RV FEATURE
When caravanning, you will face a couple of
unavoidable costs: fuel and the price of
parking your van in a holiday park,
assuming you don’t free-camp each and
every night.
A couple of issues ago, we tested the
difference in fuel consumption between
towing a pop-top and full-height caravan.
This provided detailed figures on the cost to
tow both van types; however, because we
didn’t perform our test run unhitched, it didn’t
provide figures on the cost to drive to a
holiday destination without a van attached.
So what kind of savings could you expect, if
any, by towing a van and staying on a
powered site in a holiday park, versus driving
to the same destination unhitched and
plonking yourself in a cabin?
Our fuel test in issue 34 showed that it cost
$51.01 (at $1.46/L for diesel) to tow a
2255kg full-height caravan for 209.8km with
a 3L MU-X.
In order to determine the price difference
between towing and not towing, we repeated
the test run in similar weather conditions
without a van attached. (A small traffic
detour, however, meant we travelled 1.1km
further during this test.)
At the end of this 210.9km test, we discovered
that we’d used 26.44L of diesel unhitched,
compared to the 34.96L we’d used when
towing the caravan – a difference of 8.52L. At
the $1.46 bowser price from the original test,
8.52L equates to $12.49. The total cost to tow
the van 209.8km was $51.01, and just $38.52
to drive 210.9km unhitched.
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