Towing with a Subaru

Bonnie Allie said:
It’s a no based on:-

Transmission is not set up for towing
Rear suspension not set up for heavy duty towing
Whilst AWD - not effective as 4x4 in mud and slippery going
Engine too small in power to tow effectively
Front brakes/discs would be impacted if you didn’t have the brake unit in the trailer set up well

I have one and I LOVE it - especially the tech. Amazing in the snow as well but definitely not a tow vehicle. It can tow but is not set up well for such.
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This. I had a petrol legacy and Subaru themselves gave me this reason not to tow anything bigger than a small car trailer with it. It's just not manufactured for it.


I adored mine, it's an absolute beast in snow and ice.
 
i’ve just bought a ford kuga to tow with, after seeing some good recs on here - haven’t towed with it yet (picked it up yesterday!) but it’s lovely to drive, and definitely more medium sized - 2.1t towing capacity, but i’ve gone from a fiat 500 to this so i definitely didn’t want something huge to drive and expensive to run!

just another one to add in the mix☺️
 
Widgeon said:
I was at a fun ride recently and the parking was at the top of a grass slope. A massive Kia with two ponies in an Ifor got stuck at the bottom and literally couldn't make it up. The volunteers had to turn it around at the bottom and squeeze it onto the side of the track to park. This stupidly large flashy car, designed to look like it goes off roading before breakfast, and it couldn't tow two small ponies up a gentle slope.
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I used to tow with an 2008 Kia Sorento and it was a brilliant towing car and would regularly tow two big horses in an 511 off a field in winter. You need to have decent tyres and know how to use 4WD and low 4WD. A friend tows with a newer Sorento but she has no idea how to even get it into 4WD hence she got stuck towing one small horse off a field last week.
 
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Widgeon said:
Yes...I am concerned about this, that will be a pain. Although we're used to it with the Volvo.
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It is an issue with Subarus in this country. More so than Volvos because there are more Volvos. I had a Forester for a while, and fixing it could be a real pain because they have lots of parts and systems very specific to them -- like a whole weird sideways engine thing -- so your average mechanic may not be able to work on them. There aren't many who can. And the cars won't take a lot of OEM parts. You have to get the part from Subaru, and it costs an arm and a leg.

I would want either a Subaru dealer or a mechanic who knows them close by. I had to schlep 30/40 minutes out of the West End of Glasgow to get it to someone who could fix it. I loved mine -- some tw7t drove into it and wrote it off -- but I replaced it with something a bit more common to the UK car ecosystem because I was fed up with it being a mission to get it to the garage whenever it needed work. Most people can deal with Skodas, however.

The suggestions of the Octavia 4x4 are good. I'd also look at 4x4 Yetis and VW AllTracks. All of these can tow about 2t. Skoda (and VW) doesn't give you (or I guess your husband) the same buzz as Subaru, but it's an easier car to live with here.
 
Widgeon said:
Have you towed with yours? And just out of interest, what's your benchmark? If you're used to towing with a pickup or a Land Rover etc you probably have much higher expectations than I do!
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No, I didn’t even bother getting a tow bar installed when I bought it as dealership was clear, whilst it can tow it is not a tow vehicle.

Having said all that, you are right my benchmark is a BT50 which is our tow vehicle for boat and horses. It’s the ducks nuts for towing but it sucks the fuel. It’s expensive to run, not good for environment, doesn’t have the tech or AI.
 
Caol Ila said:
It is an issue with Subarus in this country...

The suggestions of the Octavia 4x4 are good...t's an easier car to live with here.
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I know....I completely agree and I'd be keen on the Skoda. I do think the Boxer engine is going to be a maintenance pain, particularly if something goes wrong. I think I'll keep looking for Skodas too (I like the Scout 4x4, so far as I can see it's an Octavia but a bit higher) and maybe we'll find a good buy there.....

We do have an independent Subaru garage 25 minutes from OH's office so it wouldn't be the end of the world in practical terms, but still annoying.
 
Widgeon said:
I know....I completely agree and I'd be keen on the Skoda. I do think the Boxer engine is going to be a maintenance pain, particularly if something goes wrong. I think I'll keep looking for Skodas too (I like the Scout 4x4, so far as I can see it's an Octavia but a bit higher) and maybe we'll find a good buy there.....

We do have an independent Subaru garage 25 minutes from OH's office so it wouldn't be the end of the world in practical terms, but still annoying.
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The scout has a really good rep and probably the wise choice from what you have indicated of your remit.
 
ihatework said:
Maybe buy the scout, remove the badge and replace with a badge of better street cred?!
(I’d be exactly the same as OH 😳)
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Ha! I wouldn't mind if I thought he'd deal with servicing and repairs himself, but I will be diplomatic and say that I feel I am more proactive when it comes to fixing niggles. And if it's going to be the car I rely on to tow.....then I will probably end up in charge of maintenance.

I might point this out to him. Any repairs and servicing will mean a one hour minimum round trip on top of his normal day. That might swing it. We'll see.
 
Widgeon said:
I think I'll keep looking for Skodas too (I like the Scout 4x4, so far as I can see it's an Octavia but a bit higher)
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We’ve got the Scout. The ride height is 1.5” higher than the standard Octavia 4x4, which for any sort of off road towing (even just on and off a show field or fun ride venue) is IMHO well worth it 🙂.

Skodas used to be a joke make, but those days are long gone.
 
