I did 200 mile round trip to the lake district towing my 16ft fishing boat with the Scout yesterday and Im very impressed, loads of torque, it pulled the boat up the slipway and out of the water with ease, effortless motorway cruising returning 38 mpg, in fact I forgot I had the boat behind me at times and had to check my speed. So if anyone is thinking about the Scout as a towing/ sports utility vehicle believe me it ticks all the boxes

Good to know thanks, ordered a scout 4 weeks ago to be used to tow a large caravan.

Mark

Mark what electrics have you ordered ? cheers - Stuart

Good to know. I ordered my Scout with Towbar + Adaptor.

Dealer specified the towbar preparation, the towbar fitting and single electrics will be done at a local specialist.

Mark

Hi Mark, you might have to tell the car with Vag-com that the car has been fitted with a towbar and to disable the reversing sensors when you are hooked up, mine was factory fitted and the bolero radio shows a trailer symbol when you go into reverse. cheers - Stuart

Could anyone tell me what tyre pressures they are using when towing, I've often found the max load settings on other cars to give a very light feel to the steering.

Thanks,

Mark

Good to know thanks, ordered a scout 4 weeks ago to be used to tow a large caravan.

Mark

I'm looking at getting a new Scout to tow a small sports yacht, in Australia the listed max towball/bar weight is 75 kg do you know if this can be increased, how heavy would your caravan be?

Marty

Edited 10 June, 201016 yr by Marjac

75 kg is the max static downward mass that can be put on the towball. Most caravans are balanced well enough that the caravan axle carries pretty much all of its weight. The max the car can tow is something like 1400 kg I think, but it may be higher for the scout as I understand it has a lower 1st gear.

75 kg is the max static downward mass that can be put on the towball. Most caravans are balanced well enough that the caravan axle carries pretty much all of its weight. The max the car can tow is something like 1400 kg I think, but it may be higher for the scout as I understand it has a lower 1st gear.

The Scout and the 2.0 TDi 4x4 can tow 1600kg. At least thats what it says on the VR5 of my 4x4

Lee

I did 200 mile round trip to the lake district towing my 16ft fishing boat with the Scout yesterday and Im very impressed, loads of torque, it pulled the boat up the slipway and out of the water with ease, effortless motorway cruising returning 38 mpg, in fact I forgot I had the boat behind me at times and had to check my speed. So if anyone is thinking about the Scout as a towing/ sports utility vehicle believe me it ticks all the boxes

I agree, it tows very nicely indeed. Must say I think my mpg is a lot less than that when towing my boat, but then it has perhaps more windage and is a bit longer...:

Tows brilliantly, even heavily loaded with family, boats, bikes & holiday gumpf, it never felt underpowered or missed a beat (or a footing, come to that):

Caravan weighs 1044kg unladed so the scout should handle it fine. Any advice on tyre pressures?

Cheers,

Mark

75 kg is the max static downward mass that can be put on the towball. Most caravans are balanced well enough that the caravan axle carries pretty much all of its weight. The max the car can tow is something like 1400 kg I think, but it may be higher for the scout as I understand it has a lower 1st gear.

Thanks for your reply, I've just checked my boat trailer which is about 1,000kg (with boat) and the towbar weight is about 100 kg so will have to see if I can reposition and/or repack the boat on the trailer to try to lighten the towball weight

To start with I can take the ancher out of the front of the boat!

Most of the caravan/towing information I can find (in Australia) suggests a towball weight of about 10% of the total loaded weight of the trailer/caravan so will have to be carefull by not making it too light ie not adding weight behind the axle to counter balance etc