Good morning. We picked up our shiny new Phoenix 420 Black (no traditional gas locker on the A-frame) a couple of days ago and am slowly learning all about it. When we got it home, we found that, while moving it around on the motor mover, moving it backwards then stopping suddenly resulted in the caravan's nose jumping into the air, making me think maybe the noseweight might be low. I was surprised to find that I could lift the hitch into the air quite easily.
Measuring the noseweight using the traditional bathroom scales and length of broom handle method, I found it to be around 36kg, or 3% of the MTPLM of 1186kg, compared to the recommended 5-7%. By putting a load of dive weights into the inside front locker and moving the gas bottles into the inside front of the van, I managed about 50kg or about 4% of MTPLM. There's not much more weight behind the axle that can be moved and, short of buying a load more dive weights, I'm not sure what I can do to try to get it up to 5-7%.
Or am I worrying about nothing? The drive back (Skoda Octavia tow car) in pretty awful crosswinds on the top of the Pennines felt stable at 50mph; I didn't like the feel at 60mph but maybe this would be fine in better conditions.
Measuring the noseweight using the traditional bathroom scales and length of broom handle method, I found it to be around 36kg, or 3% of the MTPLM of 1186kg, compared to the recommended 5-7%. By putting a load of dive weights into the inside front locker and moving the gas bottles into the inside front of the van, I managed about 50kg or about 4% of MTPLM. There's not much more weight behind the axle that can be moved and, short of buying a load more dive weights, I'm not sure what I can do to try to get it up to 5-7%.
Or am I worrying about nothing? The drive back (Skoda Octavia tow car) in pretty awful crosswinds on the top of the Pennines felt stable at 50mph; I didn't like the feel at 60mph but maybe this would be fine in better conditions.
