We've just got our first caravan a pre loved Elddis Hurricane GT and the journey home felt quite jerky. It's a 2 ltr ford kuga pulling it. Going downhill we noticed that instead of speeding up we were actually slowing down.
If you were slowing down, then something was slowing you down!
Brakes rubbing or the like.
Jack up the van, one side at a time and see if the wheels turn easily.
If one or the other or both are sticking, then check the brakes, including the handbrake.
We bought a 1997 van about 3 year ago and before we moved it anywhere, we paid to have it checked over by a mobile caravan engineer.
It was as well we did for whilst I can do most things caravan maintenance wise, I would never have thought to check the faults that he found on it. It would have been a very hairy trip home had I left it to my own checks!!!
I suggest that unless you are well clued up on caravans, that you too have it checked out by a professional, at least this first time.
Probably optical illusion. If you are going up & down hill a lot you can end up thinking you are going uphill when going down & vice versa. If caravan was jerking then probably failed hitch damper. This is shock absorber inside draw tube on hitch. As stated, get caravan serviced & repaired.
Sounds as though the caravan hitch damper is shot.Agree with Opensauce may be optical illusion, as i had this on one trip last year. I was going downhill on a motorway with caravan,and that morning it was very low cloud and gave the feeling i was going uphill.I had never ever experienced this sensation before in 43 years of caravanning.
If going down hill the van will try to push tow car until damper on van operates brakes on caravan. if damper is sluggish due to lack of grease this could give you jerky movment downhill.
You will have gathered from the above, that we are all "stabbing in the dark" albeit based on our own experiences.
You are best to get a mobile engineer out to see for himself where your problems are emanating from and how best to fix them.
This will be your cheapest and least time consuming route to take and he may well find other things amiss that you have not yet come across.
Our engineer not only fixed our problems but gave us advice on remedying our damp problem and advised us to get new tyres etc.
Our van comes under the classification of "a crappy old van", but at least we know that it is a Good Crappy Old Van and one that will now last long enough to see us out.
As LobeyDosser said check the car aswell, in the last month I have seen 3 new fords with incorrectly fitted towbars on that have caused the same fault as you have stated.
The huge wind resistance of caravans makes you need to actually put your foot on the throttle going down hill just to maintain speed. May be this if you aren't used to it.
You can push the hitch in with the hand brake off and it should be hard to push in if you can at all.
Quote: Originally posted by navver on 07/10/2015
The huge wind resistance of caravans makes you need to actually put your foot on the throttle going down hill just to maintain speed. May be this if you aren't used to it.
You can push the hitch in with the hand brake off and it should be hard to push in if you can at all.
The wheels will be hot if the brakes are binding
Indeed this could well be the issue aas you said its first caravan and first tow.
You will need to get used to the sensations you feel when towing as it feels very different to solo travel, especially the wind resistance
If you bought privately certainly get it serviced as could well be an issue as described above
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Topic: Jerky travel
