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Hi Duncan.

When you say low at the tow ball do you mean the caravan is nose down?

If so this is the way it is meant to be.  Plates can be added to lower the ride height on the big 4x4 not to raise the nose height of a van on the back of a car.

Check the height od the hitch ball and has it been fitted correctly?

If the back of the car is low are the shockers ok.

Im sure someone will be long with the weights and measures in a mo.

ATB

I thought so too

Just checked weights of your car and van you may be on 1005 if not over duncan check out your car weight here

 Just to make a point shockers do not whatever their condition make a car sit high or low only dampen.  

Hi Duncan , you could probably do with some Grayson spring assisters see Here note you should make sure you get the right size for your car , we found the spring assisters at our local caravan shop and have them fitted to our 4x4 .
Before doing anything , make sure you have the correct nose weight , and make sure what you measure it with is accurate .

Brian T is correct , shock absorbers do just that , they absorb the shock , springs control the height of the car .

atb

Wizard

The ball on the towbar should be 17" at its centreline.  Our Ranger sits nose down too.  Also - our Ranger is nose heavy so weights have to be redistributed. The spare wheel has been fitted behind the axle on an Alko carrier and we only carry one small gas bottle.

The towball height on my 2006 mondeo sits at 18 inches before the caravan is hitched.

Thanks for the advise. yes i meant caravan is nose down.

Regarding the weights shielsy. 85% of the cars weight is 1270 Kgs and the maximum towing weight is 1800 Kgs. The MTPLM of the van is 1271 Kgs so thought that this is ok as long as i load sensibly? My dealer did do a compatability check for me (i had a laguna at the time of buying the van so had to change as that was too light!!)

I will check my noseweight asap.

From the CC Handbook
     "The coupling ball is 50 mm diameter and when measured from ground to ball centre should be between 350 and 420 mm (vehicle fully laden - but not with caravan attached) in accordance with BS AU 113c or ISO 1103."

350mm = 14"
420mm = 16.5"

   I stand corrected    

I have a 2004 2.0 TDci Zetec 130 estate, now with 103k on the clock. The car was 6mths old when I told the (independent) garage who service the car I was buying a caravan, they said that after towing the van twice the standard springs would sink and not come up again when loaded. They were right! They suggested that spring assisters would give a poor ride and sourced some 'heavy duty' rear springs at well under £100 cost which they said would be more progressive and now its excellent - the van ('98 Ranger 500/5&1198kg MTPLM) is slightly nose down with a 70-75kg noseweight on a standard Brink bar and Al-Ko towball. I have to put the spare wheel on the axle to keep the noseweight down, I also remove the pneumatic tyred jockey wheel due to the large diameter. There's still plenty of suspension travel with bikes on the roof rack and 40 or so bottles of wine in the boot on the return journey from France! 

The turbo died in France at Easter on 88k and the engine went in to limp mode on the Autoroute - not funny, thankfully it reset when I stopped & switched off but cost £800 when we returned, the clutch failed at 90k and cost £650 incl new flywheel. Off to Grin Low this weekend - hopefully without any breakdowns!

towed with our 02 tddi hatch for almost 2 years and not really had an issue with the suspension other than france this year with 2 teenage lads in the back and the roofbox on it was lower than usual.most other times it sits slightly down with the van on but nothing major and the van is basically level.we carry 2 gas bottles and spare wheel in front locker.

its still on its original suspension at 108000 miles and will hopefully be ok til i get rid in a couple of years.