Does towing wreck your car

Only if the driver is rubbish. My old L200 did nearly 100k towing the horse trailer and still had the original clutch when I sold it, and my first Landcruiser did 200k towing a caravan around Scotland with its previous owner and still had its original clutch when I bought it!

Towing heavy trailers can put a strain on chassis components over time, especially with a lightweight vehicle such as yours, but occasional towing shouldn't cause any issues.
 
hmm, yeah I think it does unless you have a beast of a thing designed for towing, like a landrover maybe. That said, it's not that dramatic. My new clutch cost £700, but given I've done 170k miles in the car and thats pretty much all that's ever gone wrong with it and I do a LOT of up-to-weight towing with it, it's not that bad really! (skoda octavia)
 
I once burnt out the clutch on a relatively new Berlingo van 1400cc, towing an Ifor Williams trailer, with 4 firemen in it supporting a very sick pony, up a severely steep, mile long hill with hairpin bends. The smell from slipping the clutch was horrendous! but thankfully, we all made it safely to the top in one piece and got the poor neglected pony into it's 'safe house'. The pony made a brilliant recovery, sadly the Berlingo didn't!. Oops :o
 
Sags_Deer said:
I would like to get a trailer to tow with my crv , the old man flatly says no as will wreck my clutch . I was aiming to get a trailer that is obviously within the weight for my car etc
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Ask the old man why they designed vehicles to tow certain weights if some of the components such as the clutch were not up to the job ?

I think there would have been many court rulings against manufacturers if that was the case !
 
Transmission as already mentioned. If you are towing a heavy trailer you also need to consider the method of construction; ladder or monococque. Defender and Discovery are ladders so the load is transferred to the subframe. With monococques, the whole body takes the load - you can stretch, bend, or twist the body with a heavy trailer
 
I tow up to two times a week with my CRV (have had three...basically got one each time its came out) and they have never had any issues.
 
My swb Shogun 2.8 TD has just died, he was 20 years old, had done 170,000 miles & towed an Equitrek Show Trekka regularly (once/twice per week) for the last 6 years for an hour each way ish, & occasional epic journeys to Wales & Devon. Clutch is the original one & still fine, it was the head gasket that killed him. But I agree with the others that a less solid beast might be a bit less man for the job, but surely short local journeys should be fine?
 
If you sit on the clutch it will wreck the clutch. That's nothing to do with the trailer. I do 30-40k per year towing a trailer usually 3.5 tonnes. Not wrecked a clutch yet!
 
Old man is wrong. That will only happen if you are towing often when you are very near or over the weight limit of the car. Otherwise why would they have guidelines?

I would just make sure you aren't near the limit and you will be fine.
 
Pickup has 135k on and was used to tow a caravan when I got it at 80k. At some point yes it will need a new clutch, but that will be down to it's age and not the way it has been driven!
 
Its not just the clutch that suffers ,all the suspension bushes and engine mounts get knackered fairly quickly. On the plus side ,its good for the engine to blow out the cobwebs occasionally .
 
Mike007 said:
Its not just the clutch that suffers ,all the suspension bushes and engine mounts get knackered fairly quickly. On the plus side ,its good for the engine to blow out the cobwebs occasionally .
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Yes I've needed newshockers, springs and bushes too. Car does a lot of stupid offroading it wasn't designed to do aswell but having as much as it can tow sat on it all the time didn't help!
 
Newsflash. Driving wrecks your car . Better to keep it in a climate controlled air bubble to be safe and get the bus instead. Your horse will thank you for it. :D
 
We towed a 15.2 tb in a lightweight cheval liberte trailer with a crv and it coped ok most of the time but struggled on steep windey hills etc so we ended up getting an xtrail which has more grunt. Crv was much cheaper servicing / needed fewer repairs than the xtrail. We only towed locally / weekends. So work out the weight you are towing and if it is within the crvs capability you should be fine
 
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