Hi all again im also new to caravanning and have a good question.
Does everyone use a caravan nose weight device to check they are within the towball limit of there vehicle.
I have just bought a swift challenger weighing 975kg with a max laiden of 1200kg
My cars towball limit is 75kg.Not thinking on my first journey not very far though is that is felt rather nose heavy.
What recommendation do you have.
Putting everything in the car when we go away is not an option and i am worried about towing stability.
I have to say in 20 plus years of vanning I've never used a device to measure the nose weight. Not sure what you attributed to it feeling nose heavy, or what you are carrying. Try moving things about in your van, so if say you carry and awning and poles, try moving them near to the middle of the van. If my awning etc is too near the middle because we have forgotten to put it back in the right place, I can generally tell.
I don't carry much in my front locker, (they are not huge on the Charisma anyway) so its only whats in van at the front that is of concern. Yours is a bit like my old Corniche always seem a bit heavy at the front, when I did a bit of research on it I remember reading that the manufactures make them slightly nose heavy so how I positioned things in the van was important. If you really are concerned and need reassurance try the bathroom scales method, I would be surprised if you are front heavy unless you front locker is like the tardis.
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Many vans are nose heavy, especially when you load two gas bottles and a spare wheel into the front locker.
I would use a milenco nose weight gauge to check it once and work out how to load your van correctly, then sell it on ebay. All you do now is load the van the same way each time you go.
Make sure you weigh on level ground or you will get a false reading. As a very rough indicator of it being too heavy you can try to lift the hitch, you should be able to lift the jockey off the ground.
It might just be that, because you are not used to towing, that you felt the weight of the van a bit more than you would when driving without.
If you were towing it home empty, then there might have been a bit more weight at the front than when it is fully laden, when the weight of clothes, food, etc., when distributed around the van would counterbalance the weight on the hitch. Not that its a good idea to deliberately try to counterbalance by moving weight from front to rear, but it would make a difference.
The noseweight on my new (old) car is just 50kg. So I bought a noseweight gauge as I thought it might be a bit heavy, although I had previously had no problems, but my old tower had a towball limit of 75kg. The gauge told me it was 70kg, so I took the spare wheel off the front (15kg) and changed the gas bottle for a smaller sized one. This sorted out the noseweight on the drive.
However I forgot that the caravan was unladen! So when I came to tow it, it was a bit nose light and 'twitchy'. I ended up putting a lot of heavy stuff at the front inside the caravan, including the awning and poles to put the weight back on the hitch again and it was ok afterwards.
A visual check on a level bit of road told me that the caravan nose was on the light side, as the hitch was level. It was slightly nose down before and no twitchy/light feeling. You can usually tell if a caravan is too nose heavy by this visual check, as the nose will be in a V shape downwards. A little bit downwards is ok, too much of a deep V is too nose heavy.
And the manual for my car says not to tow with an empty boot, but put some weight in it.
I use bathroom scales and lift the front up slide the scales underneath the jockey wheel, bought a nose weight gauge and it was reading a mile out when I double checked it against the bathroom scales.
We use a Milenco nose weight gauge and check the weight every trip. A slight change in the positioning of items in the van can affect the nose weight considerably. Most of the time we only carry 1 gas bottle, as this gets low we add the second bottle, that's an addition of around 10 Kilos on the nose weight so the load in the van has to be adjusted to compensate.
I use an axle stand on bathroom scales (handy to keep in van in case of wheel change). I also have an old plastic chopping board to make an even base for the scales. Then just use the jockey wheel to lower onto stand.
I tried the just lift it method and could not reliable tell 70Kg. Also didn't want to do myself an injury.
If you do measure the weight on the jockey wheel you may need to do some maths to work out the real nose weight (which will be less). Depending on the distances it may be between 80% and 90% of the jockey wheel weight.
Quote: Originally posted by Acornis on 04/6/2016
I have to say in 20 plus years of vanning I've never used a device to measure the nose weight.
Every bit of advice from magazines to manufacturers to experienced caravanners says that noseweight is crucial to safe towing. I would therefore hesitate to recommend guessing to a new caravanner as a way to start a new hobby safely.
As a new 'vanner myself back in Autumn 2014 I found myself swamped in detail. On a couple of occasions the caravan balance wasn't right and the result was some scary meandering when passing and being passed by lorries and large vans, despite the Al-ko systems.
It only takes a few kilos in the wrong place to significantly affect the balance, and a few extra items in the front locker to overload the towbar.
A couple of years in and it's all second-nature, but I still check my noseweight. I use the Milenco despite the cost because it's accurate (and because I was buying everything new in 2014 so a bit more debt was neither here nor there ).
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You can buy a reich digital nose weight gauge for �40 and a telescopic spring balance for under 20. There's no excuse really not to check. I used to load my caravan with 60kg on the nose, my car can take 100kg. It never felt good and after a long journey I could still feel the car bouncing long after I had arrived (sea legs) I used the nose weight gauge and loaded to 85Kg and it was much better and sure footed. I have a Reich gauge. I would also recommend loading the awning, food, drink etc into the car.
Post last edited on 05/06/2016 17:52:55
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Quote: Originally posted by Johnnie Boy on 04/6/2016
I use bathroom scales and lift the front up slide the scales underneath the jockey wheel, bought a nose weight gauge and it was reading a mile out when I double checked it against the bathroom scales.
Also saves faffing on with a piece of wood.
using the scales under the jocky wheel will give a wrong weight reading as the jockey is nearer the wheels .It would even make a difference depending on whether the jocky wheel is in the fore or aft position
There are always many things to consider when towing as safety should always come first. By shifting the weight around in the van you will not only affect the effective nose weight, but will also affect the dynamics of the handling. You in effect have two fulcrums to take into consideration; the hitch and the van axle. You can do the fancy calculations and get a better understanding by reading up on moments of a force, however in simple terms it works something like this.
For stability and to reduce the risk of snaking, move the weight towards the front of the van nearer to the tow ball. The more weight and the further the distance from the tow ball dramatically increases the sideways force and greatly increases the risk of snaking. Your alko or anti-snake device attempts to reduce this by applying a brake to the tow ball, but this should be seen as assistance and not the ideal way of prevention. Obviously simply shifting all the weight forward is not the answer either as you can put excess force on the hitch, tow bar and the bolts holding it all together! I personally do not use a nose weight gauge as they can be very unreliable and for me a simple lift test tells me what I need to know. When loading additional equipment in the van start by placing it over where the axle is, then move it slightly forward of it. You want the force to try to push the van down onto the tow ball not lift it away. I will then, with all the legs ups, lift the van by the hitch. If you can lift it easily then the weight is still too far rearward, if it is too heavy to lift or takes a lot of effort then I'd suggest that you need to move the weight a little more rearward and try again.
Some will tell you that this is not a reliable method and I agree to a point. Thank of it in these terms. Find an object around the house that you know the weight of. This could be an 8 pack of 2 litre pop bottles that will weigh around 16 kilos (crude rule of thumb is a kilo per litre of liquid - and I did say crude but good enough for approximation). Lift this from the floor and compare with how your van lifts. Let's also be honest. Most people will struggle to lift 40 kilos off the floor so if you can lift the van, you are highly unlikely to be over weight on the nose. If you can lift it like a feather then it is far too light and you will have a greater chance of snaking. Where possible load your car. The car is designed to carry an amount of weight. This will also help with stability and fuel economy as the car will drive more straight.
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Topic: Caravan Nose Weight
