-You dont need to weigh the nose on a weighbridge--but as I said--you need to weigh on flat level firm ground--& I would get a new noseweight gauge--the Galaxy is a popular towcar--you should be able to get it right--a point about loading the caravan--obviouly the gear has to be secure but do try to load over the axle--try not to put loads of gear at the rear end---
A few thoughts, first the van needs to be level because the van has height as well as length, nose down and the centre of gravity moves forward increasing the nose weight, nose up and C&G moves back decreasing it. Also remember, the set nose weight is at rest, once the outfits on the move it changes constantly.
From your earlier posts it's got an overrated axle, being a Geist I'd assume it's got shock absorbers fitted, if not get them fitted. Shockers as far as vans are concerned act as 'load compensator's' and will control that 200kg excess in your axle that the weight of the van cannot control. I've got a 1700kg axle on a 1300kg van, shockers have transformed the outfits handling, dramatically in my case!!
Tyre pressures are important, both van and car, you need to be sure the vans tyres are inflated to suit the actual weight of the van and not the maximum stated on the tyre. Tyres are part of the suspension and if to hard cause the van to bounce about the same as your over-rated axle.
The car though is just as important, under inflated and the bounce caused by the van on the towball will cause the front wheels to lift, this might have something to do with your problem. I've also found budget tyres have soft side walls again having an adverse effect while towing, even when apparently inflated to the correct pressure.
On the same theme, the cars rear suspension will if too soft have the same effect as soft tyres
Yes I tested the nose weight with the caravan bang on level. But the ground wasn't quite level so it looked like it was slightly nose up but the spirit level said level.
Yes they Geist has shocks.
I am struggling with the loading as with my old 4x4 I could have a much higher nose weight. With the new MKIII Galaxy it is only 80KG. So I have had to empty the front of the van and actually leave the picnis tables and chairs under one of the beds (behind the axel) to bring the nose weight down. And having watched the Bath university video I am not happy having any load off the axel but that is the only way I can bring the nose weight down.
That's really interesting what you say about tyre pressure of the van as their are two things that chnaged recently on my outfit. 1 is my new car. the 2nd is that it was serviced and on the service they said that the tyres were way too low and have put them up to the inflation stated on the plate (which seems very high to me at 60psi); they were previosuly only 40psi. Apart from that the only other thing that changed on the service was the screw on the brakes which apparently have to be replaced every service.
I will check with Geist as to what they say the pressure should be as with the dodgey translation in the manual the pressure they refer to could actually be max pressure .
As long as the vans level it does not matter about the slope of the drive. Check your tyre pressures here but depending on type of tyre 60psi sounds right for a single axle 1450kg van on 8ply tyres but nearer 40psi would be correct on 'Reinforced' tyres
Don't forget your cars rear tyres though, equally important to get these pressures right
Thing is there's to much talk about noseweight being critical, yes it's important but it's not the be all and end all, there are other things to consider such as I outlined earlier.
I'm not impressed with 7% either, this might suit if it was obtainable but the actual weight required is more relevant to the distance from tow hitch to axle. Again I don't know about Geist but many European vans have much longer 'A' frames and far lower nose weights. If you measure a big Hobby with a measly 40-50kg nose weight at the same distance a British hitch would be from the axle, you would be back to 80-100kg's.
Neither did it help when Alko had to put a limit 100kg on their hitch as a maximum and some caravan manufactures adopted it as a recommended nose weight, it's not that at all!!!
The extra length apart from lowering the required nose weight, also serves to increase the percentage difference between hitch/axle and what's left at the back. British vans tend to be around 60/40 while many European are closer to 65/35, this makes for a much more stable outfit and far less affected by side wind or bow waves.
No surprise then twin axle vans handle better, yes some of it is how two close coupled axles act together but a lot more to do with leaving less of the vans body beyond the vans rear axle.
Oh pants! I had hoped that the tyre pressures of the van may be teh key but I have checked that link and according to that table my tyre pressures are too high. I have also checked with the caravn club and they consulted a similar chart and recommended 56psi which is about the same as the link you sent me.
Yet the manual does state 65psi! and that is what teh service engineer has infalted them too.
I closely inspected the tyres today and if I run my hands around them I can feel like a very slight ripple or bulges. Also there seem to be some hairline cracks that have appeared and they are all equidistant from the hub. Could this be an indication of too much pressure. I am going to take a photo and email it to the dealer as the whole unit is only 1 year old (inclduing the tyres).
Really interesting stuff about the A frame. My geist does have a long A frame compared to my in laws Bailey.
Next stop is to reduce the pressure and give it another try.
If that shows ni omprovement then I will borrow my friends S-MAx (which is very similar to the new Galaxy) and see if it tows any better with that.
If tyres needing 56psi are run at 40psi then this would account for cracking, over inflation won't. Just in case you missed it, I did add an important bit to the beginning regarding 8ply tyres and reinforced having very different pressures, make sure you are checking the correct chart?
Still 9psi from 65 down to 56 will make a significant difference, at least in my experience with our van it did. Ours is 58psi at 1300kg and I dropped them to 48psi assuming the load was less than the full 1300kg but also deliberately under inflating them to some degree. This was to test the theory I had regarding shockers, the van behaved impeccably on an 80 mile journey taking in some very bumpy roads.
My reasoning was as an experiment the soft tyres would compensate for the over spec 1500kg axle, (not 1700kg btw), and it did. Added shockers inflated tyre to 53psi running light and again an improvement but even more marked over the same 80 miles, so much so I can honestly say I had to look at times to make sure the van was still there!!!
The shockers have turned a dog of a van I hated towing into a docile puppy
My tyres are 185/75 R 14 C so i think I have ut right. + the caravan club came up with the same number so I guess that verifies it.
I'll let you know what happens.
Wish I didn't already have shocks. Sounds like they made a huge difference
You are correct but on the chart I link you to, the next division up gives a ratio of 42kg per 1psi making yours ideally 55psi at 1449kg, pedantic I know but it's still another 42kg of bounce absorption!
What I really want to ask though is we have talked about weighing the van level, but, when hitched up is it level?
If it's nose up then that's a big problem and just to repeat, don't forget the cars tyres
feedback for this thread (for the benefit of future readers). I have solved the problem now and having tried and tested evrything (weights high/low), load distribution, tyre pressures, clean stabiliser, etc I eventually found that the towball is too high. It is a Bosal swan neck so cannot be lowered. The caravan looks dead level and the spirit level agrees (but these sily little ones are very inaccuarte). Having measured it (chassis to ground at both extremes) i found that it was about 10mm nose up. This was made worse by the wind at high speed.
I have tried it with a Ford fixed towbar and it is transformed. However, I have sol dit as it is illegal to tow 1550Kg with a car rated to 1400.
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Topic: Weights. Power of the sticker
