We've been to France a few times on the ferry but not since we bought our Nissan Elgrand. It's an import we bought and it came with lowered suspension which occasionally is an issue with ramps in car parks.
My husband is a bit worried about the ramps to get on the ferry - does anyone have any experience with lowered vehicles? Should we phone the ferry company?
Any advice gratefully received - merci!
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Not sure there is a definitive single answer from any source, the loading/unloading ramp angles will likely vary with ship, with port, with tide heights compounding ship and port variables! And with varying ramp angles comes the risk of whether your van will or will not foul.
Even if you regularly use the same ferry and same port which has worked OK before, tides are forced by the orbital relationships between the Earth, the Moon and the Sun, and tide height can be affected by more localised atmospheric pressure and wind, which means they don't tie in with normal scheduled sailing times in a straightforward manner, or even with accurately predictable extremes. There are some ports that do vary their sailing times because low tide is problematic for some ships because of the shallowness of the dock, Le Havre being one IIRC.
Can’t speak for that ferry, but with standard suspension on our previous 5.3m MH (with a short overhang beyond the rear wheels) we were turned away from the Nigg Ferry over to Cromarty on the Black Isle. The tide was low, so we would bottom on the ramp. It’s a small ferry though: bigger ferries are maybe not so affected by tides. Your overhang beyond your rear wheels might be something to be able to state - just based on our one experience of being turned away.
I’d suggest you just phone the ferry company & have a chat about your concerns.
We had a towbar on a previous MH (we mounted bike bar on it). It affectively lowered our groud clearance considerably on a 5.9 m with no real overhang.
Similar to Fiona had problems on the Islay - Jura crossing and crossing to Bute from Colintraive - both got us on with lots of wood blocks (at Bute they said one try and then wouldn't take us and we would have to drive the long way round - luckily we scrapped on (literally)).
We had a problem once at Santander where we bottomed out on the ramps - again crew had to put wooden ramps out and ease us off.
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Large ferry operators are used to dealing with all sorts of vehicles including low slung supercars. You may need to approach the ramps diagonally, but loaders will assist.
Thanks all - have spoken to Brittany Ferries and as per Daveyjp's post their advice was that the loaders will be able to deal with it.
Also asked in a FB group for Elgrand owners and no-one thought it would be an issue - we can all relax now!
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Topic: Van ground clearance on ferry
via mobile 29/4/2025 at 12:00am
