Admission Time

I’ve never towed anything big with my car.

There. It’s out there now. I have a tow bar and I’ve towed a couple of little trailer things but at Easter I’ll be towing a caravan. 18 foot long.

Now my car is a big, heavy and powerful beast, no issues there. But what special tips can the STW caravaners give me? I’m only driving it from Birkenhead to North Wales so not far but I bet there’s stuff I need to know.

Off you go then…

Have someone on hand to film your hilarious Topgear style activities

Leave it behind and book a hotel. Or, stop poncing around and stay in a tent.

What route are you planning on taking so this North Walian can be elsewhere? On a serious note if your bike is coming in the caravan with you then http://www.mbnw.co.uk/ some fantastic knowledge of out of the way trails all over North Wales.

Pfft – 18ft aint big.

My first towing experience was picking my 25ft caravan up from Sunderland and driving it back to Derbyshire – the pick-up I tow it with is 17ft long, so 42ft train length, or 12.6mtrs in new money.

1st – get used to where your arse end is because despite flashing every slightly long vehicle you can imagine back in, approx only 1 in 10 lorry drivers do it when you have a caravan on the back.

I don’t use add-on mirrors as mine are huge anyway, but I could still do with some at times – plan your overtakes so you know what’s coming well in advance of what you normally would.

Braking is an obvious one.

Pulling out of t-junctions can take an ice age – firstly to spot a gap big enough to get out, then actually getting across the carriageway as traffic heads toward you.

Get used to your turning circle, although this is relatively easy.

When you pull into McDonalds, go round the car park and after eating find that due to a delivery you can only reverse down the access road – ensure you have a handy construction worker nearby to direct you and stop traffic, as your missus will be bloody useless.

If you commit to going forwards into a tight spot/gap – consider your reversing options if you can’t get round. I nearly got caught out at some poxy service station high up the M6 – with the length of my vehicle and the proximity of the pumps to the kiosk I very nearly got stuck and reversing would have been a complete pig.

If you get a sway on, don’t brake or even let off power completely – try and steadily drive through it.

I’ll think of some more in a bit.

Learn how to reverse before you go 😆

Lots of caravans tip over coming down aston hill in Queens ferry, and Rhualt hill on the A55.

Lots of caravans have no wheels if left parked in Birkenhead.

Check your mirrors can see the end of the caravan, the rear that is.

Travel at about 15.55 on the bypass from Drome corner to the A55, always quiet until a caravan starts struggling up the hill, then log jammed for the next 2 hours.

Make sure the number plate of the caravan doesnt match the car reg, it gives the Police a good chance of impounding it, and geting another one off the roads.

TheArtist
did the service station thing in France-combination of tight distance between pumps, high kerbs & awkward angles had me unhitching the van & pushing it out of the petrol station. It was the first time I realised properly that a van moves differently when reversing than when going forward-no amount of jiggling would get it back in line—how I laughed—-
Make sure you load the van sensibly-no heavy weights at front or rear if possible. Try & keep heavy stuff over the axle. Use a stabiliser & as said before if you get a sway on, try not to use the brakes.
Off to Castleton at Easter, can’t wait.

Get one of those scrolling LED signs for the back window of the caravan and use it to apologise to the queue behind you?

take roundabouts and junctions ‘wide’ – the caravan will take a narrower line than the car and clip the kerb.

practice reversign when there is no audience and you aren’t in a hurry. better still plan everythign so you never have to reverse for any sort of distance.

do not try and reverse up hill too far – the caravan brakes will come on and you’ll be pushign against those.

sometimes it’s easier top swallow pride and unhitch the caravan and push it where you want it to be.

do not rely on your wife to keep an eye out for obstacles ‘I just hit that branch!’ ‘well, I was only looking at the ground to make sure it was ok’.

do not rely on your son to take all the steadies up before driving away ‘oh, I must have missed that one’

use a wheel clamp at the services when you stop for a wee. use a towhitch lock to stop the ‘van being separated from your towbar.

never get into a situation where you need to reverse
take it slow downhill
Dont drive at sunset – the sun will be in your eyes on the A55 it has nothing to do with caravans
Check your breakdown recovery includes a caravan

Don’t climb in the caravan until at least one of the corner steadies at the back is down.

Caravans don’t look cool with the tow hitch 8ft off the ground and make expensive noises as the return to earth when you subsequently jump out after realising your mistake.

I’ll be towing a caravan

I don’t know you any more.

Don’t forget to keep looking in your mirrors.

You see that absolutely ****ing enormous tailback? The one you’re causing? Every single occupant of every single one of those vehicles wants you dead. They’d happily do it themselves. With a shovel

Not done much towing with cars, plenty with tractors. For a novice I’d say practice, get a feel for the size, go steady and try to avoid reversing. And what wwaswas and theArtist say. Bizarrely larger trailers always seem easier to back than smaller ones.

