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I always ask the tyre fitter to balance them as you would do it on a car  so no difference with a caravan, folding camper, trailer tent and trailer.

Keith

Hi Phil76, dont really agree with you for few reasons, I had a brand new Bailey Pageant Provence in June 2005. After our trip to Scotland in it I found screws were coming loose in the washroom, and again when I took it to the Dordogne. I then had a Crusader Twin axle and after our second year of having it and taking it to South of France, I had the slide out cupboard catches not meeting and I had to put an infil in and my wheel arch mastic had opened up (after 12 months). Then my friend see my opening post has just experienced after 5 years of owning his twin axle, taking his van to South of France and washroom screws coming out and splitting round the sink. The common denominator here is long distance motorway trips over a day or two.

You mentioned various trailers you have had over a number of years but there is not much to damage on a trailer. Your work van that you mentioned that dont have balanced rear wheels?  (but have you taken your work van on a motorway or autoroute for 500 to 800 miles over two days full of lightweight fitted furniture?

A caravan's MTPLM on avearge weighs 1200 to 1800 Kgs and is full of lightweight construction furniture, if as I am convinced a wheel gets out of balance the vibration over long motorway distances of touring for 1 - 2 days each way would be hammering the cabinetry and mouldings constantly hour after hour for hours if on a long motorway run.

We have all had an out of balance car wheel in the past and one thing that is noticable is that at lower normal type road speeds you dont notice it on a car, take the car up to say 50+ and the vibration / wobble starts if the wheel is out of balance.

One last point Phil, why do we have to check the torque on the wheel nuts regularly on our caravans (just as I have done this weekend). When my car comes out of service I dont have to check the torque. In summary we know out of balance wheels cause vibration and unless proved otherwise I still believe vibration causes things to work loose and for the sake of a few quid why take the chance? 

Hi Chalkie, I would agree with you here but in reality, even if manufacturers installed the right equipment to do this, it would be unlikely dealers would?

On a car, it is generally understood that to fine balance a high performance car it is better to do it on the car, but in reality they are done off the car in mopst situations.

I think balancing the wheels even in the normal 'off the axle' way, would be far better than not a all. In fact it would not suprise me at all if it vastly reduced problems on caravans. we can't even be sure that in really bad vibration situtions with more than one wheel out of balance that it could potentially cause sealant cracking and opening joints causing water ingress, paticularly in an older van with sealant that has lost some of its flexibilty?