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Hi, found your problem interesting as we have had a similar one .We towed our compass 556 with a Nissan Terrano with no problems but then changed to a Nissan Pathfinder and got the swaying problem at 60mph, no changed to the way we loaded the van. Caravan club said the van was too light for the car and to increase the nose weight and put more weight in the van, which we did and it is not as bad can now get to 65mph ( over the speed limit I know) still don't feel as safe towing and wouldn't risk over taking anything. Hope you get it sorted.

Denise

Bailey and the dealership are taking the Monarch back and refunding 100% of our money.

well done good luck for the future.just a note on the NEC,if you buy there you do not want a 200 mile round trip to get it serviced.

Quote: Originally posted by sunburnden on 18/9/2006

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Hi, found your problem interesting as we have had a similar one .We towed our compass 556 with a Nissan Terrano with no problems but then changed to a Nissan Pathfinder and got the swaying problem at 60mph, no changed to the way we loaded the van. Caravan club said the van was too light for the car and to increase the nose weight and put more weight in the van, which we did and it is not as bad can now get to 65mph ( over the speed limit I know) still don't feel as safe towing and wouldn't risk over taking anything. Hope you get it sorted.

Denise

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I still can't get my head round this, how could the car be too heavy? am I missing something? what's the physics involved in this assumption?

Seems illogical I have to agree

Perhaps  nose weight was too light and something was lost in the telling ?

We encountered the same advice.  Vans have an optimum noseweight for towing and if you make it either too light or too heavy then you increase instability.  I still think that there's more to it than that.  I think it's something to do with the suspension improvements on newer cars.  If you have a car that has a lot of movement due to the design of the suspension then this transmits to the van which needs to be weighted at the bottom to offset the transmitted movement. I haven't found any article or info which discusses this and its just my personal theory.  I can't come up with anything else.  All I know is that I am now a bit scared of towing after 25 years of being trouble free. We have been looking at the Senator Virginia and it looks to us as though all personal payload will go at the back of the van.  Nervous again.

What we would really like to do is load the van up, road test it and then decide.

Good tip re buying at the show.  It's one of the questions we have to ask the guys when they try to flog us their brightest and best. I'm not even sure that we will buy a van again, we have most certainly been made very wary. As it means the one year old car has to change as well, our bank balance is going to take a very big hit

We've got the Senator Oklahoma and its very nose heavy so loading the rear is a necessity rather than an option.

I recently found my noseweight gauge was faulty and had to remove most things from the front lockers and under front beds to get down to 100kg nose weight

 Towing stability and effect from passing lorries seemed no worse I was relieved to find    

FURTHER UPDATE

The dealership had taken our van for testing and it found an instability problem on towing. The dealership spoke to Bailey, and Bailey has taken the van back to examine what was wrong.  If we ever find out what the problem was, I will let you know.  What's really annoying is all the extras that we had purchased that were van specific, (Protec cover, wooden chopping board etc).

I would now say to anyone who is convinced that there is something wrong, go back to the dealer with your van still loaded and ask that one of them goes out on the road with you using one of their vehicles.  At least this way you can immediately eliminate car suspension and tow ball problems. That would have saved us a great deal of time and effort. 

I looked at the new Bailey series 6 caravan yesterday

Only one was available

THE MONARCH

Blimey Purplehat, wonder what will happen now?  Mass recall?

Ali

As I understand it, changes have been made to next years models based on customer feedback, ( a bit like the Microsoft and iPod factor, you pay to find the problems and we'll make a profit out of the newer better versions).  I've heard that the wardrobe and shower have been swapped to opposite sides but I haven't seen it yet. Bailey says that we are the only people to have a problem ( yawn) , unless you know different..........................