52. CARAVAN TOWING: Can you give me some general tips about towing caravans.

(Kindly supplied by Sid Seabrook)

1) Sadly car dealers are useless for towing advice. Wonderful car for towing.

2) Go back to the caravan dealer for some advice. Wonderful van for towing.

3) Join the Caravan Club (www.caravanclub.co.uk) and chat to their Technical Dept giving them the specific figures obtained in next para. You will obtain the best advice going. Go rallying, a major source of information from the wealth of experience of club members let alone great enjoyment with them..

The Caravan:

a) With an EMPTY VAN drive to your local public weighbridge(LPW) and write in large figures the unloaded weight of your van on the inside of
the door.

b) Return to the LPW with a LOADED VAN containing your usual holiday goods and chattels viz: awning, gas, food, bedding, clothes, barbecue, etc etc not forgetting kitchen sink, spare wheel, toys, bikes, pup tent.

c) Write in large figures the loaded gross weight(LGW) on the inside
of the door.

The two different figures on the door save future marital arguments.

d) Compare these with all the statistics you have of the van and the car and check if the LGW is 85% of the GW of the car.If the percentage figure is over 85% unload some until 85% is reached.

If you consider yourself to be an experienced towdriver (i.e can reverse your van) with some varied mileage under your belt the percentage figure can be sensibly upped in accordance. (This is only mine and other oldies opinions and will be tut tutted elsewhere.)

e) Check your van is always balanced and loaded correctly before leaving on a trip. My wife would never let me load our van and it always towed like a dream. I had to fill up with petrol or diesel and check tyre pressures suitably increased, as per manuals and written on van door.

N.B. If you are snaking you are overloaded or badly loaded and balanced.

The Car:

1) Ask yourself and other caravanners. Is it the car really man enough to tow your van?

2) If it is an automatic take it to a solely automatic gearbox expert company ask them for their opinion. I took mine to a specialist automatic g/box company who serviced police and other public services transmissions. I had to wait a few weeks. I would suggest that you ask them to check the box over and comment on fitting an oil cooler and extra fan/fans Ask for quote and if it “goes over the top” have it done. You will not regret it. An eight week trip in the South & S.W. of France is to be enjoyed not to be spent worrying over every hill.

They will have changed the automatic transmission fluid. Find out where to check the ATF and how to top it up. Buy a can of ATF.