Caravan Tyre Pressure
I’ve just popped over from the ‘Newbies’ with a quick question. I’ve only been out on two trips and I have been surprised at how much tugging and bouncing I am feeling whilst towing. I appreciate I am bound to feel movement as the caravan bounces over uneven surfaces but as my car is a Qashqai and we are towing one of the lightest caravans on the market (Elddis Xplore 304) I envisaged it would be less noticeable than it is (I have been very careful with the nose weight, weight distribution etc).
Today I took delivery of a tyre pressure gauge and inflator intended for future use having assumed everything would have been checked by the dealer before we were handed over our new caravan. Whilst ‘testing’ the new equipment I was surprised to find one tyre was 55psi and the other was 60psi (I double checked the readings using two gauges) - they should have been 45. Whilst it taught me a lesson not to assume things I was wondering if this maybe could be a factor in the seemingly excessive tugging and bouncing?
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Hi Mickbroth, from experience I tend to get a bit of push and pull especially when driving under 40 mph. Your tyre pressures needs to be right, somewhere on the side your caravan near the door there will be a plate stating the correct tyre pressure and max weight etc. On your car front inner doors there should be a plate stating tyre pressure for both towing and non driving. The rear car tyres will need a higher pressure then the front. Don't forget to check the torque on all the wheel nuts too. I think your caravan has alloy wheels so the torque has to be right. These are all important checks along with how you load the van before you set off.
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I've found the pressure can be 5psi higher on one side of the van if it is in direct sunlight.
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The handbook for my caravan shows that the tyre pressure should be 59psi but doing calculations using the TyreSafe chart / formula and based on the total weight of the caravan, the result suggested the pressure need not be that high. In fact some 10psi lower. I used this lower inflation figure on the presumption that hard tyres equal a bouncy ride.
However, my service engineer inflated the tyres to the Lunar handbook recommendation. Running at this pressure I have not noticed any more bouncing than is usual, bearing in mind the state of many of our roads, but have noticed that I get better mpg of about 10%, presumably due to less running resistance as the tyre's footprint will be slightly less.
This is only over three journeys so far and I may well have had the benefit of no wind resistance or a tail wind which can make quite a difference. I'll monitor it over the year.and see if this mpg improvement continues.
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