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 Topic: Took the plunge on a trailer tent
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28/2/2024 at 11:08am
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Good luck with your new purchase, I'm sure you will have plenty of new adventures with it.
When you get a chance remember to change you outfit details in your profile.
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XVI yes?
As well is two words!
How does a sage know everything about everything? or does he? or does he just think he does?
Remember, if you buy something you bought it, not brought it.
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04/4/2024 at 5:15pm
Location: London
Outfit: Lunar Cosmos 524
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Quote: Originally posted by storeman_uk on 04/4/2024
...... The biggest problem to a newbie to towing is that it is narrower then the car which makes reversing hard. I'll eventually get used to that though. .....
Emmm, possibly not! Small trailers are notoriously difficult to reverse, little camping/garden waste type trailers all but impossible! It's not just the difficulty of being able to see them, the shorter the distance between tow hitch and axle the quicker they 'jackknife' and the harder it is to feed in any corrective steering.
There is a risk if moving too quickly that the jackknife is so severe you get contact between car and trailer, or electric cables/breakaway cable get strained as beyond their movement range, before you can stop!
Couple of tips, if you can't or can only barely see the top of the trailer in interior mirror or through rear window if looking over shoulder, put a couple of 'flagpoles' on the rear corners, high enough and bright enough to be easily seen. A second aid can be to put a couple of bits of tape on rear window aligned from your viewing position to better judge just how far off straight you are. Doesn't help much on the turn, but any assistance is a benefit! Needs two people really, you in the driving seat, another person to place tape when it lines up with a flagpole from your viewpoint.
Both the clubs offer training courses which cover reversing, may be of benefit.
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04/4/2024 at 5:35pm
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Or if possible, and able, unhitch and push into position.
Have seen many, many people doing so.
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XVI yes?
As well is two words!
How does a sage know everything about everything? or does he? or does he just think he does?
Remember, if you buy something you bought it, not brought it.
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04/4/2024 at 7:16pm
Location: West country
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I've got a small camping trailer and it is almost impossible to reverse because it's too low and too narrow to see.
Best chance is when the sun is shining and I can reverse it looking at it's shadow.
I can also look in the wing mirrors and as soon as it pokes itself out one side I can steer it to turn the opposite way. Basically, if it pokes out to the right turn the wheel to the right, then wait for it to poke out the left and turn the wheel to the left and so on.
If it starts jack-knifing, straighten up by going forward a bit.
However, they are very easy to unhitch and push into place.
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05/4/2024 at 9:46am
Location: Liverpool
Outfit: Swift Challenger 560
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Happy camping with your new Camplet. We used to have a CombiCamp and camped with friends who had a Camplet. Both were amazing bits of kit. As far as reversing goes, we gave up even trying after a while as the small size and not being able to see it from the car made it really tricky to reverse. I have seen someone with a small flag attached to both rear corners and I assumed this was to aid with reversing but we used to just unhitch and push it into place.
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Pixie
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05/4/2024 at 11:41am
Location: London
Outfit: Lunar Cosmos 524
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Quote: Originally posted by storeman_uk on 04/4/2024
Yeah, the jackknifing has already been experienced. So far I have found that unhitching & pushing it is far easier than trying to reverse it into position :)
at Monty15, the flags is a good idea but to be honest, I think unhitching and pushing would be less embarrassing then people watching me try to reverse it.
Knowing that it isn't just me having problems reversing a small trailer makes me feel less of a fool. Thanks for the replies, would rather have these honest responses than people fooling me into believing it is easier than it actually is.
I quite agree, unhitching and pushing into place is probably the sensible thing to do on site/storage, but I've found need to reverse my caravan whilst 'on the road', I've had people in front break down at traffic lights and in queues etc., and needed to back up to be able to drive around them! Also quite often necessary to reverse in or out of parking bays at motorway services etc. Unhitching, pushing, re-hitching with all the jockey wheel, power cable, breakaway cable stuff is a real faff when queues of traffic are building all around you! Definitely NOT to be recommended if parked in the HGV area (which trailers are often directed to), with VERY impatient HGV drivers trying to keep to their tight schedules!
I have a kind of inbuilt 'phycological need' developed from decades of towing power boats and reversing them down slipways to NOT uncouple, and to reverse the whole outfit, last thing you want is a loose heavy powerboat runaway trailer on a slippery slope, so you just don't do it! 
That said, I usually unhitch the caravan at sites, and 'motor move' onto pitch, as it's quicker, easier and more accurate when you have to observe alignment with marker pegs. I'm also usually on my own, so no one to guide me with regard to obstacles and placement. Large caravans may well be easier to reverse, but you suffer total vision loss of where it's going on a turn, the inside turn car door mirror is full of 'caravan wall', the outside one, somewhere almost totally irrelevant! Reversing camera on the caravan helps, but pretty much everything between back of the car and what's beyond back of the caravan (camera view) can be a mystery! - reversing a trailer is an acquired skill, and maybe just a little guesswork!
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08/4/2024 at 9:04pm
Location: West country
Outfit: Mondeo
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You can chock one wheel and swing front one way, then move chock to other side and swing front other way. Surprising how easy that is on a slope or difficult surface. You can lift front to position jockey wheel.
Other help is to apply hand brake one click only then you can put two hands on a wheel and turn it. It's surprising haw easily they move that way.
Just remember handbrake doesn't work when going backwards on some. Some do, some don't.
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via mobile 04/4/2024 at 11:38am
