Road Gradients
Evening all
This is probably a really silly question, but now that I've finally gotten my head around this towing lark I've started thinking about more technical aspects beyond the "what can I legally tow" etc. So, according to all the car matching services my little car and caravan are a good match. I wasn't in a position to change my car when we decided we had to swap from motorhome to caravan, so had to purchase a caravan that worked with our existing vehicle (Vauxhall Meriva 1.4 turbo (120bhp) with Elddis Xplore 304). So far my experience of actually towing the combination has been good and I've been really pleased with the car's performance. There are some discrepancies between matching services but it seems to suggest that I should be ok on hill starts for a 10-12% gradient. I've not paid all that much attention to gradient signs when driving the car normally, and in our motorhome I just used the info to consider driving adjustments that might be needed. Never came across a hill we couldn't get up in the motorhome, although I can think of one in Scotland that I struggled to do in 1st gear in an old Talbot Express campervan...and doubt it would have managed a hill start on it! But still being new to towing I'm feeling a bit paranoid about ending up having to do a hill start somewhere and not being able to get up! Is this a realistic concern and what would one do in that situation? Are there many roads that are steeper than 10-12% in the UK (I don't drive abroad)? I'm not even sure what a 10% gradient would look like. Whilst my driving skills are fine, my map reading skills are abysmal and so rely heavily on the Satnav which does make it harder to be aware in advance of things. Of course, this would only apply to hillstarts and car can cope fine if moving already. I think having got over the initial nerves of towing and discovering its fine, I'm just looking for something else to worry about ;-)
Thanks, Daisy
Comments
-
-
If you look at a good road map Daisy you will see some roads marked with a single arrow. This shows roads up to a gradient of 1 in 7 (14.3%).
Where a road is marked with two arrows this means that the road is steeper than 1:7.A The arrows point downhill.
Apologies if you knew this already, There are some junctions however where there can be gradients steeper than the general road - not too many though.
0 -
I see your 1 in 4 & raise you 1 in 3.5 😉
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnats_Pass
I didn't read the destruction book for Castleton CC site before I towed down it 🤔
0 -
The MTPLM for the Caravan is 1030kg, with an unladen weight of 900kg. We will probably end up travelling at around 1015 - 1020 kg (still fine tuning the loading). Clearly a small payload and the gas/battery/motormover take up most of that. The car has a max permitted braked towing weight of 1050kg. According to the V5 document the car's "Mass in service" is 1471kg and the "Max permissible mass (exc. m/c)" is 1930kg. Max gross train weight is 3055kg.
So I think that means even if we travel with car fully loaded and caravan fully loaded we'd be under the gross train weight by 95kg? We are well within the 85% kerbweight guidelines too. I very much doubt the car is fully loaded as its just 1 adult, 1 child and a cat in a crate. All our 'luggage', food bits, awning accessories, toys, wheel clamp/hitchlock, mallet and pegs travel in the car too but I doubt that takes us to fully loaded. However now we've done a trip I need to tweak the caravan loading but I will try packing everything (as much as possible) as if going away and take it to the weighbridge to be sure.
Thanks also EasyT for the Map tips. As I said my map reading skills are zero so all tips gratefully received! Looks like maybe we will be ok as long as I check the satnav's preferred route against a map beforehand (and pay for the map update on the satnav). Car certainly didn't feel like it was struggling at any point on our last journey.
Gratefully, Daisy
0 -
Thanks also EasyT for the Map tips. As I said my map reading skills are zero so all tips gratefully received! Looks like maybe we will be ok as long as I check the satnav's preferred route against a map beforehand (and pay for the map update on the satnav). Car certainly didn't feel like it was struggling at any point on our last journey.
Well worth checking those arrows Daisy. Years gone by I had less power to weight ratio available and can remember looking at a map and seeing that I had two options (both trunk roads). Did I want to avoid steeper than 1 in 7 and do an extra 30 miles or choose a less steep road? I chose the steep route
Going up the steep climb on a long straight I could see that there were traffic control lights at the top of the climb that had just turned red - whoops. Down through the gearbox and flashing headlights to attract the chap controlling the lights who changed the lights to give me green as I approached in first gear. He gave me a big grin and a thumbs up. Would I make the same choice again? Probably not!
I know that I can pull away on a 1:5 in present outfit but still there is an odd junction that I do not like.
0 -
It's not so much the incline at Porlock as the tight hairpins that pose the challenge.
1 -
Yes, that's definitely one to avoid. We were out and about one day, having pitched our caravan at the site in Dulverton. We used the Porlock Hill road and, even in our solo Ford Kuga, had a problem when the car in front suddenly ground to a halt going up the hill. No idea why he (or she) did that, unless they were concentrating so hard on going up hill that they forgot they had to steer around the sharp left bend as well.
0 -
why as many people can't do percentages did the powers that be start to use percentages to describe hills? People get 10%, 25%, 50% (sometimes) as a tenth, quarter, half, but to apply that to a hill?
so a 100% hill is vertical I often ask ?
1 -
a hill is when you are driving along a straight road at a constant speed and you suddenly notice that you need more revs to keep that same speed - going up hill that is
(and assuming it hasn't got windier or you have deployed a parachute)
0 -
I think that the maximum starting gradient quoted in the OP applies to a car doing repetitive restarts, five I think without overheating.
0 -
Fantastic, thanks all! I will be avoiding North Devon ;-) I have checked our routes on the Satnav for our next 2 trips, and it looks reasonable. However, I have also invested in a ring bound A3 map of Britain! Thanks EasyT for the 'arrows' tip - I've identified those in the maps :-) Will just make sure I do a bit of pre-planning, and I guess the advantage of the caravan is that we are most likely to run into issues on days out where we haven't pre-planned the routes - but now we'll be able to leave the van on site unlike in the motorhome :-)
Daisy
1 -
I make sure my Sat Nav is set to 'fastest' route (route is generally biased towards larger A roads and motorways), rather than 'shortest' route (where you could end up down a cart track)
0 -
Hi Daisy - we regularly go up Blue Bank outside Whitby with the caravan which is posted at 20% - it isn't a problem but if I am following a queue of traffic towards the hill I do drop back a little to give a little space in case anyone in front misses a gear change! And I have had to push/encourage some drivers who seem to freak out on the approach! That is annoying!
1 -
Going to South Devon there is a hill with two lanes on the incline. Thanks to mindless, arrogant me me me types I was forced to stop on the hill. A Volvo V70, fully loaded, two adults, three children and a fully loaded caravan. To say i was annoyed is an understatement.
Now I don’t know what gradient that hill is, not overly steep, but it had the clutch smoking good and proper. I now have an automatic, car, car superior to a manual and I no longer dread stopping on a hill.
One thing I have noticed over the years, why do camp sites always have steep inclines when exiting the site? Haha.
0
