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MyFIL (he has a folding camper) is telling me we really need to get a stabiliser for our new TT (Trigano Olympe). The guy at the shop said there's no need.

Do we need one or not?

Doubt you'll need one.  The stailiser is designed to dampen snaking, this can be caused by a variety of things such as cross wind, harsh braking, draught off passing vehicles & poor distribution of load (won't cure that last one!).  As a TT is fairly light when compared to a caravan &  has a much lower centre of gravity as well as being lower, wind does not really cause a problem.  I've towed ours for 4 years now & we hardly notice it is there.

Steve.

I have towed TT's and now an FT for years and never seen the need for one, I always used one with the caravan though.

Mike

I tried a stabiliser on my FC (it was free). I used it once and never bothered again!

Glen

I think it unlikely that you will need a stabiliser however you don't know until you try it out.

Until we bought our camper I had never experienced snaking and I have done a fair amount of towing trailers, horse boxes, etc in the past.  Snaking is a pendulum effect that gets progressively worse unless you slow down. With our outfit it used to start at about 55 MPH.  We tried all sorts of adustments to the loading of the camper to try and eliminate it.

We bought an AKS 3004 which was well worth the money.  On the autoroutes in France we can legally drive at up to 81 MPH with our outfit and it is absolutely rock steady at these speeds.

A stabiliser won't make an inherently unstable outfit safe.

If an outfit snakes at 55 mph then it needs sorting, something is wrong, and I certainly wouldn't recommend towing it at 81 mph even with a stabilser fitted until the underlying instability has been resolved.

Caz, to a point I agree with you.  We checked everything, The camper was almost new so their was no wear in the runnng gear and we checked our hitch weight, tyre pressures and kept weight as low as possible.  I even removed the spare tyre from the rear of the unit and stowed it temporarily in the car boot but to no avail.

It could well be that the sway starts because slight lateral movement in either the camper or car tyres?  I am changing the car tyres to a make I respect, as they wear and will probably change the camper tyres this year as they are 5 years old.

As I said before, snaking is a pendulum effect, that is a small sway develops into a bigger one with each swing.  The purpose of a friction stabiliser is to prevent that first initial movement. 

Their are many variables and theories as to why some units are more unstable than others and a lot of research is taking place at places like Bath University. In my opinion one manufacturer has gone way OTT by developing an electronically controlled differencial braking system to crack the problem!  Towball or leaf spring stabilisers are a simple and effective way of making a camper or caravan safer to tow.  That is the reason why they are sold!

Regards Bob