Hi all. We have a bailey unicorn vigo deluxe, pulled by a volvo xc40 - a good well matched outfit. We're super attentive to nose weight and payload weights, so nothing wrong with how we load, in fact we're probably below max payload. However speed ramps/bumps seem to give jockey wheel impacts all to frequently. It seems to occur most when coming off the ramp, oddly, as if the van dives down at the front, never when going into the ramp. It's difficult to judge exactly the timing of impact so may not be entirely the case.
Bailey/ Alko have on this van, welded the jockey wheel clamp to the outside of the tow frame rather than tucking it inboard within the A frame rails. This also means that the wheel is turned at an angle, rather than being in line with the van's direction of travel, so when it does ground it tries to wrench the wheel into line, risking bending the wheel carrier , busting the wheel, or as we've found, cracking the plastic a frame trim.
Is it just unique to this car/van set up or does it happen to others?
We bent a jockey wheel on a speed ramp coming into a CMC site. At very low speed. Had to buy a new one.
Going onto car ferries can cause grounding so taken very slowly.
We have a Bailey Phoenix towed by a Hyundai Tucson.
We have a pneumatic jockey wheel on ours which does absorb a bump.
It seems to be as you said when coming off as the car and van dip.
You can remove the wheel and put it in the car,which we have done for ferry.
Speed bumps are a pain but we have to live with them ( and potholes)🤬
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Interesting. Thanks.
Our volvo sits well and high even when loaded plus van. There seems to be some sort of dynamic that only occurs in situations such as this. Could it be linked to bailey vigo's naturally nose heavy stance, that changes for the worse over ramps? Seems that removing jockey every time is the answer.
I'm not very familiar with the XC40 but I used to have a Volvo V70 and that used to have quite a long overhang behind the rear axle. If the XC40 is the same this could cause the jockey wheel to ground in certain circumstances.
It's relatively easy to overload the rear axle with passengers on rear seat, a bootful of stuff and the caravan noseweight added - so does the car look level when loaded and hitched up, and not noticeably down at the rear?
Have you measured the hitch height when loaded and hitched up? The centre of the ball should be 350-420mm above the ground when loaded.
Different towcar and caravan but I get grounding at the very back of the caravan when using ferry ramps.
Quote: Originally posted by Skc101fc on 23/8/2026
Quite the opposite, a very short overhang on the xc40 which makes it really hard to understand what happens or how to teduce the incidences.
Hmm, that rules that theory out then. Does the caravan look nose-down when it is hitched up, or does the jockey wheel have a large tyre on it?
Jockey as fitted by bailey/ alko, and car-caravan attitude very good. I haven't actually measured it yet, as van on a storage site, but I will measure the drop when hitching up next time. Everything lines up very level , I'm ex tree surgery/ forestry - an industry known for severely abusing tow vehicles and trailers by overloading, and have personally been responsible for some appalling looking units, to get the job done! No everything looks really well balanced with this outfit, bailey's outboard JW always seem to hang very low, even with it withdrawn and lifted to its max height, but something seems to change when coming off a ramp, as if centre of gravity dramatically moves forwards at this point. As suggested earlier, removal of JW is the sure fire way of stopping it, but also means that at this particular point my drawbar is suddenly incredibly close to ground in comparison to its normal level road position.
I seem to recall a similar issue being discussed 'somewhere' (I don't recall where - may have been on UKCS!) about grounding JW on a particular caravan model, but not being relevant to me only paid the scantest attention, BUT what did stick in my mind was the proposed solution, which may be of use to you.
'Normal', maybe logical practice is to raise the wheel in a castor trailing position, but I believe IIRC, better ground clearance was obtained by facing the wheel 'forwards', or the opposite way to 'normal', as that allowed it to be raised higher, and clear obstructions on the A-frame better. May not be applicable to your van, but maybe worth looking into just in case.
You are of course right, the rear of the car dips in a 'bounce' as the car rear axle comes off the ramp, often about the same moment the JW would be approaching the ramp! The 'bounce' you normally experience going over road humps can be exacerbated by speed, maybe exceptionally slow over them is the answer. There seems to be little standardisation of speed ramps, some are barely noticeable, whilst other are positively vicious!
There is always the possibility of mechanical wear/failure being a contributory factor, with worn out dampers on car not helping, they will allow excessive bounce/suspension travel to occur! They would not be apparent by visual inspection of car posture as not involved in suspension geometry, purely there to damp suspension travel.
Something that I thought had mostly been consigned to history is 'spring assistors', or even uprated springs, to raise/stiffen rear suspension under load, often used years ago with much cruder car suspension set ups, may be worth looking into.
Hi Monty.
Yeah thanks for the thoughts. I do already turn my JW to face forwards, and it does give an extra bit of clearance which has stopped me striking every ramp. Due to geometry of my jockey forks, caravan A frame and a plastic trim cover over the frame, I still can't get the wheel completely in line with direction of travel. It's closer than when mounted in a trailing direction but still means a considerable wrenching action tries to occur when the impact does happen. One day the inevitable will happen and the plastic wheel will break, hopefully instead of damage to the wheel carrier forks.
I'll just have to get used to removing the jockey each time we travel. Luckily we travel light so there's always space in the car. I have incidentally been looking at the possibility of fitting MAD assister springs - quite affordable, though I don't actually believe that this is the issue. However when I do a height check this may reveal itself otherwise
When we had a Bailey took the jockey wheel off as it had side fixing. Also if parked up would make it difficult to to be taken off and stolen when having a journey break,
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Topic: Jockey wheel grounding
via mobile 23/8/2026 at 9:47am