Bizarrely larger trailers always seem easier to back than smaller ones.

True dat. Backing up a twin axle 20″er around a corner; no worries. Try the same thing with a halfords silver wheelbarrow special; give up and unhitch. Little ones get away from you too quickly.

Put a sign in the back window saying –
“Oi, Clarkson! Not only do I tow a caravan but I’m a cyclist! Hahahah!!”

………….nearly got me into a fight at a service station, that. 😐

Get one of those scrolling LED signs for the back window of the caravan and use it to apologise to the queue behind you?

Better still, just pull over frequently to let people by. It’s what I do.

Don’t listen to the Clarksonites, they are arseholes who think the roads are for their pleasure alone. They seem oblivious to the fact that their entire life is lived by means of goods transported by lorries which are just as slow and annoying as caravans and more numerous.

It’s bad caravan drivers that cause the tailbacks, just like bad lorry drivers or inconsiderate farmers. I pulled over three times coming back from BB in the first few miles, each time there was no more than three cars behind for a few minutes.

Caravanning is ace, much better than either a hotel or a tent. I’ve done all three (unlike many of the scorn-pourers above).

Re towing – it’s ok but take it easy. The biggest cause of swaying imo is going over 60mph. 63mph and it starts to get iffy. At slower speeds you should be pretty stable so you can drive at 50 through bends well enough on country roads, unless they are narrow B-road style. Try and avoid all single carriageway roads as much as possible, of course.

If you pass a lorry (or they pass you) then expect to feel a tug on the wheel as the bow-wave hits the back of the van. It’ll tend to push the front of your car away from the lorry. I find a touch of pressure the other way on the wheel helps, and you can anticipate it.

And the basics:

– Pump up your car tyres to the recommended heavy load pressures
– Get a noseweight gague (or bathroom scales and a stick) and make your van nose heavy to the maximum allowed for your car OR 5-7% of the van’s weight – opinions are divided it seems
– Put the load low and central in the van – this can be tricky depending on the layout. Many vans have a wardrobe in the back, this is not a good place for your clothes when travelling.
– Put particularly heavy stuff in the car boot, like the awning. Most vans can only take 120kg or something as payload – that’s only five airline suitcases’ worth, not a lot esp for a family.
– Check the van’s tyres – caravan tyres never wear out, they just age, so ignore the fact that there’s lots of tread. 5 years from date of manufacture is your limit. And remember they should be van (ie commercial vehicle) tyres, not car tyres.
– You need the extra mirrors – I like the Milenco aero ones that clip onto the car’s existing mirrors on the plastic housing, but find which bit of the housing is more secure – clipping on the bottom on our car made it a lot more stable.
– Re turning – remember it’s not like a really long vehicle, so the van follows the car round corners, you won’t swipe things with the middle like you do in a long rigid vehicle – unless you are on a really sharp corner then you do have to be aware of it a bit.
– Reversing isn’t that hard when you think about what you’re doing. You’re pushing the front of the van using the back of your car, so you have to put the car in the right place to push it where you want. You could practise with toy cars first, that’s what I did when I was a kid 🙂

That’s tiny 🙂

Take corners wide, don’t go down narrow roads or roads where there’s even a possibility you might have to reverse/three point turn out of

When on the motorway, lorries, etc will flash you once you’re clear of them if you’re overtaking (since it’s difficult to judge when you’re clear) – you should do the same.

Don’t assume that because it feels ok going round bends in the car that the caravan is coping similarly – I’ve followed a rowing boat trailer going round corners on only one side’s wheels…

Do-nuts with caravans are possible. Try it.

tip for reversing – put your hand at the bottom of the steering wheel, move it the way you want the van to go.

That’s possibly the best instruction to explain the steering and trailers – ever.

Caravan!

Somewhere a kitten has died.

Have you thought about setting fire to it?
They’ll be less to tow afterwards and you’ll feel better inside.

do check the size of any gaps.

Warnign, some nsfw language and it appears to have been filmed by Mutley.

😀

I found that towing the caravan up and down narrow country lanes wasn’t easy, however on the motorway alot easier.

nbt just told me to keep using my mirrors and to stop clenching the steering wheel so hard.

Good advice from molgrips.

I pulled over three times coming back from BB in the first few miles, [strike]each time there was no more than three cars behind for a few minutes.[/strike] and managed to get 2 jobs re-tarmacing drives and a tree felling job whilst waiting

Do check instructions from the campsite re: access and don’t just follow your satnav unless it’s hgv/caravan specific. I drove down a single track road with passing spaces for about 4 miles once to get to a site. If we’d met a tractor I think we’d have ended up living there – I wouldn’t have been able to do anythign but move forward.

