We're off to France on Monday and will be towing our 800kg caravan. I wondered if anyone had any thoughts on whether it's better to stay in Drive, or to use the Sport setting while towing.

I'd just leave it in drive.

My take on this is that sports mode just keeps the revs up so the the engine is able to respond quicker if you floor it.

For towing you're asking for more power more of the time than usual - but you don't particularly need faster throttle response, so in sport you may be carrying more revs than you need when the power is off.

Not sure if the tiptronic has a lock-up feature to stop the fluid flywheel slipping and cooking the gearbox oil. But I do know the auto gearbox in the Roomster is put in cars with up to 3 litre engines - so it's unlikely to be stressed too much when towing in a Roomster.

When I were a lad, a big thing was made of selling extra engine oil coolers for towing - not sure if this is still the case.

It is on any S4 V8 tiptronic. Audi stipulate you should NOT tow using an S4 V8 with out extra cooling... so maybe it's still the case on certain models. Probably best to double check with skoda UK just in case or check the manual.

No mention of oil cooler in manual or when I asked Skoda UK about towing limits. I'm 200kg under the 1000kg limit and my dealer hasn't spoken about it either.

Reason I wondered whether to use Sport is because it stays in lower gears on the overrun. I think I'll stay in Drive.