So with our new caravan, being a twin axle over 8m long and with an MPTLM of 1800kg – our current Santa Fe was going to be at the limits of its towing capacity. Time to replace the tug!
The usual culprits that we thought of were: Santa Fe, Sorento, Dicovery and a Rexton.
The new Santa Fe we duly test drove and didn’t like, I felt it was trying to become a fashionable SUV rather than a modest 4×4 workhorse. We weren’t going to gain much by the newer version, other than some more horsies under the hood, so we discounted it.
The Sorento, to be honest I felt it much the same as the Santa Fe, we weren’t gaining much and I just didn’t get to love it – a personal thing I know.
A Discovery, well at the prices they command we didn’t venture much further. Plus the latest model is a design we don’t like, so we discounted this pretty much straight away.
The Rexton, well that was interesting to pursue. It would gain us more kerbweight, more horsies and more noseweight. It wasn’t too dissimilar to our current Santa Fe in terms of looks, apart from being a bit bulkier with a more commercial feel to it, be I could live with that. Pricing seemed acceptable, as Ssangyong are trying to break further into the UK market, so pricing is similar to the bargains had by Hyundai and Kia purchases of years gone by. We test drove one, albeit a manual ELX model and quite liked it.
So following all of this, which took 4 months from last Christmas, we decided to plumb for a Ssangyong Rexton ELX 5 seater auto. We duly ordered one and then were told that there were no 5 seater ELX’s available, only 7. Not wanting to lug around 7 seats and the extra space that they would demand, we upgraded the order to an Ultimate, which only comes with 5 seats and auto box. A bit more cash was required, but at the end of the day, this is what we work for!
So today I picked up the ‘tug’. All I can say is wow – this car is simply stunning. It has more features than you can shake a stick at, and it will tow any caravan you can throw on the back of – quite simply impressed. If you’re looking for a new tug, a beefy one – the Rexton should be on your shortlist.