's limitations - if you use a low enough gear soon enough and aren't using sustained full throttle then there is no reason you should kill the car.

With any manual car using the full towing capacity it is a good idea to avoid / minimise steep hill starts when towing. Consider your routes carefully.

Edited by Manatee on 20/06/2017 at 09:51