Good Evening and a warm hello to you all. My name is Oz and I am a new face on the block, so to speak. My lovely wife, Paula and I live in north Wales. We are both recently retired. We had a touring caravan in the early 1980's but, due to work committments etc we had to give it up.... until, that is, 2011 - when we decided to buy a brand new starter caravan to see if we still love caravanning! We purchased a Sprite Alpine 4 and we've toured far and wide in it - and enjoyed every second. We have now purchased a brand new CoachmanPastiche 520/4 - and we took delivery of it two weeks ago and we are about to set off tomorrow morning (Monday) for four nights so as to get used to the new van. We have a VW Tiguan to tow it with - with atowball max weight of 100k.
During a break in the rain this afternoon, I decided to take a nose weight reading - expecting this van to be much heavier than the Sprite! To my amzement and utter surprise, I found that it weighed 60k - which is even below the 5%-7% preferred ratio. My MTPLM is 1475 (I have a solar panel on the van's roof) and I was aiming for 6.3% or thereabouts. Despite my best efforts, the only way I could increase the nose weight to nearer the 6.3% weight (93k) was to place the - wait for it - the awning, awning poles, awning furniture at the front of the Van. (Contrary to all my common sense/instincts.) It is a four berth Van and there are only two of us so the weight in general is less. If anyone can tell me how else I can achieve the desired nose weight of approx 90 - 93k then I would be very grateful indeed. Thank you in anticipation for any helpful suggestion, experience, advice.
During a break in the rain this afternoon, I decided to take a nose weight reading - expecting this van to be much heavier than the Sprite! To my amzement and utter surprise, I found that it weighed 60k - which is even below the 5%-7% preferred ratio. My MTPLM is 1475 (I have a solar panel on the van's roof) and I was aiming for 6.3% or thereabouts. Despite my best efforts, the only way I could increase the nose weight to nearer the 6.3% weight (93k) was to place the - wait for it - the awning, awning poles, awning furniture at the front of the Van. (Contrary to all my common sense/instincts.) It is a four berth Van and there are only two of us so the weight in general is less. If anyone can tell me how else I can achieve the desired nose weight of approx 90 - 93k then I would be very grateful indeed. Thank you in anticipation for any helpful suggestion, experience, advice.