The ladies of the family do some horse-riding and need to tow horse in horse-trailer plus space to carry required bits and pieces.

Current car has about 400kg excess capacity when towing trailer plus horse, etc.

However, whilst the 2.0l diesel of current towing car (auto and permanent 4wd) is fine, sense that more ‘pulling power’ and towing capacity could be better.

So…looking at a used VW Touareg with 3.0l V6 diesel motor and circa 50k miles on the clock.

Any experience or pitfalls to be aware of with the Touareg?

Thanks in advance.

Any experience or pitfalls to be aware of with the Touareg?

A colleague had one for caravan and horse box towing duties. Brilliant as a tug. Absolutely bloody awful on running costs, especially tyres, which it reportedly ate frequently at least a full set every year…and the tyres are not cheap. Got rid in the end for a Hyundai Santa Fe which was much easier on the bank balance.

How big are the horses and do you always carry 2 horses?

We have a 180bhp AWD Ford Kuga and that copes fine with a 15.2hh horse + a Pony. It would struggle with two hefty 16.2hh horses + the gubbins to go with them though.

Modern trailers are lighter too if you don’t already own one. We have an old Ifor Williams HB505.

Thanks so far – much appreciated.

Current towing car is an E84 BMW X1 Xdrive, auto and pulling a Cheval Liberte trailer (unladen 850kg) – limited to 1 x horse. Bad Dad, but horse is either 15.2 or 16.2hh…I always forget which…should also probably figure out how heavy said horse actually is. The car can handle 750kg un-braked and 2,000kg braked (which the trailer is obviously).

TBH, it may simply be that a change of car is the actual driver at play – the lady of the house has had the existing one for many years now, so perhaps simply fancies a change…

Regardless, curious about the Touareg

On the other side. Given the cost of the vehicle and trailer and worrying about MAM etc

A 3.0 won’t be cheap on fuel and road tax and tyres.

Get a small lorry? 3.5/4t/5t and buy a much smaller car when not using it for horses?

I have an Equitrek Valiant 5t for the horses. It also serves as a motorhome/mountain bike/motorbike race vehicle. Great for transporting big things.
Got rid of Land Rover Discovery and bought a cheap Isuzu Trooper and kept HB505.
The Valiant can also tow the HB505 as well at same time. Does 33mpg, and great to drive

Summary. Ditched big expensive motor, bought horsebox, bought small car, kept trailer

I hear they suffer from blocked drainage holes in the plenum chamber (wet carpets, damaged fans, airbag wiring). They had a recall on the Passats of 20 years ago but VW have learned that their customer base is fanatically loyal and they can get away with not sorting things…”feels solid therefore must be well engineered”.

My mate has just bought a cheap one, it had no sills left under the plastic covers, rusted from end to end both sides. Based on this sample size, check the sills and the sunroof drains.

Had one around 2013 for 3 years and it was the best car I’ve ever had. Never used it for towing but the car was faultless as my daily driver.

Been in Audi A4 or A6 estates since and had just ordered a new Touareg for delivery in Jan 23 based on my previous experience.

However, with fuel costs going the way they are I’ve just cancelled the order yesterday as a 3 litre, 30mpg diesel does not seem like a smart move right now.

The car can handle 750kg un-braked and 2,000kg braked (which the trailer is obviously).

General advice on towing caravans is that you should ignore the max braked capacity of the car listed in the book. You should not tow more than 85% of the weight of your car which is often less than the rating. I have been told that 100% ratio is ok with a good modern car and caravan. I don’t know about horses that might move around though, or triple axle trailers.

We had one years ago think it was a 2007 3L V6 great car but as mentioned bloody expensive to run, it also had a 100L tank and i think id cry filling it these days! Had a shot in one of the V10 5L jobbies in the video and christ it could shift! We ended up selling due to the road tax renewal and there was a few wee things needing done to it that mounted up but to be fair we also needed a bigger car as youngster number 4 was imminent.

A 3.0 won’t be cheap on fuel and road tax and tyres.

It’ll be a bloody sight cheaper than it’s V10 sibling, with all of the fancy air-suspension system and that big motor. Regular servicing costs up there with supercars. One of those would be my Euromillions extravagance of choice – it’s the only way I could afford to run the sodding thing!

the 3.0L Touareg is one of the few ‘cars’ that can tow 3.5t – do you really need that much grunt? A couple of friends who are tree surgeons have them – mainly because they’re cheaper than the discoverys they killed and are significantly more reliable, whilst still having the same tow capacity.

But as everyone has said above, they’re expensive to run, in the grand scheme of things, and you can get nailed on tax if you don’t look very carefully at the year you’re thinking of buying. Air suspension is a pig if it goes wrong (and probably will at some point), but is awesome if you do tow in the upper end of the capacity as it’ll self level. There are coil ones around though – some as factory spec, and some as retrofit. Factory spec ones tend to be the smaller engined models though. There are also some around with optional low boxes and locking transfer boxes too – worth keeping an eye out for.

If you need the 3.5t tow, then yeah, i think it’s a good bet – just don’t bother if you don’t need to tow that much. Anything that has that capacity will be expensive to run. That 3l V6 is a peach of an engine though.

Having had four 3l V6 engines of various incarnations (not a Toerag though), you will be looking at best mid-high 30’s on a conservative run, mid-high 20’s if you have a heavy foot and low 20’s pootling about town or towing

I don’t know if it’s relevant to the VAG autobox, but my parent’s 54 plate diesel (not sure on engine size) XC90 autobox died due to heat build-up caused by towing a caravan towing (it did last them about 8 or 9 years before its death though).

I like the look and size and apparently they’re pretty solid off-road (if you can keep them on the road, as it were, rather than in the garage being repaired). But

If you’re going to get a Touareg, you have to get the silliest one you can find. That’s V10 TDi or W12 petrol. It’s the law!

Just sold mine. 15 plate, was a great car and sure it will be great for towing (the guy who bought it said it was for his misses to replace their FL2 for towing the horse box). Engine is effortlessly powerful and torquey, gearbox nice and smooth. 3l v6 and I got approx. 30mpg average. Was gutted about selling it to be honest but…. they are expensive to run and repair, even parts are expensive – if you get a slightly older one though you may be able to get parts cheaper. I knew this when I bought it but when the costs started to add up I had to call it quits. Make sure all recalls have been carried out on it and I would just buy a decent warranty for it to cover any massive repair costs. Fingers crossed you get a god one if you go ahead with it, do a bit of research though on the forums before committing.

we have a 2014 3.0l tdi v6 in an Audi A6 allroad for horsebox towing duties. Averages about 37-38 mpg out and about (8 mile country road run to school). easily returns 46-48mpg on motorway runs (no box on).

Been a brilliant car so far and tows the box effortlessly.

Had a 2016 V6 for a couple years.
Very good car indeed. Lots of torque. Handled well for a heavy thing too.
But. Very thirsty. As a company vehicle it was very tax heavy too.
Not as harsh on tyres as some have suggested… I’ve had less powerful vehicles which were worse. Very comfortable on long trips too
However, not ideal from an environmental point of view, but think it would be an excellent towing vehicle.