Does anyone tow with a volvo estate?

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karenjj

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Hi, my discovery has just died and I need a tow car, my Dad said I could borrow his volvo estate while I save up. Are these ok to tow with, I don't tow on a motorway, just up the road 3 miles to my lesson and to the occasional show, 10 miles away. I have a 15hh 498kg Tb x. My trailer is an old richardson? It says in the book 1800kg max and I would have 1200kg, it's just there are a lot of posts on here that say never to tow with normal cars and so I just wanted to check! Thanks
 
i used to have an old volvo 240 estate ( it was 17 years old at the time with a HUGE amount of miles on the clock!!). it was a 2 liter petrol engine and i used to tow 2 16.1 hh horses with a ifor williams trailer no problem at all.
 
I used to have an old 940 automatic estate and we used this to tow a heavy caravan (1200kg). We had a very scary incident on the motorway. We were only doing less than 50 mph down a slight hill, and we had the "tail wagging the dog" - the caravan took control of the car and we snaked over all 3 lanes of the motorway, on a busy friday before the May bank holiday. My husband managed to regain control and don't ask me how, but we didn't hit anything - we were very lucky. We pulled over to the hard shoulder and every single thing in our caravan (bedding, clothes, plates, cups - the entire contents) had ended up in a huge pile in the middle of the caravan.

It was terrifying. We were well within the 85% rule, had loaded the caravan well (all low down and over the axle and at the front) and something just made the caravan snake. I would hate to think what would have happened if that had been a horse in a trailer :( so, personally, I would not recommend towing with anything other than a heavy 4x4. We now have a Discovery because the incident scared us so much. Don't want to put the fear of god in you, but wanted to let you know about our Volvo experience! Maybe if it is a newer heavier estate you'll be ok, but I would def only tow one horse.
 
We've towed an Ifor with one horse in it behind my OH's Volvo XC70, but it is the one with the permanent 4WD and is probably a bit heavier than a standard estate.
Actually it was one of the nicest things I've ever towed with - a friend borrowed it to take her horse from Warks to Cambs and she agreed!
 
we tow with a vw passat estate 2.0 lt and tows great no problem
friend tows with an audi a4 estate and also no problems :)

smoher than the big cars :)
 
I use a Volvo V70 2.4 (tow 1800kg) to pull a 940kg trailer with one horse.

The car copes perfectly well. Volvo do extensive caravan testing (1600kg) with all their estates, and their latest 4x4 offers anti-snake technology. The V70 has won towing awards in the caravan mags.
 
We have an old 940 estate 2.4 litre which we use for towing. I really like it (even though with a silver Volvo estate I had to concede to some of my friends that I was finally joining the ranks of the "middle-aged"!!!). We don't have a problem with it at all (although if finances allowed we'd have a 4x4 as well), it tows really well. However I only ever take one horse anywhere at a time, my trailer is an older Bayhill and fairly light, and we also use a tow stabiliser bar - I but would insist on the stabiliser bar whatever I was towing with, as they really do help to minimise any "snaking" - and would strongly recommend that anyone reading this invests in one also.
 
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