We've had a few enquiries about tow bars, but has anyone actually towed anything yet?
Want to share experiences?
We do a lot of camping as part of historic reenactment and tow a van traile with my Grand Vitara. Don't really want to tow with the Doblo on the greeen stuff, but wondering about road use.

Apparently good - there's plenty of low(ish) down tourqe if I remember correctly so towing up hills etc. shouldn't be a problem. They can tow up to 1300kg on a 1.9JTD with a braked trailer so it's certainly no landrover, but for caravans, smaller box trailers and general purpose trailers then I can't see why it would not be a good car

Only thing you might find (depending on your trailer though) is that if you've got passengers or the back is fully loaded up that the hitch height might be a bit too low.

In ref to towing , we have a 1.3 multijet... we have towed a small 4 berth caravan 560kgs , and also various trailer tents again between 350-550kgs , don't forget you've got all the bits and bobs / stuff in the dobbin.. this adds again to the weight .. We have travelled in the uk to cornwall + in europe to nerja .........

I've not really had any problems in towing... the addition of a performance box does help somewhat... :hm:

but i'm now thinking of an engine remap when the warranty runs out... :devil:

I have towed my kit car (700Kg) on a single axle trailer without any problems. That's with a 1.9JTD. The trailer is pretty heavy so I would think the weight all in could be 900Kg. I would have though that 1000Kg would be a good workable towing weight for a Doblo.

Sounds like a good weight! If it's built to tow 1300kg and you tow 1000kg or 1 Ton then you're not going to have any gearbox/clutch problems... although you shouldn't towing 1.3Ton but just to be safe

Thanks Guys!! All pretty encouraging.
The trailer has a MGW of 1 ton (real not metric), so it should be OK.
Ozzie, Not entirely sure about the low down torque bit. IMHO there isn't much until you get the turbo spinning. There again, I am used to Landrovers and the Suzuki!!

thannks again

Obadiah.

Towing!

I've towed my Alfasud on a heavy steel car trailor with brakes ( the brakes weren't working ) for three hours on all different types of road, sweeping bends on narrow back roads up to motorways. I cruised with ease at 60mph. Given my van is full of gear it was quite an admirable performance. You want to tow get a JTD she'll pull a house down. 46mpg too. The mirrors are huge and you can easily see your load if the trailor is wide enough. Sure didn't the Doblo win best towing award in a caravan magazine. What more is there to say....!!

I can only agree with Alfavan. We tow a 4-berth caravan with a JTD, 935kg empty, a bit more loaded up, quite happily. Can cruise at 60+ no problem. We have even taken it up the Glen Shee road, and it never dropped below 30. (Anyone who knows that stretch of road, will know that is quite an achievement.)
I think it won the 2004 best towcar under £13500 award, which says it all

Don't be worried about towing with your doblo, I have towed with a 1.9 diesel for 5 years, and once the engine has done a few thousnd miles, it will chug along niceley. Not much chance of initiating lots of wheel spin on grass, if you are genle with the gas pedal, and don't try swimming with it.
Only problem I have encountered is the the tailgate on my doblo, is difficult toopen when hitched to the caravan, and as we have dogs caged in the back, this can cause a little grief if we have to get the dogs out while still attached to the caravan.

Vic, I'm sure you can buy special hitches or some sort of attachment for your drawbar that cures this problem... commonly used on 4x4's to allow them to swing the door open over the top of the hitch and jockey wheel, might be worth looking into?

Vic, thanks for the advice! Oddly enough when we bought the Doblo we specified double rear doors, as we have two dogs and it would be difficult to contriol escapees with the tailgate. I do, however have this problem with the Grand Vitara!

As an aside, mention was made of hitch height. Any chance that one of you guys could tell me the height to the top of the towball, please?

Obadiah

Obadiah,

The height to the top of my towball is 45cm. This was a Towtrust towbar from towbarman on Ebay. I thought this was good value.

The tailgate on my car can hit the trailer nose wheel handle if the trailer is not in line with the car and the handle is not pointing away from the car.

OldBo

Old Bo,

Thanks for that, I cna only find an Imperial measuring tape, but the hitch on my car is about the same and the trailer is about 2 inches lower sitting in the garage.
I must admit that when I thought about doors I had forgotten the offset, but I am sure that we can live with that somehow!
Now to phone the fitter!!