Considering buying a T/A - any advice?
We keep coming back to a 7.9m t/a van as our preferred choice even though it will be a work of art manouvreing into place outside our house. Apart from the obvious issue of physical length and acquiring a suitable tow car what do I need to consider/be aware
of before towing such a beast? Our current 'van is 7.2m and towed it to Austria, Italy and Scottish Highlands amongst other locations so not averse to adventure.
Comments
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I believe the insurance can be more?
And the twin wheels make maneuvering tricky even with movers, and again you have to consider whether you want 2 or 4 movers.
Fitting twin Alko wheel locks can be more difficult, and i would check to see if servicing is more expensive.
Owners do think they are more stable from what i've read, and travellers like TA.
But i shall never buy one.
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Flatcoat. It depends where you are planning to go. There are roads here in Cornwall where my heart is in my mouth towing a smallish Eriba - and sites are at the end of those roads. And width of caravan on these roads counts too as well as length.
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We had a TA but manoeuvring it, even with power movers, was a pain. Some sites have insufficient room to reverse onto a pitch meaning the mover was essential.
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Unless you have 2 or 3 people to assist, you will not find it easy to manoeuvre it manually when loaded, so budget for a mover if you will not always be able to position it with the towcar.
If you need to get it into a tight spot, a 4 wheel will be required, and will take 60kg from your weight allowance, so see if you can uprate the MTPLM, usually free to do at the time if you are ordering new.
If a less tight spot, the newer 2 wheel movers are much improved and will save you some money and 30kg of weight.
We have a 2 wheel mover on our 7.95m, 1900kg Sterling, it has got the van onto any pitch we have encountered in the last 8 years, and will easily get it off the road and onto our 1 in 10 driveway using 4 forward and reverse shuffles.
When towing, turning corners needs care, a long van needs a bit more space, but you soon get used to it.
We have never not gone somewhere we wanted to go because we have a bigger van. Been to top and bottom ends of UK, and to North Cape in Norway and the far south of Italy.
No problem with insurance, that goes mainly on value of the van. Servicing is a bit more due to the 2 sets of wheels, about £25-£50 should cover it.
To apply AlKo locks I line up one wheel with the mover, then use a trolley jack to be able to position the second wheel, takes me about 5 minutes.
For side to side levelling I use long boards that will take both wheels.
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Four wheels are better than two. It will be more stable, towing.
Never used a mover. Lower the jockey wheel enough to raise the forward axle off the ground to maneuvre by hand.
Manoevre by hand? You are joking! 1800kg is a fair lump no matter what you do with the jockey wheel. In my view, a mover is the sensible option to avoid strain and injury.
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I struggle to move my 1350Kg van.
Note to self: Buy jumbo pack of weetabix.
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, Hmmm, for a moment i thought my 'moniker' was being used !! 
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, Hmmm, for a moment i thought my 'moniker' was being used !! .
T.A.they are talking about four wheels not your three, Triky!
Write your comments here...!! ?? Three ?? The 'Concorde' has six plus the 'Smart' in the back ,another four.To me that's ten.A four wheeler C/van plus tug is ? ? ? ?
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I have a 7.92m, 2000kg TA. Cost of tyres is of course more and a little more on servicing but not much. Never had a problem but have been lucky not meeting anything coming the other way on some lanes I have been down in Cornwall, but could have had a problem
with any length of outfit. Check entry to some CLs but never had problems with not being able to get to a site or get pitched but make use of twin motor movers.Only had one site we looked to visit that were not allowed as didn't take TA's due to size of their pitches, so probably would not have liked it any way.
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Loved our twin axles,all were Lunar. 2 had hydraulic lift axles which made it easy to spin the van around on site. We towed all around Scotland East and West coasts and all around Wales,Devon & Cornwall,all with no problems. Our present Lunar is about 7m with single axle,still prefer twin axle for stability,not that we have a problem just our preference.
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We have taken the plunge on a t/a today! Due to be delvered in May.
Great news flatcoat, hope you enjoy every moment in your new TA
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Hi flat coat,
Some advice based on hard facts and known physics in vehicles. Twins do NOT offer stability in all aspects of the word. They do not offer more snaking stability since the van has more independance in the combination because it can actually take the weight off the nose even without pitching and it is a great deal more suceptable to jackknife. These are the less well known disadvantages. The plus side is they will track wider out of junctions so less risk of kerbing but more costly on tyre scrub. They will resist side wind loads better but once they go they will snake if the followingare not observed.
To mitigate the disadvantages ensure you have the 85% loading ratio, ensure you load the car as if it has rear adults,a full boot and that the maximum nose weight for the tow bar is applied - all this is to enure your tow car has the upper hand on the front and rear axles.
Enjoy
John
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I'm with Volvoman9 on this one. i've had our t/a for 2 years now from new and i'm more than happy with it. I do feel it's more stable than all the single axle vans we've had in the past. Manouvring can be challenging, but with awd movers it goes where i
want it to and had no problems.0 -
Hi Toby
Yes he is doing the right thing - Heavy 4X4 - keeps the upper hand, so he will feel that stability is ok with both ssingle and twin, however, should he ever encounter asituation where he has to brake hard and the van and tow are slightly out of line he is potentially at greater risk of a jackknife - the reason is first the weight transfer from the rear of his tow shifts to the front leaving less traction on the rear, this allows the van to take control of the situation and push the rear end of the car round into jackknife thereby leading to a potentialy fatal situation. This is better understood when you try to handle the van by hand to feel how much more effort is required with a TA. The tow vehicle has the same difficulty. With single axle the van weight transfer is faster onto the ball thus adding weight to the Tow rear end and it is easier to control the van to straighten up.
John
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NB The Hervey Bay retirees collected the New Age Caravans Jewel 21 series van from a Burleigh dealership on the Gold Coast about 10am and less than an hour later it was a write-off after the van jack-knifed and flipped through the air on to the bitumen.The 4WD towing the caravan also flipped on to its roof, leaving the occupants inside a crushed cabin.
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Hi
Further to my last Post:- During the jackknife the car ESP would have been screaming but overwhelmed by the TA it went into an irreversable situation. I can say with 95% certainty that this would never have occured if it had been fitted with my Differential
Stability system. No ATC/iDC would prevent this type of incident.John
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