What caravan for a Zafira Design 1.8 Automatic, 53 plate?

[Jo_374427537]

I hope someone out there can help. We want to buy a caravan (new to caravanning) but have a Vauxhall Zafira Design, 1.8, Automatic and have been told by a caravan dealer that we would be severely limited due to towing weight issues. We ideally wanted something like a Bailey Ranger 5 berth (2 children) but have been told this is a no-no. What caravan options do we have or are we going to have to change the car as well to something heavier? Didn't really want to have this expense as well....Thanks in advance.

 

[MikeyW]

Hi Jo

You need to find out the Kerbweight of your car. For first time towing you want to look at a caravan about 85% of the car weight, i.e if the car weighs 1400kg then a sensible weight of caravan would be 1190kg. On top of that you need to check the towing limit for the car is not lower than the weight of the caravan, NOTE: when looking at caravan weights you should generally go by the MTPLM, which is the most the caravan should weigh when loaded.

Any good dealer should be able to advise you of the car weight and what you can tow.

You could also look in your car handbook for towing limits etc....

Also this link might be of some help but double check it's right.

Hope this helps

Mike

 

[MikeyW]

Hi Jo

You need to find out the Kerbweight of your car. For first time towing you want to look at a caravan about 85% of the car weight, i.e if the car weighs 1400kg then a sensible weight of caravan would be 1190kg. On top of that you need to check the towing limit for the car is not lower than the weight of the caravan, NOTE: when looking at caravan weights you should generally go by the MTPLM, which is the most the caravan should weigh when loaded.

Any good dealer should be able to advise you of the car weight and what you can tow.

You could also look in your car handbook for towing limits etc....

Also this link might be of some help but double check it's right.

Hope this helps

Mike

Just noticed I forgot the link, doh!

http://www.whattowcar.com/

 

[Jo_374427537]

Hi Jo

You need to find out the Kerbweight of your car. For first time towing you want to look at a caravan about 85% of the car weight, i.e if the car weighs 1400kg then a sensible weight of caravan would be 1190kg. On top of that you need to check the towing limit for the car is not lower than the weight of the caravan, NOTE: when looking at caravan weights you should generally go by the MTPLM, which is the most the caravan should weigh when loaded.

Any good dealer should be able to advise you of the car weight and what you can tow.

You could also look in your car handbook for towing limits etc....

Also this link might be of some help but double check it's right.

Hope this helps

Mike

Thanks Mikey, I'll start the research!

 

[Zafiral]

A Zafira is pretty heavy, so weight of the tow car will not be the main issue, however legal tow weights for pre 05 Zafiras are quite low.

On the legal side you will able to tow the difference between the gross vehicle weight (GVW) and the gross train weight (GTW). On the inside of one of the front doors there will be a plate with 4 numbers on it. The 1st is the GVW, the 2nd is the GTW. The 3rd and 4th are the max axle weights. If you post back stating the above figures, I'll let you know what Vauxhall state it is able to tow.

 

[Lutz]

Only the old shape 2.0 diesel Zafira had a low maximum permissible towload. The 1.8 automatic is rated at 1200kg (old model) and 1300kg (current model), respectively.

 

[Zafiral]

Sorry Lutz, I had a 2003 2.0 DTi a few cars ago and was shocked at the 1050kg tow weight and I thought the 1.6 and 1.8s were only 1100, but I stand corrected!!!

However in Vauxhall's defence you could to that weight when the car was full, unlike the Renault Scenics (my first 2 tow cars) I replaced the Zafira with a claimed a 1300kg tow weight, but with driver only. They could only tow 950kg when the cars were loaded!!!

 

[Cadberry]

We had the same problem as you we changed our astra to a new zafira 1.6 then decided we wanted to go caravanning and the 1.6 would not pull anything we wanted. so we have changed our 1.6 to the 1.9cdti 150 and we now pull the bailey ranger 6 berth perefectly. We did lose some money changing the car but it is well worth it.