On subsequently checking the campsites website it said;

“If travelling from the south do not follow road ‘xxxxx’ even if your satnav says to. If you travel along the A1234 to ‘x’ we are 300 yards from the roundabout at ‘abcd’.

I did meet someone who opened the gate on a field and directed about 15 cars into it after getting stuck on a singletrack road under similar circumstances.

You say Birkenhead……….you might be going to North Wales without caravan. And dont stop anywhere near Rhyl, the futher south the better.

Are you planning to join Paddy in Queensferry?

Caravans are ace – towed mine to London the other week, which was fun. Saving £750 a month in Travelodge costs though.

So far got a week on the Gower booked and 5 days in the lakes this year.

Very rarely have anything stuck behind me, as my truck is powerful enough to pull at decent speeds even uphill.

Echo the comments about following directions – if I’d followed my sat nav to my current site I’d have been royally screwed.

tip for reversing – put your hand at the bottom of the steering wheel, move it the way you want the van to go.

That’s possibly the best instruction to explain the steering and trailers – ever.

I think it’s the worst. If you start in a straight line, then yes turning the bottom of the wheel to the right will make the van go to the right. But once you have the right amount of lock you have to turn the wheel back left again to continue going to the right. To simply say ‘turn the wheel the other way’ is completely ignoring the physics of it. If you aren’t thinking about what you’re doing in terms of pushing in a particular direction you’ll struggle.

Do check instructions from the campsite re: access

Good advice. We phoned up a place near Colwyn Bay and the guy blurted out “Don’t follow the satnav!” as soon as he could fit it in, because from the south it was inaccessible, and from the north it was slightly longer but ok. As it happened our satnav did send us the right way but there was no way of telling from consulting either it or a paper map.

I think it’s the worst

YMMV and all that but it certainly helped me understand more. You are right though that once moving, you need to be keep swapping the lock to affect the direct of travrel

My ‘van’s only a 15 footer so it’s a sight harder to manoeuvre than a longer van, too

Many thanks for all the tips guys. Sorry I didn’t respond sooner. Some made me lol.

For information, it’s not my caravan nor am I staying in it. My sister in law bought it and needs it towing to the caravan site. She did this while owning nothing more than a 1 litre fiesta which has already proven itself incapable of moving anything more than my sister in law and a boot full of vodka.

She then did what ahem, most of the ladies in my family do when they have a problem and looked for a man to solve it for her.

two things to add to all of the above:

1. depending on when you passed your driving test, you may need to pass a test to allow you to drive certian combinations of vehicle + caravan weight. I know that with my Range Rover, i can hardly tow anything before becoming illegal because i passed my test after 1997. Check the internet for B+E

2. Make sure you’re aware of the different speed limits for towing. and stick to them! the most dangerous part of towing a caravan is if you go too fast with it and it starts to sway. You’re much heavier than usual with a caravan and thus take far longer to stop. Take your time and get there safe. the number of caravans i’ve seen being towed at 70-80mph on a motorway is too far too many as they look incredibly precarious as the ‘van weaves about. also watch out from the ‘sucking’ draft as you overtake / being overtaken a lorry. can be a bit disconcerting!

For information, it’s not my caravan nor am I staying in it.

Great news!. I’ll just see if I can get hold of the contract killer and see if he does refunds.

When you’re trying to reverse in a straight line, look in your mirrors, if you see the trailer appearing in your right mirror turn the wheel to the right if you see it in your left mirror turn it to the left.

By making such small but continual adjustments you’ll stay straight. If you lose it pull forwards to straighten out.

Big trailers are easier to reverse than wee ones anyway.

You can go as fast as you want uphill, if it gets a bags on it’ll be downhill, approach descents accordingly. Molgrip’s weight in the boot is excellent advice, personally I ran the rear tyre pressures at the maximum recommended by the car manufacturer and the caravan tryres at the maximum allowed by the tyre manufacturer. No problems running at the French 130kmh autoroute limit apart from the skylight blowing off because I forgot to clamp it shut.

Reversing, if in doubt pull it back out, tis easy to straighten up and retry, rather than trying to continue backwards…

I’ve taught all my kids reversing with a tractor and trailer, give them an empty field and let them get on with practicing the addded height and the slower gearing makes it much easier and once they’ve done that they go on to reverse caravans and horseboxes far more easily.

Had one since last June and not had to reverse more than a couple of metres yet. I’m planning on a large carpark and practicing lots. I’d only ever towed trailers before and it’s really quite easy, take it steady read the road further in advance than when in the car without trailer and you’ll be fine. Molgrips advice is bang on!