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Hi I wonder if anyone can help us, we have weighed the noseweight of our Lunar Astara and it is literally off the scales.

We have moved the gas bottle and spare wheel to the back of the caravan along with all our luggage, but this made no difference.

Does anyone know if Lunar's a renowed for being front heavy?

Any advice would be greatly given.

You really can't move things to the back to compensate for noseweight.  It's extremely dangerous.  Don't put things very far behind the axle.

Jim

Hi Jim

Yes we know this, we purely did this to see if it would alter the noseweight. 

Thanks

It should have done of course, although you can't tow it like that.  I wonder why the movement of so much weigt so far had no effect.

Are you sure your noseweight gauge or scales are accurate?  Looking around, the average sort of noseweight for this van appears to be 85-95Kg.    That means you would need a 4 x 4 to tow it.  What is your towbar limit?  It may be that the caravan is normal, but a bad match for the car, as far as noseweight is concerned.

Perhaps you could try bigger scales, then at least we could know the actual weight, and the extent of the problem.

It might also be worth contacting the manufacturer, to see what the noseweight range is for that caravan.

Jim

Thanks Jim.

Im not sure how accurate the scales are!

The max noseweight for our towbar is 75Kg

We are towing with a 2003 Avensis, we are towing at 90%, of which the caravan salesperson said this was fine, however on further investigation im not too happy about this, so we are looking to change to a Honda CRV or Toyota Rav 4 before next season.

I have left a message with the people who sold it us to call us back re the noseweight, as I would have thought when selling it us they should have took this into consideration.

It's something a lot of people overlook.  It's not just the MTPLM you have to take into account, but you also need to look at the neseweight the caravan needs to tow in a stable manner.

Caravans do seem to be a lot heavier these days, especially as far as noseweight is concerned.  Dealers should really be more aware.

Jim

Yes they should, luckily enough my partner is a stickler for towing correct and understands all of this, otherwise we would be towing around oblivious, as at no point was it explained to us being new to caravaning about the noseweight.

on a good note though, if the bathroom scales are wrong, that could mean my weekly weigh in could be wrong too and im not has heavy as first thought :)

What do the manufacturers say the noseweight should be?

Jim

Thanks everyone, our friend came round before our trip who has much more experience than us, we got it to 80kg, although it didnt seem a smooth a journey as normal.

We were weighing it with the legs down, and he seemed to think that maybe having the back legs down was perhaps pushing up the front causing it to weigh heavy.