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 Topic: Starting with caravan
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13/2/2022 at 8:06pm
Location: London
Outfit: Lunar Cosmos 524
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Yes, I drive/tow with a petrol car, 2017 Citroen C4 Grand Picasso, 1.2 litre 130Hp engine, 6 speed manual gearbox, towing a 1310Kg MTPLM Lunar 4 berth caravan.
Can't claim it's dynamic from standstill but perfectly fast enough to pull out into traffic safely and without worries, doesn't struggle on hills if you select right gear, would probable cruise at 80mph if reckless enough to do so but certainly seems all too willing to do 70mph if you don't keep an eye on speedo, usually I set cruise control/speed limiter to stay legal! Cruises flat motorways/A roads in 6th (top) gear quite happily at 60mph, returns 27-34mpg depending on road type and how fast I push it. I've done over 5000 miles towing the van all over the country and it has never shown any weaknesses, in fact it's a great towing outfit that is rock solid stable when loaded correctly. Not a real issue, but a challenge to achieve is the rather meagre (but not terribly uncommon) 75Kg max nose weight on tow hitch, especially as my bare van tends to exceed even the caravan chassis limit of 100Kg all on it's own! - careful loading of van needed to balance things up.
I'm a very experience tower over many decades so not too bothered by pushing trailer weight close to car limits (mine's around 94% match), but would advise a novice tower to give some heed to the 85% 'rule' (it's not an enforceable rule, only guidance) which advises not to exceed 85% of the car's towing capacity on the trailer weight. It lessens some of the 'tail wagging dog' risks and makes recovery from a wobble (snaking) easier.
The critical figure for a trailer is the MTPLM (Maximum Technically Permitted Laden Mass), which must not be exceeded, and is the figure for a caravan and all it's contents (otherwise known as Payload), ignore MIRO (Mass In Running Order) it's only vaguely useful (the quoted figure is often inaccurate anyway!) as a guide as to how much your Payload may be. MTPLM is the figure you match to your car's towing capacity, which is usually in your registration document and sometimes on the car's VIN plate, it's also the figure used to judge the legality of your outfit. BEWARE of taking car max towing capacity off internet sites, it varies significantly with things like year, engine power, gearbox type, trim level etc. and is notoriously inaccurately misreported on some caravan-car matching sites! You need the EXACT specification of the tow car to get a true figure.
Many smaller/lighter weight cars have VERY low max tow ball nose weights that may be near impossible to achieve with some caravans, AND make for unstable towing! It's a figure to watch out for, and under say 75Kg starts to become potentially problematic on choice of caravan.
As a minimum, the guidance is 40 bhp/ton of the train weight (car and caravan combined weight) for satisfactory performance, so that governs what car/caravan combination you should be looking at. Mine's about 45 bhp/ton and perfectly adequate.
Modern petrol engines (that's new generation ones, as opposed to old designs lingering on!), say in past 5 years are markedly better tow cars than some of the older ones, where diesel was without question the way to go. I swapped a much loved diesel for a new petrol car because of the ever more draconian hatred for diesels in London where I live, without the official hatred/penalising of diesels, I'd still be driving one, but have to say my Petrol car does impress and not fall short in many ways.
Any more questions, just ask.
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14/2/2022 at 11:24am
Location: London
Outfit: Lunar Cosmos 524
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iank01 has a very valid point, and a fair number of people do find their first van less than ideal in a short time and swap it for something different.
I spent well over a year researching caravans, starting with intentions of a two berth, looked at folding vans, pop top vans, conventional but small vans, mostly a few years old, then ended up with a only two year old quite large 4 berth which pushed my car to it's towing limits. As I'd not long bought the car new not necessarily with a caravan in mind, but was thinking more trailer tent at the time, I was not inclined to change car to something with a larger towing capacity any time soon.
As my first caravan, nearly 4 years on, I made the right choice first time, and would happily buy the same again. I was no stranger to caravans, had holidays in borrowed/hired ones when I was a kid back in the 60's, got a few friends with them that I'd spent time in, and had camped in tents for most of my life, so the 'lifestyle' was familiar. But the many months research into my own caravan choice was time well spent, eliminating things that just didn't suit me like tiny side bathrooms with shower over toilet/basin which basically I couldn't comfortably fit in, from being of no great importance, a spacious end bathroom became a must have to me as the other options just niggled me, and ensuring beds where big enough, not all are, I'm a big bloke, if I don't fit well, I'm not going to be happy!
Spend enough time looking at vans, that's real time in real vans at dealers and shows, not just browsing brochures and photos in ads, you begin to get a feel for what feels right and wrong to you, and hopefully your first van will serve you well for some time. Moving from a motorhome gives you a head start as you will already realise that caravans are equally full of compromises as a MH is, but you may overlook that some caravans are more spacious than others and generally much better than a MH, and that space becomes quite a desirable feature, even more so if you don't have it but you could have done!
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14/2/2022 at 6:59pm
Location: London
Outfit: Lunar Cosmos 524
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Quote: Originally posted by lizzie on 14/2/2022
...... - husband has never really fancied towing before but now willing to give it a go. I dare say he may not enjoy it so the less spent to find this out, the better! .......
Not a lot of time left to organise and/or book (if any slots still available), but you can take a free towing experience drive at the NEC caravan show 22-27 Feb. You are accompanied by a qualified instructor who will advise and critique you, well worth the experience to get a feel for towing a caravan. I did it before I bought my caravan just to get a feel for it, I'd decades of experience of towing all sorts of things from small camping trailers to horse boxes, but never an actual caravan, bit chuffed, got commended for being an excellent driver!
https://ccmshow.co.uk/whats-on/towing-taster-session/
Both the caravan clubs do instructional courses on towing, probably worth investing in one of those if a complete novice at towing. Towing is not difficult, but you do need to adopt a slightly different driving style, for one thing you will be driving an outfit that weighs close on twice a solo car, so acceleration and braking take longer, you need to swing wider around corners to avoid clipping van on kerbs and obstacles etc., and of course, reversing an articulated outfit, that's always fun!
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via mobile 13/2/2022 at 2:26pm
