Increase in noseweight

[jwa]

Hi, having swapped my Freelander 1 for a Freelander 2 I notice the noseweight is 150kg as opposed to 100kg. We are due to go away next week for the first time since acquiring the newer model. Having established that 90kg was the best noseweight for stability with my original Freelander, should I now assume that 140kg would be as suitable? Or should I experiment as I did before with different noseweights until I feel comfortable with how the caravan is handling? I am presuming that 90kg will now be too light for the new Freelander, but would appreciate some advice.
Many thanks,
John A

 

[colin-yorkshire1]

Hi, having swapped my Freelander 1 for a Freelander 2 I notice the noseweight is 150kg as opposed to 100kg. We are due to go away next week for the first time since acquiring the newer model. Having established that 90kg was the best noseweight for stability with my original Freelander, should I now assume that 140kg would be as suitable? Or should I experiment as I did before with different noseweights until I feel comfortable with how the caravan is handling? I am presuming that 90kg will now be too light for the new Freelander, but would appreciate some advice.
Many thanks,
John A

hi john dont forget the caravan has a maximum noseweight also as well as the car, the maximum noseweight you can use is the lower of the two

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello John,

I don't think you need to increase your trailers nose weight. 90Kg is already a very high value.

The nose load is of more importance to the trailer than the car and only has to be high enough to prevent instability from setting in. However nose load is only one factor of several that affects a trailers tow ability. If instability is a problem, then you should look at the whole package and not simply concentrate on nose weights alone.

There are limits that you should be aware of:-

Firstly the EU regulations required the nose weight of any trailer to be no less than 25Kg absolute or no less than 5% of the trailers weight which ever is greater. These are minimum values . There are also top limits. The car manufacture will specify a maximum value, and you have identified that yours is 150Kg, but the trailer manufacture also has a limit, and most caravans are specified as a maximum of 100Kg. This is why I said your current value is already high.

Most saloon cars have a limit closer to 75Kg, and most caravans will tow happily behind them, so you could find that you can actually reduce your nose weight without undue consequences.

 

[jwa]

Hi, thanks for the replies, that's interesting and I guess I should stay at 90kg for now and see how that goes. We have an Eldis Xplore 556, six berth caravan which has a hitch weight of 100kg. The 190bhp of the Freelander is a much better fit for the caravan, so I will be interested to see how the match up handles? Thanks again,
John A

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello John,

Please forgive me if I'm wrong but I get the distinct impression from your last post that you may not understand how nose weight is created. Quote
"We have an Eldis Xplore 556, six berth caravan which has a hitch weight of 100kg"
No trailer including caravans has a fixed nose weight. It will have a nose weight limit (caravans are typically 100Kg), but the actual nose weight that is transfered to the tow ball is the result of how you load the trailer. If you put more items ahead of the main axle, then that will increase the nose load, and conversly if you put items behind the axle the nose load reduces.

It is expected that every caravanner will need to adjust the positions of a number of items in the caravan to trim the nose load to the desired value.

Just to complicate the issue, the actuial nose load your caravan produces changes if you raise or lower the hitch. So it is very important the nose load is measured in the correcet way, otherwise significant errors may arrise which could make your outfit illegal. This is especially the case where you are working very close to the limits of the trailer hitch of the tow vehicles ball limit.

The correct method requies you too , load and hitch the caravan to the car (including all luggage and passengers) find some horizontal ground, and measure the vertical height of the centre of the ball to the ground. For EU vehicels the height must settle between 350 and 420 mm from the ground. Then unhitching the caravan, and setting up a nose weight guage so the caravan hitch is at exactly the same height as when it hitched to the car, the accurate nose weight must be measured at the hitch.

This method is particularly important if you have a twin axled trailer as the interaction of the suppension units on both axles can cause very significant nose load changes with only a small variation in the height of the hitch.

I actually beleive you can probably reduce you nose load and still retain a good towing characteristic

I hope this helps

 

[jwa]

Hi again, as a newbie you are probably correct in your assumption, so thanks very much for the reply! Your advice makes a lot of sense, I fully intend to try that method out when we are next off. the caravan is in storage and so it is easy to allow for extra time to get it right. It will be interesting to see how the caravan handles with the Freelander 2.

I towed off the Freelander 1 at 75, 80 and 85 kg of noseweight, but found 90kg to feel better, are you suggesting though that I could experience a stable outfit even with a lower noseweight? I found the Freelander 1 to be underpowered for our outfit, but have heard good things about the new version and mine is the more powerful auto model at 190bhp.

Thanks for the advice,
John A

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello John,
Sorry for the dealy in answering your post,

If all other things were equal, it is generally the case that the towing characteristics tend to improve with an increase in noseweight, BUT each outfit is different becasue of the way you load your items into the car and caravan, so realy it is trial and error.

So it is possible that you will find you caravan tows quite happily with a lower noseweight behind the FL2.

As an observation, I am sure there are many other people towing your model of caravan behind cars with a much lower nose weight capacity (Circ 75Kg) so it is likley that it should tow satisfactorily with a noseweight of 65 to 70Kg. but there is nothing wrong with 90Kg provide it is wthin the capacity of the car and the caravan.