should we have been told

[Jo-AnneFairway5402010]

we bought a avondale dart 556/6 godiva special from a dealer new almost 6 months ago.he checked the weights and said it was fine 91%.when we picked the van up and put it on back it sunk it didnt feel safe and they seen this. the van was empty we couldnt get the nose weight down on the van.so the new 307sw 2.0hdi got sent back and we had to go and buy a vauxhall monterey 3.1td.its fine now but today i found out that the car is 60 and the van is 100 which is 40 kilo's over and they should have told us this but they didnt.its our 1st van but my partner caravanned throughtout his childhood.if i knew then what i knew now i wouldnt have bought that van i would have bought a fixed bed end washroom with twin axel.to px now i would lose a lot of money.can any of you offer any advice or things they should have told me as we were new to his?.

thanks

 

[RichardS1]

Jo-anne, I think you need to explain with a bit more clarity what you are asking with this posting. If you are talking about the vans noseweight it is quite common for a caravan to have a high unladen noseweight. My current vans unladen noseweight is 95kg but with sensible loading it is quite easy to trim this down to my towcars 75kg limit.

 

[cliff_5040076]

Hi Jo-anne

A dealer is under the same duty as any other trader - he must not misrepresent anything he is selling and if you ask a question he must give a truthful answer. It is not the dealers responsibility to explain everything about the caravan to you. The onus is upon you to know what you are buying.The fact that you are new to caravanning in no way increases his legal obligations to you. A post to this forum before you purchased would have told you that this model is a little nose heavy but you can reduce the noseweight by careful loading.

As far as I am aware the actual noseweight of an individual caravan is not stated in the handbook or promotional brochure. Have you actually used a noseweight guage to measure your van or are you reading the 100kg noseweight from the manual. The manual gives 100kg as the maximum vertical static load for the coupling head - this is not the actual noseweight.

I have the same van and have towed thousands of miles with my citroen which has a 75kg noseweight limit and have had no probs whatsoever. Some people will tell you that it may be illegal to exceed the max noseweight but the tow bar for a Monterey will have been over-engineered to give a substantial safety factor.

Happy motoring.

 

[Jo-AnneFairway5402010]

Hi Jo-anne

A dealer is under the same duty as any other trader - he must not misrepresent anything he is selling and if you ask a question he must give a truthful answer. It is not the dealers responsibility to explain everything about the caravan to you. The onus is upon you to know what you are buying.The fact that you are new to caravanning in no way increases his legal obligations to you. A post to this forum before you purchased would have told you that this model is a little nose heavy but you can reduce the noseweight by careful loading.

As far as I am aware the actual noseweight of an individual caravan is not stated in the handbook or promotional brochure. Have you actually used a noseweight guage to measure your van or are you reading the 100kg noseweight from the manual. The manual gives 100kg as the maximum vertical static load for the coupling head - this is not the actual noseweight.

I have the same van and have towed thousands of miles with my citroen which has a 75kg noseweight limit and have had no probs whatsoever. Some people will tell you that it may be illegal to exceed the max noseweight but the tow bar for a Monterey will have been over-engineered to give a substantial safety factor.

Happy motoring.

maybe i should have done more homework.

but it was another well known dealer that advertises in pc that mentioned the nose weights to me thats why i wanted to get the opion of forum members.

never mind whats done is done and ill learn from my mistakes for the next time.

thanks for you help guys.

 

[Tony A.]

jo-anne,

Stop panicing, as Richard S says, put the awning and other heavy stuff in the van behind the axle then like a see-saw move stuff back and forth until your nose weight is correct.

Refering to what Cliff said, I am one of those people that beleives your nose weight needs to be correct to remain legal,and safe,it is no good assuming a tow bracket is over engineered and will take extra load, just because it is fitted to a large car.I think such advice is irresponsible and should be ignored.

Good luck Tony A.

 

[Jo-AnneFairway5402010]

jo-anne,

Stop panicing, as Richard S says, put the awning and other heavy stuff in the van behind the axle then like a see-saw move stuff back and forth until your nose weight is correct.

Refering to what Cliff said, I am one of those people that beleives your nose weight needs to be correct to remain legal,and safe,it is no good assuming a tow bracket is over engineered and will take extra load, just because it is fitted to a large car.I think such advice is irresponsible and should be ignored.

Good luck Tony A.

thanks tony, we tried to get it down but couldnt so the car went as we didnt feel safe.i proberly didnt explain myself enough i just wanted to know if they should have explained about the nose weights and seeing it on the back of the 307 sw should they have let us drive off it was well sagging.i could just get my hand between the tyre and wheel arch.

if i new then what i know now that the 307 sw wouldnt do the job and that we would have to buy a 4 x 4 then we have chosen a different caravan.i cant change the van or we would lose to much money.i just wanted to know of people with ex what should i have been told as we were new to this.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Jo-anne

I fully endorse Tony A's comments, You needn't worry about the paragraph below, it is technical point for :

Cliff,

Fact - it is illegal to exceed the manufactures stated nose load capacity of the tow hitch. Yes that are engineered to cope with dynamic loads substantially greater than the static loads, but if you over load the static limit, under driving conditions the imposed dynamic loads are also much bigger than expected. If you are illegally loaded, your insurance is void.

 

[Lutz]

If I understand your post correctly, you are saying that the noseweight limit for the Monterey is 60kg. That seems incredibly low to me and, if the figure is correct, would seem to suggest that a non-factory approved towbar was fitted. I have a Monterey with a noseweight limit of 135kg.

 

[Jo-AnneFairway5402010]

If I understand your post correctly, you are saying that the noseweight limit for the Monterey is 60kg. That seems incredibly low to me and, if the figure is correct, would seem to suggest that a non-factory approved towbar was fitted. I have a Monterey with a noseweight limit of 135kg.

no sorry i knew i didnt ex things correctly. i meant the nose weight of the 307 sw 2.0hdi that we had to get rid off because with the van on the back empty it was sagging we loaded it correctly a few times with my father in law who has been caravanning for more than 40 years and he couldnt get the nose weight down.so the 307 went and we bought the monterey which we are well pleased with.

 

[Ross_5041495]

We have a Peugeot 307 SW and a Dart 556. If you check your owners manual for the caravan it states the Dart can be towed with a noseweight of between 50 and 80 kg. With regard to the soft suspension on the 307, I have the same problem but it is now better since I fitted spring assistors. For info I took my caravan to the weigh bridge. The caravan was packed with most items for our holiday including a porch awning and the weight was 1210kg.