So, anyone else tow a caravan with a Yeti?

I was planning to but am having second thoughts after reflecting on the potential for wiping out people or causing life changing injuries, I think I will need something bigger & heavier.

 

 

Edited 10 January, 20206 yr by J.R.

@J.R.

Surely not, a man of your experience, capabilities and DIY skills will not use anything unsafe.

I leave it to your interpretation whether I was referring to a bigger & heavier towcar or caravan!

 

You and I both know about life changing injuries, as someone who learns most things the hard way its no surprise that mine were self inflicted but unintentional.

14 hours ago, J.R. said:

I was planning to but am having second thoughts after reflecting on the potential for wiping out people or causing life changing injuries, I think I will need something bigger & heavier.

 

With the stability control extending to whatever is being towed, firm-ish suspension, wide track for it's size and the very short rear overhang the Yeti is a very competent tow car.

We tow our Stirling Eccles Opal with the Yeti. It too weighs in at around 1450kg and tows it a treat. No tail wagging and very stable.

Steve.

I towed a Swift Fairway,  MTLPM 1500kgs for 3 years with Yeti Elegance 2L 170 Bhp 4x4 with no problems at all.

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated. The Yeti seems to be a very well liked tow car.

I don't seem to have the ability to edit my post above, but I was wanting to ask if everyone who tows with their Yeti would advise going for the 4x4 model, and would you advise diesel?

This is the lowest powered 2wd diesel Yeti, watch the stability at 1:06.
 

 

Edited 11 January, 20206 yr by Urrell

I towed a 1200kg Eriba for 5 years with 110bhp 2wd diesel. The car was very stable and with the rear seats out lots of room. It would also return up to 40mpg and I was very pleaed with it.

I've now moved on to a 1.5 petrol Audi A3 which to my surprise tows better with 150bhp and same torque as the diesel, and has a bigger boot.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I would say avoid the lower powered 110bhp diesel. At the time I thought it was fine, but now I realise how much better the extra horsepower is. Ideally a 150bhp 4wd would do the job a treat.

 

Colin

Edited 11 January, 20206 yr by eribaMotters

Dale, you'll find lots of useful information here , also in the links contained in it.  

 

Edited 11 January, 20206 yr by Brijo
Pic added

On 09/01/2020 at 20:47, Wino said:

@J.R. or anyone else using the Maypole/similar bypass relay systems; measure the quiescent current they draw if connected to a permanent 12V supply.

Mine weighed in at 60mA to my surprise, if memory serves, which was more than 3 times the car's natural current draw. I put a rocker switch inline with its supply so I could isolate it when not towing.

 

Isolator switch added today, my meter has now decided to work on the 200ma range so I tested the quiesecent current of the new twing relay and the one fitted (date unknown, prior to my ownership) to my 2006 Octavia.

 

The older one draws 27ma and the new one 12.4ma so they are clearly aware of the issue and have used less power hungry circuitry, if there were not all the other parasitic drains I would not be overly concerned with the 12.4ma but as my electronic battery tester arrived today and the old Lion battery temporarily fitted is as bad as my old school load tester led me to believe its better that the relay should be isolated, battery is showing an estimated 300CCA against the 640 when new, only 20% capacity.

22 hours ago, Dale_Stevens said:

So, anyone else tow a caravan with a Yeti?

Yes.

Caravan a Sterling Europa 460 1295kg

That's the small stuff

A 750kg unbraked trailer that is often at or near its  legal maximum.

Also tow a Norman 20 on a trailer that is very close to Yeti maximum.

In the last 12 months I have done over 12000 miles with one of  the trailers on.

Would I be without stability control       No

Would I get annoyed with my reversing sensors beeping every time I reverse       Yes

Do I like being notified when one of my trailer lights is out        Yes

Cost me £425 fitted to me that was £425 well spent.........

 

I respect your experience and opinion and have one question.

 

"Would I be without stability control       No"

 

How do you know what if any difference it makes?

 

After all the vehicle has it in any case.

 

Please dont cut n paste some convincing sounding theory or marketting speak, have you tried the combination with and without?

 

If a previous owner had emptied their wallet for it on my vehicle the first thing I would do is test it at the limit in safe low adhesion conditions with and without the trailer plug engaged to see for myself but thats just an extension of me wanting to know how a car or combination reacts at the limit, I am not going to shell out £425 to find out, I am hoping at least one other person is as inquisitive as myself and is not just going to rely on faith in marketing claims to keep them safe when the unexpected happens.

 

BTW for all those preaching and sermonising that I should have the factory set up and coded into the vehicle would that not have needed 'towbar preparation" from the factory from new? My vehicle does not have it and after extensive searching there is no connector or section of loom bound up, the only way to fit towing electrics unless you know different is the voltage sensing relay that I have used, I looked in detail at the Westfalia fitting instructions and it connected to the factory 'towbar prep" connector.

Luckily I have never tested the stabIlity control as I don't drive near the limit or if I have it did its job.

 

As for tow bar prep, my car didn't have it, £425 was the complete price electrics, towbar, the lot. 

Subtract from that what you paid for your parts and your time to do the fitting at £25 an hour and hopefully you got a bargain

 

 

 

In which case you probably have exactly the same relay as I do and the vehiicle stability control will not be doing anything different.

 

My time has no value, in fact I should add an amount for the experience that I gain.