Widgeon said:
I know....I completely agree and I'd be keen on the Skoda. I do think the Boxer engine is going to be a maintenance pain, particularly if something goes wrong. I think I'll keep looking for Skodas too (I like the Scout 4x4, so far as I can see it's an Octavia but a bit higher) and maybe we'll find a good buy there.....

We do have an independent Subaru garage 25 minutes from OH's office so it wouldn't be the end of the world in practical terms, but still annoying.
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My friend had a miserable time with a Boxer diesel on a Forester (my car was petrol). It needed the glow plugs replaced -- a normal thing to repair, right? -- and in a normal diesel engine, they are near the top and pretty accessible. However, they are underneath the engine on a Subaru, so you have to dismantle the whole damn car. It was going to cost my friend thousands to fix these stupid glow plugs.

She got rid of the car and bought an Octavia.
 
Can I ask what you ended up getting, OP?
I'll be looking for a not totally dissimilar spec - towing but also good as general family car, and something which does nót look like a tank - albeit slightly higher towing weight set up (1500 rather than 1300kg), so I'm interested to hear where your search took you next.
 
teacups said:
Can I ask what you ended up getting, OP?
I'll be looking for a not totally dissimilar spec - towing but also good as general family car, and something which does nót look like a tank - albeit slightly higher towing weight set up (1500 rather than 1300kg), so I'm interested to hear where your search took you next.
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Hi @teacups , I've not been on the forum for a bit but FWIW we did go for an Outback in the end; there was one for sale near us with an immaculate service record for a sensible price, so I'll be picking it up this week. If you're interested, I can keep you posted as to how it tows. One slight concern is that it has a CVT rather than a conventional geared automatic transmission, and I think these need a bit of looking after. But I only tow a relatively light weight once every few weeks at low speeds, so it ought to cope fine as a "compromise car". I'll let you know! It's so hard now to find a capable car that doesn't, as you say, look like a tank.
 
Thanks for the reply - useful to hear.
Similar here: it will most likely only need to tow once every few weeks. The bit about transmission is beyond my knowledge level and presumably something I need to get up to speed on!
 
Hi all, thought I'd give an update: the Outback tows my single trailer just fine. Not going to win any uphill speed records but it's very reliable steady away (which is how I drive when towing anyway). Braking is good, and the engine doesn't seem to struggle at all. It's a more solid ride when towing than the Volvo, which is a great car but I do feel the trailer on the back, whereas with the Outback I could forget it was there 90% of the time. I'd be much happier motorway towing with this than with the Volvo, although I feel very disloyal saying that!

Overall I'm very pleased with it. My husband does a fair bit of driving on farm tracks and fields for his work and it handles that comfortably too. Maintenance is faffier than the old diesels - we've already got an intermittent glow plug issue (although it doesn't impact day to day driving) - but I suspect that will be the case for a lot of newer diesel engines. And this is an engine that already had 100,000 miles on it when we bought it, so we were expecting bits to need fixing / replacing.

ETA Husband has had compliments on it from farmers when out on site - that has to be good, right?!
 
Widgeon said:
But joking aside, I find it amazing how many people DO. So many modern cars weigh huge amounts, take up loads of space, and don't necessarily have any more boot space or towing ability than my Volvo. I was at a fun ride recently and the parking was at the top of a grass slope. A massive Kia with two ponies in an Ifor got stuck at the bottom and literally couldn't make it up. The volunteers had to turn it around at the bottom and squeeze it onto the side of the track to park. This stupidly large flashy car, designed to look like it goes off roading before breakfast, and it couldn't tow two small ponies up a gentle slope.

I should caveat this to say that of course I see the benefit of a large and genuinely capable car when you're towing a heavier setup, but this trend for driving bigger and bigger cars regardless of need annoys me. Particularly when a lot of those cars are all mouth and no trousers, so to speak!
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Soft roaders I call them! All show no go, and useless boot space too. I have a Yeti at the moment which is a weird looking little thing but nippy and capable off road, I don't tow anymore but need something capable of going off the beaten track and I'm leaning very much towards a Subaru Outback, I love the estate style and really don't want an SUV style, the boot in the Outback is massive so Ideal for the dogs. I'm going auto as hip problems make driving a manual uncomfortable these days, especially in stop start traffic.
 
maisie06 said:
Soft roaders I call them! All show no go, and useless boot space too. I have a Yeti at the moment which is a weird looking little thing but nippy and capable off road, I don't tow anymore but need something capable of going off the beaten track and I'm leaning very much towards a Subaru Outback, I love the estate style and really don't want an SUV style, the boot in the Outback is massive so Ideal for the dogs. I'm going auto as hip problems make driving a manual uncomfortable these days, especially in stop start traffic.
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Friend has an Outback, brilliant cars.
 
maisie06 said:
I love the estate style and really don't want an SUV style, the boot in the Outback is massive so Ideal for the dogs.
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Exactly....I love a good estate!

Several years ago (when we were poorer) we needed to replace an ancient Golf, and would have very much liked a Yeti, but at the time we couldn't afford one. And now we have tow cars which the Yeti isn't really (apparently there is a newer 4x4 model that will tow 2 tonnes, but I've never seen anyone do it!!). But I've never met anyone who had one and didn't like it. A friend of mine said lots of vets drive Yetis because they're neat and capable on cruddy ground.
 
The car in question has a kerbside weight of 1691kg so should be fine, mine is 1650kg and I intend to tow with a double trailer but one horse around 700kg so you will be fine.
.having said that my trailer is only 630kg so I'm lucky.

If you scroll down onto 'view specification'
 
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