Guzzilazz said:
....I fully understand the legal responsibilities as driver. I have advised the dealer of my findings (which by the way were easy to rectify now the caravan is loaded) but in my opinion you wouldn't expect to pick up a new car out of the showroom and check all the axle weights are right, so why are you expected to check a caravan in it's virgin state? My Axle weights state 100kg for axle 0, so as constructed the caravan should not be higher than that...
Trailer manufacturers are not required to state the exworks nose load figure, so most do not. Some caravan manufacturers used to quote it, and it led to other issues such as uninformed caravanners assuming the quoted exworks figure was a fixed value, but later discovering the nose was far too light leading to towing instability.
Unlike a 4 wheeled car where the majority of the mass is between the road wheels, in a caravan and other balanced trailers, the load straddles the main road support, and thus the load at the hitch will vary significantly if the load distribution is changed. As trailer manufacturers cannot know how each trailer is going to be loaded they cannot possibly quote a nose load figure. In stead all they can and should do is to ensure the couplings load capacity is reasonable for the weight rating of the trailer. The EU constructions and use regs require the coupling to have a minimum S value load capacity of no less than 25kg or no less than 4% of MTPLM which ever is greater.
As for caravan dealers releasing caravans to customers with large nose loads, If the load is above the couplings specified limit, then that is a more serious matter and the dealer should be held to account.
But unless you tell the dealer what nose value you want, how are they to know what to trim it to? The reality is that until you tow the particular caravan you don't know what your optimum nose load value is.
When I have been asked about what is the best nose load value to choose, I have suggested starting with a value of about 75% of the available capacity, and try it and trim it accordingly. Once you have found your optimum value there is value in increasing it further as all it does is to increase wear and tare on coupling and suspension.