Towing

[jaybee7]

Thinking of buying MG HS PHEV. Very impressed with the car but would like reassurance it will tow our caravan, 1250kg. Theoretically the weight is fine but I’m concerned about the power.

 

[Flatcoat]

There is another member on here towing at that weight and he is happy with the car. I have in the end decided to go elsewhere (Toyota) given uncertainty about towing performance on long hills. There is no doubt the MG is impressive and if my local dealers had shifted their arses last month instead of ignoring me for 45minutes and others not following up an enquiry, I would probably have bought one. MG loss, Toyota gain.

 

[Lovemyev]

There is another member on here towing at that weight and he is happy with the car. I have in the end decided to go elsewhere (Toyota) given uncertainty about towing performance on long hills. There is no doubt the MG is impressive and if my local dealers had shifted their arses last month instead of ignoring me for 45minutes and others not following up an enquiry, I would probably have bought one. MG loss, Toyota gain.

Snooze, you loose !.

 

[JABO]

i towed 1400kg last week, but unfortunately i wasn't aware that i should have saved battery power and selected high power mode before towing, so off i went with 0% batt and normal hybrid mode...... we managed to tow it anyway, however it might have been a much better experience if had read the manual but as flatcoat said, others had no probs.

 

[hermitdave]

i towed 1400kg last week, but unfortunately i wasn't aware that i should have saved battery power and selected high power mode before towing, so off i went with 0% batt and normal hybrid mode...... we managed to tow it anyway, however it might have been a much better experience if had read the manual but as flatcoat said, others had no probs.

Do let us know how you get on the next time

 

[JABO]

i will, but it's not until march ;-(

 

[hermitdave]

i will, but it's not until march ;-(

Come on just stick it on and go for a long drive - wait there's a fuel shortage going on.. maybe wait until its over

 

[JABO]

 

[Fozzy]

Hi, I bought an HS PHEV in June and have towed a 1400kg caravan about 600 miles with it so far. I made the same mistake as Jabo 1st time out by not reserving 50% or 100% electric power, it struggled a bit. 2nd trip to Cornwall I set it to reserve 100% and it towed a treat, never seemed short of power on the hills. In reality it doesn’t retain 100% and the electric range was down to about 8 miles when we arrived. Shorter trips I have retained 50% and this has been fine over say 50 miles. Still learning but overall very impressed with it.

 

[Flatcoat]

The recent TCOYT award in What Car wasn’t impressed with ICE HS, basically thought it underpowered, small boot.

 

[JABO]

I'm so happy to hear just that now i dont have to fear spring time

 

[AJ5823]

Hi, I bought an HS PHEV in June and have towed a 1400kg caravan about 600 miles with it so far. I made the same mistake as Jabo 1st time out by not reserving 50% or 100% electric power, it struggled a bit. 2nd trip to Cornwall I set it to reserve 100% and it towed a treat, never seemed short of power on the hills. In reality it doesn’t retain 100% and the electric range was down to about 8 miles when we arrived. Shorter trips I have retained 50% and this has been fine over say 50 miles. Still learning but overall very impressed with it.

What overall mileage range do you get towing in combination with petrol and ev. Needing to replace my tow car and considering the HS PHEV. Is the petrol tank smaller? TIA

 

[busa]

The fuel tank on the Mg EHS Phev is about 35 litres,
I've towed stuff but only a small trailer, to local builders merchant, a few hundred kilo of sand and stuff, had no issues

 

[Xyleth]

This is a summary of my recent trip to Devon. The Tl;Dr is set the charge setting to 'High' when towing!

More notes on towing with our PHEV.
We recently went on holiday from Northwest Hampshire to North Devon, a journey of approx. 150 miles via the A303, M5 and A-roads into Devon.

Going out to Devon I set the charge control to 'High'. The fuel tank was full and the battery was at 88% as we'd done some driving before we departed and didn't have time to charge. We had to make an emergency stop for fuel just short of our destination having travelled about 140 miles. There was 3% left showing in the battery.

On the run home, I left the charge setting on Auto and let the car sort things out. We set off from North Devon with a 100% charge and a nearly full tank of fuel. The route was Woolacombe to home via the M5 / A303 with a stop at Taunton Deane services at roughly halfway. The total journey distance is 140 miles give or take.
By the time we stopped at Taunton Deane, roughly 70 miles later, the battery was on 1% and we'd used about a third of the tank of fuel. We filled up there just in case, after the scare on the way down, and the calculated mileage was in the high 20's. That would have included some battery-only driving we did in Devon so I think a number in the low to mid 20's is about right for that towing leg (the onboard computer reported about 23mpg).

