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Hi have just done a quick search and can't find the answer to my question can any one help.

What do all the different weights for caravans mean.

I.e what is the difference between the unladen weight, the nose weight and the max weight.

Am thinking of upgrading to a very lightweight caravan but all this technical jargon is a bit daunting.

simple

unladen weight is nothing in the van eg gas bottle, awning,pots pans ect

max weight is when you are ready to go with gas bottle,awning pots and pans ect

nose weight is exactly what it says   the weight at the tow ball of your van(nose)

See here

http://www.practicalcaravan.com/legal/index.html

Ali

Pinched this of a driver training website as it seems to make things clear, it also disproves my theory that in general the GTW of car+caravan could be 4.25T.

If you passed your car driving test before 1st Jan 1997 you can tow a car plus trailer combination up to a combined weight of 8250kg.

If you passed your car (category 'B') test after 1st Jan 1997, you may have to sit another test to get a trailer (Category 'E') entitlement. If you do not currently have a trailer (Category 'E') entitlement, you can tow the following:

• Category B vehicles (up to 3500kg with 8 or fewer seats) with a trailer up to 750kg (allowing a combined weight of 4250kg)
• Category B vehicle with a trailer in excess of 750 kg provided the plated Maximum Authorised Mass of the trailer does not exceed the unladen weight of the towing vehicle and the whole combination does not exceeds 3500kg

That has helped a bit but all these site use fancy abbriviations and just expect you to be able to pick up the meaning.

For example what is GTW

Pay load

kerb weight

why is the nose weight not the same as the weight of the caravan

We were looking at the adria action at the caravan show at the NEC. It states that is can be towed by most cars. When i put our seat ibiza 1.2 into the car match thing it stated that the caravan was to heavy.

What i did not get is the two weights they always seem to quote for caravans, from what the scream30 says then as long as was to not load the caravan with anything at all then the seat would be able to tow it. But then what about the car can we then load what we like into the car or do we have to be carefull about that as well.

Also when i check the car manual it says we can tow 800kg which leaves us about 50 kg to play around with in the caravan, now i would have thought that 50 kg is quite a lot. I can't imagine 2 sleeping bags, a travel kettle and a few mugs coming to 50 kg.

Honeslty the more i look into this caravan thing the more hassel it seems to be.

Peety you also have to bear in mind the cars actual ability to pull as well as the weight issues!  A 1200 cc engine is not very powerful so you have to also consider just how good a job it will do of towing anything safely.

Ali

Well i will probably give up the caravan idea then. Don't want to upgrade to a bigger car for environmental reasons looks like i am stuck tenting.

Or mayget get one onf thos tiny miniture caravan things but they seem a bit expensive for what they are.

I like the term GTW as the 'T' stands for 'Train' and if you think about a train moving off and how heavy it weighs, that is the Gross Train Weight or everything that is moving. Same for your outfit, car+van+people+luggage etc everything!

Payload is the people+luggage part

Kerbweight refers only to the car and is car+ fluids essentially petrol and water but under UK law no driver!. EU law sensibly allows for a 75kg driver in the kerbweight.

Noseweight is the proportion of the weight of the caravan that bears down on the towball of the car and is generally around 75kg dependent on weight of van so some would say ideally 7% of the vans weight.

Mass from our point of view by the way is just a posh word for weight and all of this is part of the fun of caravanning Peety!!!

Thanks gary, starting to get a better picture of this weight thing now, so i think that leggally we would be able to tow and adria action as long as we did not put anything extra in it and only took the basics in the car.

someone should produce a glossary of all these terms!

Sorry Peety but I don't think your Seat will tow the Action. It is quite a heavy litlle van for its size. The things that you need to put in it will soon put it over the 800 Kg the car can tow. It isn't just a case of 2 sleeping bags a travel kettle and a couple of mugs I'm afraid. There's the gas bottles, EHU cable, water carriers, steady winder, battery, just for a start, and it soon mounts up.

Have you considered a folding camper? Much easier to tow and store and yet the comforts of a caravan.

bordercaz

I see where you are coming from and have given it some thought i figured we could pretty much tow and empty van. Haveing camped for a number of years, i have never needed to use gas, water bottles don't weigh anything if they are empty. everything eles can go in the car.

we went to the nec to look at trailer tents and folding campers, but were taken by the adria action and the pop up cravans, i gues we figured we would rather spend £6000 on a pop up cravan than a trailer tent or folding camper.