Mazda CX5 Petrol as a tow car.

I would never tow with a petrol vehicle. Some will come back and say they do and not a problem. I prefer the low end torque and the fact no hill or muddy site will be a problem and to be honest I just love the diesel engine, specially the 3l v6.

A couple of things, the nose weight CX5 is either 75 or 80kg.

We towed one of our vans with a 2l petrol car and on a good day we managed 18 mpg

I have been pondering the same thing FJ, my 57 plate X-trail is the 2.2 diesel and it tows fantastic. This older model does not have a particulate filter fitted which is great for all the short runs I do but when the time comes to upgrade any newer models have the dreaded PF.

I once owned a 2.0 petrol X-trail which was good solo but towing gave very poor MPG and I was forever changing down even on slight motorway gradients.

I still don’t have an answer but would be interested in what you eventually decide to do.     

I wouldnt touch petrol to tow with. The 300 mile round trip should be sufficient to clear all the crap out of the DPF (italian tune up). And ALWAYS use premium diesel such as vpower or ultimate. 

Thanks for all your help and advice.

Have just bought '17 CX5 FWD Diesel.

Not AWD but should do the job.

Thanks all again.

Older cx5 is 88kg NW, new one is 84kg.

Its a much better engine for towing, but no where near as reliable as the petrol.

I've had a 175ps manual and automatic, both superb towcars, better than the 190ps tiguan i have now which isn't quite as stable for some reason.

I've also had a T30 and T31 xtrail, the T30 2.2 was a excellent towcar, again more stable than the 2l diesel T31 ...

i do hope you haven't bought a 2012-2013 car as these years produced the most troublesome engines with vacuum pumps wearing out early, cams and turbo problems along with sump oil dilution, i had the oil dilution on both mine, and the pump changed at two years old, soon after i bought a 2015 which had no problems during the 3 years i owned it apart from phone connection issues...

he does say "Have just bought '17 CX5 FWD Diesel" so nowhere near the 12/13 you warn about.