 

Took me a couple of hours all told and I work very methodically these days, it was the easiest towbar that I have ever fitted although no different to any modern vehicle as none of them require drilling any more and the bumper cut is easily done with tin snips, being the Outdoor model the silver panel is removeable so easier to handle and you can get a closer fit.

 

Cost £125 all in delivered from 2 different sources IIRC so £300 saved, knowledge gained and kept my hand in. £425 is currently a months gross income before taxes & expenses for me.

 

Refitting of the rear panel is something to be remembered or written down for future use, easy when you know how, an absolute pig and brain teaser if you dont.

 

My neighbour of 34 years had always fitted his own towbars, he was persuaded not to this time on his Octavia 2 F/L by scare stories of canbus, which to be fair, untill you uderstand what it is and how it operates and how the new generation towing relays operate can be very daunting, he watched me fit this one and was aghast at how simple it was, simpler and less potential for problems than the old system, he has also had battery problems so I will check the parasitic drain on his, you might want to do the same or at the very least see what type of relay you have fitted.

Edited 11 January, 20206 yr by J.R.

59 minutes ago, J.R. said:

In which case you probably have exactly the same relay as I do and the vehiicle stability control will not be doing anything different.

No mine wasn't done with a bypass relay, it was done properly with full reprogramming........

 

 

Edited 11 January, 20206 yr by idleness

 

1 hour ago, J.R. said:

 

BTW for all those preaching and sermonising that I should have the factory set up and coded into the vehicle would that not have needed 'towbar preparation" from the factory from new? My vehicle does not have it and after extensive searching there is no connector or section of loom bound up, the only way to fit towing electrics unless you know different is the voltage sensing relay that I have used, I looked in detail at the Westfalia fitting instructions and it connected to the factory 'towbar prep" connector.

 

Shame you have to start that paragraph in such a patronising manner, however my 150 did NOT have factory tow bar prep, and all it meant was that the fitter had to add an additional couple of fuses with the dash fuse board (included in the kit) and then run a small Westfalia loom the length of the car to the boot.. Officially this should mean the whole of the interior trim needs removing but all the reports I have seen on here they have managed to hide the loom without doing this. On my car the whole fitting job, done outside my garage, took about 3 hours.

On another Yeti forum there are copies of all fitting instructions of all the tow bar and wiring looms available, including the additional loom required where tow bar prep wasn't specified, so I am sorry but you are wrong. I can assure you that my car is NOT equipped with a by-pass relay system.

Past experience of 11 years of Yeti ownership and membership of this forum has proved that any Yeti equipped with a by-pass relay system does not allow the operation of any of the things I listed earlier. There was also a member here a long time ago who fitted a by-pass system and had his LCU burn out, along with part of the loom. It was a VERY expensive mistake!

1 hour ago, J.R. said:

In which case you probably have exactly the same relay as I do and the vehiicle stability control will not be doing anything different.

 

You are totally incorrect!!
Why can you not accept that some of us know a lot more about the towing systems on the Yeti than you do?

2 hours ago, J.R. said:

I respect your experience and opinion 

 

the only way to fit towing electrics unless you know different is the voltage sensing relay that I have used, I looked in detail at the Westfalia fitting instructions and it connected to the factory 'towbar prep" connector.

 

You appear to have ignored the word "probably', I am happy to learn, thats why I ask questions, what I dont do is tell people they are totally wrong, that its obvious they know nothing about vehicle electronic systems etc etc, there is more but I wont waste my time looking back for it, I know nothing about you and assume nothing about you, you may well have once made your living designing and manufacturing vehicle electronic systems as I did for all Iknow but I can be sute that you were not customer facing, your postings say a lot about you.

 

I noticed there was a different dynamic in the Octavia 2 forum compared to the Octavia 1, it reflects the different owner profile and the relative values of the vehicles, the Yeti forum did not seem so different until this subject, I dont think I had ever recieved a sad or unhelpfull vote before and suddenly I get besieged with them for doing DIY or more worrying for thanking Wino for giving usefull information.

Edited 11 January, 20206 yr by J.R.

Thanks for the timelapse video Idleness, no idleness visible there 😀

 

4 of them working together!!!!

 

If ever there were a timelapse of me working most of it would be me wandering around aimlessly scratching my head or backside wondering where was the screwdriver/spanner/pencil/fixing/part etc that I had put down not 5 minutes earlier.

 

It would be too painfull for me to watch, not seeing any of those guys doing anything like that was hard enough knowing that I once worked like that.

45 minutes ago, Llanigraham said:

us know a lot more about the towing systems on the Yeti

Accepted; perhaps you could explain the electronics that stabilise the trailer under braking clearly, keeping in mind the number of different trailers already illustrated?

58 minutes ago, KenONeill said:

Accepted; perhaps you could explain the electronics that stabilise the trailer under braking clearly, keeping in mind the number of different trailers already illustrated?

 

The Yeti applies brakes individually on the car via sensors like yaw etc to keep safe if they detect sliding or jackknifing etc.
That's why the car needs to be programmed to know a trailer is being towed so it can react accordingly.

Llanigraham.

 

What do you find so disturbing about when I thank someone like Wino or Idleness for their postings that you feel the need to click on an unhelpfull icon?

 

Is it  restricted to me?

 

I can answer that, you have given close to 4000 votes pretty much all of them thanks or positive, only 4 ever unhelpfull all given to me on this one topic.

Edited 12 January, 20206 yr by J.R.