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 Topic: Maneuver caravan
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01/3/2024 at 12:24pm
Location: London
Outfit: Lunar Cosmos 524
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Bit of a sales pitch for motor movers maybe, but based on personal experience as a solo caravanner.
Lots of aspects to motor movers, yes their basic function is to move the van, but they also act as a brake - you can halt a manoeuvre instantly and near millimetre perfect without scrambling to grab the hand brake lever and stopping 'about right'! - because of the inbuilt reversing release mechanism built into caravan overrun brakes, there can be up to half a wheel rotation (around half a metre of ground travel!) BEFORE the handbrake bites and actually stops the van, in tight situations that can be the difference between safe and an accident! Real benefit of MMs is the circumstances in which they WILL with certainty excel, and that's just about everywhere you are ever likely to put your van, whilst solo manual manoeuvring is severely limited to pretty much perfect level smooth surfaces.
My van is in store, the yard is loose gravel/crushed rock in the bays and compacted but pot holed gravel/crushed rock on the roadways, there is no way I could move my van solo on those surfaces! It's not JUST the wheels bogging in loose gravel or wedging in a pot hole, it's compounded by me not being able to get a good foothold to apply any worthwhile force to the van to move it! On a campsite, the same applies, you struggle to get a good foothold on wet grass or loose surfaces, whilst the van is resisting being moved.
Campsite pitches vary enormously, grass pitches, hard standing pitches with a vast variety of different materials, some hard and smooth, others loose and rutted or with stone 'obstacles', many of all types are on a slope to some degree. Not unknown for sites to be so compact that reversing your van onto pitch attached to the car is an absolute PITA with much shunting back and forth involved, AND as pointed out before, you being solo are doing so pretty much blind to any hazards/obstacles behind whilst you are either in the car manoeuvring (as soon as you start to turn, you loose ALL worthwhile rearward vision in your mirrors! - your inside of turn mirror is just full of caravan side, your outside mirror is full of irrelevant space!) or physically pushing/pulling the van. With a MM you can walk around the van checking whilst moving using the remote control.
Most MMs will cope with a 1:4 (25%) incline and kerbs without difficulty, YOU certainly wont, and even with helpers, it's not easy!
Far from unknown for the tow car to struggle to get traction on wet grass/loose surfaces trying to pull a van off pitch after a stay, because the van wheels have often sunk a little into the pitch over time and are now a little 'bogged'! Once you've had wheel slip once and churned the ground (apart from the ire of site owners/wardens!) you are pretty much lost, you are likely to struggle to ever get traction on that spot again! Motor moving the van even a little way out of any sinkage can make all the difference.
Will you always struggle without a motor mover? - almost certainly not! Will you get yourself into a pickle without one? - almost certainly yes at some point! Solo caravanning (that doesn't have to mean literally on your own, but also if you are the only one doing the graft!) is perfectly possible, and a great number of us do it, but you sometimes need to stack the odds in you favour to make it a reliably comfortable and easy experience rather than a battle, and remember this is something you will do EVERY time you use the van, and FOUR times at that! - once setting out from storage, once arriving at site and setting up, once departing site, and once returning to storage space, for EVERY trip! Personally, wouldn't, and COULDN'T be without my motor mover.
Downsides of a MM, of course, bound to be. First is cost! - circa £700 plus circa £100 fitting charge. You may need a larger/new leisure battery, circa £120. And then the 'hidden' effects, you will lose around 40Kg from your van payload capacity! - combination of the additional weight of the MM itself and the extra weight of a heavier duty battery if necessary.
MMs tend to be pretty reliable, but going for a premier brand with a long and reliable warranty is probably worth the extra over a budget brand and little cover, mine's a Powrtouch, and within days of the end of the 5 year warranty, I made a claim, and they truly couldn't do enough to help me, absolutely no prevarication, just every assistance given, they lived up to the excellent reputation they have acquired for customer support, and saved me around £200 in repair costs.
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via mobile 01/3/2024 at 12:52pm
