The cost of caravanning

There isn't much ambivalence when it comes to caravans. They either do it for you, or they really don't.

But whichever camp you're in, and after living in a caravan for seven months I'm in the latter, don't view them as a cheap holiday. It's fairly obvious that towing something large and roughly brick-shaped isn't going to do a car's economy any favours. But I'm sure I'm not alone in not realising quite how much of an effect it has.

What Car? has proved that fuel consumption can be doubled by towing a caravan. It conducted its tests on four cars: a Volkswagen Golf, Mazda 6, Dacia Duster and Land Rover Discovery.

Experts then hitched up a caravan that was 85 per cent of the car's kerb weight, the recommended maximum for stable towing, and covered a variety of roads at various altitudes and temperatures.

The petrol-powered Mazda, which without the caravan was the most economical car in the test, had its consumption increased by 52 per cent, from 47.3mpg to 22.7mpg. The diesel-powered Golf was next worse with a 45 per cent change. Then came the Dacia with a 37 per cent hikle. The Land Rover, with its 3.0-litre diese engine, showed the smallest increase at 33 per cent.

In financial terms the budget Dacia would cost the least in extra fuel over 500 miles at £115.94. In fact the Romanian maker's small SUV managed to record better fuel consumption than the Golf when both were towing, even though without a caravan attached its economy is worse than the German motor. The Land Rover was the most expensive, costing £179.07 extra over 500 miles.