new car .nose weight

[gravesyt]

Hi all picking up my new kuga tdci so was on a well knowing matching site the figurers they are giving for nose weight seem a little bit off.They are saying caravan @ 1321kg car @ 1789kg advise nose weight @ 75kg I all ways thought it should be at 7% roughly of caravan weight so should 92kg or their about's as the car as max tow ball 100gk so should be ok is my thinking wrong

 

[Sproket]

If your towbar is rated at 100kg and the max nose weight of your tow hitch on your caravan will be 100kg (unless it's stated elsewhere) you can tow with the nose weight at 100kg's
But until you have actually loaded, checked your nose weight and towed the caravan it's really hard to say what your ideal nose weight ought to be, on Monday i checked my nose weight before we left site it was only 64kg that i felt was too low so i moved the hookup cable to the front of the van and put the laundry back in as well, that managed another 10 or so kg's and it towed home without any problems even though i could have shuffled things about to get 100kg's it would have only made the ride a bit more harsh on the 'B' road's i have found for comfort mine needs to be between 75 & 85kg.
So until you have tried it you won't really know what nose weight actually suits your new car for comfort and stability be it 75kg or 95kg or even 100kg

 

[JonnyG]

To add to what spocket has already said the 7% bit you speak of is what is advised as a minimum but that cannot always be achieved because some vehicles have a low maximum tow ball weight say 75kg but can still tow caravans that can weigh say 1500kg . 7% of that would be 90kg .clearly a figure you cannot legally achieve.So all you could do would be to set the tow ball to its Max achievable weight of 75kg .which would be fine..

 

[gravesyt]

Thanks Gents for all the advice as with all the other cars I have used to pull my van I have tried to stick with the 7% figure were possible so will test it out next wk and see how it handles . it was the advised bit 75kg would have taken it down nearer the 5% mark which concerned me
Thanks

 

[ProfJohnL]

The 7% nose load figure is in common with the 85% and 100% tow ratios are just guidelines and nothing more. These offer no guarantees of a good or safe tow.

The nose weight guidance actually suggests a load of 5 to 7% of towed weight, but in fact there is no legal definitive minimum nose load, though the car manufactures do have to design the tow bar assembly will carry a minimum of 4% of the tow vehicles stated towable mass figure or 25kg whichever is bigger.

You actually only need enough nose load to keep the outfit stable. No one can tell is how much that should be.

There are those who will tell you to as high as you can, but I would add experiment by reducing the nose load gradually until you get signs of instability, then ad 5kg or 10kg, to bring it back to a safe working area.

I personally find I only need between 75 to 90% of the tow brackets capacity.

 

[gravesyt]

Cheers Prof