Nose weight advise please

[Carl3]

I have just got a Lunar Quaser 524 caravan which I tow with a VW Passat estate. The car has max weight on the ball of 75kg. I just weighed the nose weight of the van with just a 7kg gas bottle and the spare wheel in the front locker and it has come out at over 80kg before putting anything else in the van. The dealer advised that this is not a problem and that in fact the more weight on the ball the better. I checked this with the caravan club and the advised that I should not exceed the 75kg limit as I could be liable if had an accident. I am confused now, can anyone help? Thanks

 

[Zbungle]

Afraid the CC is right on this one. Your vehicle has been built to carry a maximum tow-hitch weight of 75Kg. If you go over this, although you will make your caravan more stable, you will invalidate your warranty and your car could be deemed to be overloaded in the event of an accident.

Your solution is to try and lower the noseweight of the caravan. I had a similar problem a while ago until I bought an Alko spare wheel carrier. By carrying the wheel under the van, just behind the axle, I saved an immediate 10Kg off my noseweight. I also changed over to Camping Gaz which apart from being more widely available in France, comes in slightly lighter cylinders.

I don't know the weight of your caravan, but the noseweight ought to be about 7% the weight of the van. Anything much under this would lead to an unstable caravan. An 1100Kg caravan should weigh-in at about 75Kg.

Don't, whatever you do, put a load of heavy stuff into the rear of the van. Yes, it will balance out the weight at the front, but you would be a very strong candidate for a snake.

 

[Carl3]

Thanks, unladen weight of the van is 1065kg with max laden weight of 1300kg. Looks like I am going to have to move the spare and use a lighter gas bottle as you said

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Carl,

Zbungle has provided an excelent answer, but I would also add that you must also check the caravan manufactures nose weight limit.

You must observe which ever is the LOWER value of car or caravan.

 

[Carl3]

Thanks John, I'll check that.

 

[Daventura]

Carl, have you got an awning? this can be used along with other items (a crate with tinned foodstuff in for instasnce) and they can be carefully positioned over the axle and manouvered back slightly to achieve the correct noseweight. This was also advised by the C.C.C. when I attended one of their towing courses.

 

[Carl3]

Thanks, thats a great idea - thanks everyone for all your input

 

[lyn_5041588]

Thanks, thats a great idea - thanks everyone for all your input

we have the same prolem as our caravan nose weight is 100kg with two gas bottles and the spare wheel instead of moving the spare wheel we use the awning and tined food adjusted over the axle to get the nose weight we also weight the van with a nose gage just to be safe, and we find this works for us very well, we also changed the tow vechical to a 4x4 (frontera)