Hello all. Would just like a bit of help really.
I'm brand new to caravaning having only picked up our van a little over two weeks ago(Lunar Quasar 615). Although its quite a large van for a novice my other half fell in love with it as it has and end bedroom for the two little monsters, erm, I mean our two wonderful sons (6,9). The salesman who dealt with us assured us that my Ford Mondeo 2.0 TDCi would be more than adequate for the job of towing our new van.
Two weeks later we collected the van and after a short introduction to all its features, which I forgot almost immediately, we set off down the M5 to the CC's site at Hillhead (Excellent site, are they all up to this standard or have we been spoiled on our first trip?) The car seemed to handle the extra load although it crawled up the hills and I smelled the clutch on more than one occasion (is that normal?).
Its only since reading this magazine, crackin' read it is too, that I've been introduced to things like MIRO, MTPLM and known the difference between kerbweight and a paperweight!
After applying the 85% rule I've found that I'm okay to tow the van as long as there's nothing in it! Once I've added our payload the van is 123Kg over the 85% weight (1323Kg). Is this acceptable or am I putting my family and other road users at risk? Should I look at getting a bigger vehicle? But more importantly should the dealer have informed me of this fact before I purchased the van in the first place??
Thanks for your help,
Deano .34yrs
I'm brand new to caravaning having only picked up our van a little over two weeks ago(Lunar Quasar 615). Although its quite a large van for a novice my other half fell in love with it as it has and end bedroom for the two little monsters, erm, I mean our two wonderful sons (6,9). The salesman who dealt with us assured us that my Ford Mondeo 2.0 TDCi would be more than adequate for the job of towing our new van.
Two weeks later we collected the van and after a short introduction to all its features, which I forgot almost immediately, we set off down the M5 to the CC's site at Hillhead (Excellent site, are they all up to this standard or have we been spoiled on our first trip?) The car seemed to handle the extra load although it crawled up the hills and I smelled the clutch on more than one occasion (is that normal?).
Its only since reading this magazine, crackin' read it is too, that I've been introduced to things like MIRO, MTPLM and known the difference between kerbweight and a paperweight!
After applying the 85% rule I've found that I'm okay to tow the van as long as there's nothing in it! Once I've added our payload the van is 123Kg over the 85% weight (1323Kg). Is this acceptable or am I putting my family and other road users at risk? Should I look at getting a bigger vehicle? But more importantly should the dealer have informed me of this fact before I purchased the van in the first place??
Thanks for your help,
Deano .34yrs