During this leg with battery power available, there was plenty of power for tackling the steep hills coming out of Devon onto the main road network and for acceleration. I never felt like the car was struggling, in fact, it felt more composed than my old 2l 150PS Diesel car.

For the second leg of the journey, the battery was at 0%, and would consistently exhaust the reserve held for hybrid driving, indicated by the battery icon going yellow. So for the majority of the time, we were towing purely on the 1.5l turbo petrol engine.

In this scenario, the cruise seems unable to hold a target speed. It is as if it has a cap of engine power above which it does not want to go, so it can't keep a steady 50 or 60mph. So most of the way I had the cruise off and controlled the throttle manually. The car would keep a steady speed, although up some of the larger hills coming out of Devon you had to work the engine pretty hard to do so. Forget trying to accelerate or overtake uphill just on the engine. On the flat it was fine, there was power in reserve to accelerate with and we did overtake some slower moving traffic.

On the flat, the car was automatically diverting some engine power to the battery, and downhill I took full advantage of regen. This would restore the battery icon to white, although still at 0%, and mean there was some electric power available to help with the next hill. However, on a big hill, this soon ran out leaving the ICE on its own again. It is also notable that the ACC doesn't seem to engage regen, even going downhill the power meter never indicates lower than 0%, whereas with cruise off it would be showing -15% flowing back into the battery.

I haven't had a chance to fill the car since we returned late last night, but the onboard computer was reporting 14Mpg for the trip! Having set off from Taunton Deane services with a full tank we arrived home (~85 miles) with just over 2/3rds of the thank gone. In total, I think we probably used just over a full tank for the full trip.
Compare that to the outgoing journey where I set the charge setting to 'High' and we used about the same amount of fuel and arrived with 3% of battery remaining having at no point had no electric assist available. I have to say that purely from the comfort of driving point of view this seems to be the thing to do when towing.

It seems the car has an effective range of around 140 / 150 miles when towing our 'van (1250Kg mtplm). It might be more if it were long motorway driving where there were fewer changes of speed and so less call on the battery to assist, and it'd probably be less if you were doing a lot of stop / start driving or very steep hills.

On the topic of boot space, it is a bit disappointing relative to the size of the car. It is plenty for day to day use, you'll easily get a weeks worth of shopping in there for example, but it is not as capacious as you might want when touring.

We've just had a custom bag made to the dimensions of the boot for the awning and that pretty much fills it with maybe 3/4 cm of room left above if you want to still close the boot blind. That is with a Bradcot Modul 2 air awning so no poles.

On balance I'm still happy with my purchase. It fits my requirements, I can live with the compromises when towing and for the 90% of the year when I'm not towing its perfect.

 

[Flatcoat]

With all the feedback on towing it looks like my reluctant second thoughts to drop the HS PHEV from my 3 car shortlist was the right decision for me. Maybe in 4 years time there will be an MG product more suited to our needs. Going for a Toyota with 4wd which although not a dealbreaker I was reluctant to forego - much more £££ but still has 0% finance and higher MGFV as a percentage of list price so helping ease the financial pain.

 

[Fozzy]

What overall mileage range do you get towing in combination with petrol and ev. Needing to replace my tow car and considering the HS PHEV. Is the petrol tank smaller? TIA

We went away last week and towed the caravan from Taunton to Bridgnorth about 150 miles, we had about 70 miles range left when we arrived, we left with a full tank and fully charged battery. I had a Rangerover Sport HSE before, I miss the petrol tank size but not the consumption or £550 road tax!

 

[HSimon]

Hi Fozzy, this is good news, as I have an HS PHEV on order and will be trading in my Outlander PHEV. We have a 1450kg caravan, so I was a bit concerned about towing.

We generally only travel less than 100 miles with the caravan (we live on the south coast), so if on the odd trip I have to pre-plan a petrol station for a top up with the caravan (google street view is very useful for this), I can live with that, vs the day to day savings as I only have a 15 mile commute to work and can charge there.

 

[midician]

Does plugging in the towing plug disable rear sensors or anything like that ? Is there any safety warnings to disable the rear hatch opening if there is a caravan behind it ?