Sprinter Towed

I have seen a Sprinter towing a Smartcar. But excuse me for asking. Why? I use our Sprinter as a second vehicle very often saving our BMW the extra use, especially for large loads ie boxes etc. If we need to go to town I drop the plumbing/hydro and head for town. I don't worry about people stealing 100$ or so worth of stuff--never happened in 12 years so far. But I do know that the GVW is critical re allowable tow weight.
AL

It depends on what your gross vehicle weight is including towed vehicle. Our Sprinter can have a 500 lb tongue weight and the hitch cal pull 5,000, but the gross vehicle weight will only allow 4,000. Having put many thousands of miles on our 2012 Sprinter in the Rockies, I can tell you it runs up and down them with no problem. We do not tow, but could if we wanted to. Power is no issue. The real issue IMHO is running the unit at or very near gross allowable weight all the time. Yes, the specs might allow it, but the tranny is not built to be at max weight all the time. I would see if I could find a much lighter vehicle than a CR-V. We also have a CR-V and love it, but towing that much weight is not a good idea for us. Perhaps one of the smart cars or a Fiat 500, both of which are very light. Having said all of this however, towing for short distances occasionally especially if on mostly flatter terrain, should not be a problem. Frequent use of the paddle shifter when climbing to keep the tranny in a lower gear will also help.

Our Mother Ship has the 3.0L Turbo Diesel V6 and can tow 3500 lb. Its a class C, not a van, but tows our Rocky quite well, which has a dry weight of 2900 lb. I would think a CRV would be just fine, IMHO.