Hi all does any member tow with a 1.6 diesel Octavia Estate, if so I would like to hear your comments.

Sorry can't help you with the 1.6 but my 2L 140bhp Octavia pulls my caravan at about 89% kerbweight quite nicely. Hope that helps if you want to get yours uprated to about the same power.

Ian

If you go for a lightweight caravan you should be Ok, but you will be restricted for choice. My caravan has a mtplm of 1,230kg and tows it with no problem at all getting 33-35mpg with plenty of power.

 

Edited 31 January, 201412 yr by Yorkshire

This was the last tow I carried out

 

 

28mpg with a giant air brake in the shape of the boat wind screen.

 

Towed lovely on CC, stress free, plenty of power and braking. (1.8 TSI) car handled brilliantly.

 

Next trip will be with the wind brake removed and a tonneau cover fitted, will be intresting to see if mpg improves.

 

Gaz.

 

Edited to add, 650KG unbraked with a nose weight of 75KG (checked with milenco gauge)

Edited 1 February, 201412 yr by fairlight5

If you go for a lightweight caravan you should be Ok, but you will be restricted for choice. My caravan has a mtplm of 1,230kg and tows it with no problem at all getting 33-35mpg with plenty of power.

 

 

 

 

Yes but is your's a 1.6?

I don't see you having too much of a problem, last year on a site I met someone using an Octavia with the old 1.9 tdi, that has the same power as the newer 1.6 and he said he was quite happy pulling his caravan around the UK and France. You may need to be using the gearbox quite a bit more than normal but it should pull OK.

Ian

Hi Shezza

First of all I have never towed with a 1.6tdi. However I have towed a 1200kg caravan with a mk1 Octavia 1.9 90bhp (quite slow), three different mk2 1.9 105bhp (good performance) and now a mk2 2.0 140bhp (definitely the best).

My point for you to consider is weight of what you intend to tow, when I changed my last 1.9, the choice I had was 1.6 or 2.0. I drove several 1.6's and although they have the same bhp as the old 1.9 the grunt just wasn't there and I wouldn't have been happy towing 1200kg with it so I plumped for the 2.0 and so pleased I did, effortless towing, average 34mpg, 6th gear useable on at 55mph plus.

I'm sure there will be someone towing with a 1.6 but the choice of what you can tow will be quite limited.

Hope this is of help.

The rear suspension is renowned for being quite soft on the Octavia.

Shezza, it is this new tablet thingy, it should have read mine is a 2.0Tdi. Sorry

As the owner of an Octavia Estate 1.9 PDI 105 Elegance Mk 2 2008 model, and with more than 30 years of caravan towing experience, I've go no problems towing our Swift caravan with an MTPLM 1322 kg - very stable at up to 60 mph, 34 mpg towing and will tow in 5th gear (top) all day on the motorway. The problems I have are to do with pinning Skoda down re the car's kerbweight. When we bought the car new we were told the kerbweight was 1,515 kg as stated in their brochure (and on several websites). We're thinking of changing our caravan which we've towed for 4 years with the Octavia and the dealer has told us the quoted kerbweight is 1325 kg, a key difference of 190 kg which is rather critical to a caravan owner. I've now been told by Skoda's customer service that the kerbweight is indeed 1,325 and not 1,515 as previously quoted. They checked the chassis number against their records. They have not offered any apology for this apparent error which is all the more frustrating as I double-checked with Customer Service when buying the car that the quoted kerbweight for our model was correct at 1,515. Armed with this change in information, the caravan dealer is now refusing to sell us any caravan which has an MTPLM between 1322 and 1400 kg (Octavia's quoted max towing limit) despite the fact that our Octavia would be able to cope, especially as new caravans have inbuilt stability controls.

 

I'm not very impressed!!!!

Go to a different caravan dealer then.

If it's in its towing limit there isn't a problem.

Sent from my XT1032 using Tapatalk

As the owner of an Octavia Estate 1.9 PDI 105 Elegance Mk 2 2008 model

 

My Octavia estate 2.0 PD DSG L&K Mk2 weighs 1554kg. I find it hard to believe your elegance is a full 225kg lighter. 1515kg sounds plausible. One way to check for sure is to take it to a weigh bridge. 

 

The caravan dealer is being ridiculous. Towing weight is for you to worry about not them. 

I have a 1.6 tdi Combi - no mods or upgrades to it, just a standard elegance model with a couple of extras on it. It pulled a MTPLM of 1320 KG with no problems on a round trip to Portugal and back from Luxembourg (3874 kms total). Have not recorded MPG but it was quite high and it struggled a bit on uphill sections (combination of weight and air resistance).

 

Am moving to just over the border in Germany now and have made quite a few trips with very heavy items towed (avg weight is about 900KG) with a max of 1300kg on a low profile trailer and it was quite a lot better (even with the 1300kg load) but I do go from an avg (brim to brim calculated) of 4.1 l/100kms (3.9 on maxidot) in normal conditions to 7.3 on Maxidot with the trailer loaded.

 

The point is, you can - it will probably not be a pleasant drive (even with other cars it will not if you care about what you are towing), you will not be the most popular guy on the road and it will, most probably, hit your pocket a lot more than with a 2.0 TDI.

 

I for one am quite happy that for most of the year/use it is very frugal (used to be more but stopped driving like a monk - life is too short and the difference is just 0.3 l/100kms) and it does "ok" for those little times when you need it to work a lot harder. 

Have a look at this site

 

http://www.whattowcar.com/

I have just bought a 2017 2.0Ltr 184 bhp octavia scout 

 

  It tows no problem at all , stable with plenty of power

 

just one issue - which is probably something I’m doing wrong (1st 4wd vehicle).  When reversing uphill in 4x4 mode on grass it seems like the brakes lock on and the engine is fighting against them 

 

any advice for a newby. 
 

is it a setting, or should I allow the car to go into 4wd if it needs it.  
 

had a play with the settings and can’t see anything obvious (to me)

 

anything to do with hill assist?

 

cheers in advance 

 

Steve 

 

 

 

@hultum123  Best be sure you actually have AWD and the Haldex is working.  

?

Has the Haldex been serviced as per Recommendations / Guidelines / Schedule @ 3 years old?

 

There is no way for you to stop it going into AWD is there if it is working correctly?

It’s definitely got 4wd, and I can feel the difference when I put it into off-road mode

 

not sure if the Halsey has been serviced though, got it from a Skoda dealership but I reckons unlikely to have been done

 

i presume it goes into 4wd if needed (feels traction loss), but not 100% on that

 

maybe I need to call them

 

Thanks

 

e-roottoot

 

 

Reversing uphill with a trailer or caravan attached?

 

One with auto-reverse brakes?

I think so , it has manoeuvre braking and hill assist. 
 

Im not sure which is the problem - if either 🤷‍♂️

Neither!

Reversing uphill with a caravan attached , going for a test after work tomorrow, not towing to see if it still happens 

Suggest you check your caravan brakes are working properly. Try going forward for a few inches when you feel the resistance,  then into reverse again.  Had this problem with a trailer when the reverse override wasn't working. 

Great advice greenmachine16

thanks 

 

I’ll take a look next time I’m picking it up

 

👍

Also if the van is old ( think vintage!) it may have a manual override on the tow hitch which needs setting before reversing .

On 13/10/2020 at 18:21, hultum123 said:

I think so , it has manoeuvre braking and hill assist. 
 

Im not sure which is the problem - if either 🤷‍♂️

 I have manoeuvre braking on my estate, i can reverse in a straight( ish ) line no problem i can bend it no problem until it gets to 45-50 degrees and it then bangs the brakes on .