Nose weight too high

Unfortunately some caravans leave the factory with a high ex works nose weight and your only option is to load all your contents in to their respective positions and check the nose weight again, if it is still too high your only way to reduce the nose weight is to move more stuff to the rear, not ideal and I think you might struggle. Do not exceed the tow vehicle max nose weight.

This has been raised in another item on this site. I have made a comment under that posting so won't repeat it here.

My Bailey (2010 vintage Olympus) suffered from  the same problem, and Baileys confirmed that the empty nose weight was correct. There is little that one can do to lighten that load other than to cut down as much weight as possible forward of the axle (water heater empty, smaller gas containers etc). After that careful moves can be made to load more to the rear, but carefully.

I still apply a noseweight of 90kg, the maximum for my Mondeo with Witter tow bar. The van tows well and I am happy with it. With a front wheel drive car care is needed not to lever the weight from the front wheels and thereby reducing grip for drive and steering. Most of us, when satisfied with our outfit, pack similarly every time with the odd re-check of the noseweight.

Some, it must be said, simply throw everything in, the nose-down attitude of the van giving the game away.

Baileys, I believe,  moved the gas weight to a more central location on later models which may well have exposed other problems with axle loading for instance. Fortunately I don't have those to deal with!

All of this seems to indicate that the exhaustive towing tests before the AluTec revolution didn't really go far enough to truly model an actual loaded van!

Ideally the reading should be such that the compressed gauge puts the tow bar at the same height as it would be on the car. In practice unless the centre o gravity of a 'van is  high up I cannot see an inch or two making a deal of difference.

I prefer to use a cheap set of bathroom scales that I can zero myself and check with my own weight. A cut to length of 1.5'' timber and a flat timber to spread the load on the scales. Also useful to weigh gas bottles if I want to know how much is in.

I used to have a Senator "Oklahoma", and a 75 kg nose weight limit on the car, had the same problem, I found the only way round it was to carry one 7 kg cylinder in the front locker and nothing else, and bungie the other to the fixed bed at the rear,every thing else went under the bed storage,I had a heavy tow vehicle S Type, with 2.7 twin turbo v6 diesel so close to two ton, they were perfect together, you might have to fiddle about with the loading of the van but it worked for me..

We tow a Coachman Amara  with a Freelander 2. The cars nose weight is rated at 150 kg's, The caravan is only 100 kg's. With the front locker virtually empty except 2 Calor Lite cylinders it is + or - 100 kg's. I put the awning, water containers etc just to the rear of the caravans axle and the nose weight gauge reads spot on the limit. when towing it's rock steady, even at 70 mph on the odd occasion when I have taken my eye off the speedo 

I sold my Citroen C5 and went to Ford for this reason. The Citroen customer service rang me to ask why I hade 'left' Citroen. Having explained that they had left me(!) he was quite surprised that the noseweights of vans had changed. At the last check some of the large Citroens were down to 65kg.

Hi we also have a Bailey Senator Vermont (which we love) and that we tow with a Freelander. I have asked OH who suggests maybe checking whether your internal water tank is empty or not. We carry average amount of stuff clothing etc in wardrobe and aquaroll and wastemaster in the caravan by the galley. 

I feel really sorry for people deciding to take up caravanning. The support and advice from the trade is terrible, and the tsunami of facts and figures thrown at them must be overwhelming. I say this as someone who has towed for over 30 years but made a schoolboy error in buying a nice shiny new van recently. Now Im the first to admit Ive got very complacent over the years and this caravan is the first I have actually sat down and worked out the figures properly. First of all the dealer said no problems when he checked my soon to be arriving tow car on his system. That was cobblers as the quoted manufacturers kerb weight for the car was the same as the unladen weight of the van ? They also didn't check the nose weight limits of either. I should say I have a heavy 4 x 4 I can use as well so picked up the van with that but as soon as my new car arrived I took the van up to a weighbridge with the new car. Low and behold the actual kerb weight of the car was 300kg different to the manufacturers quoted figure. The van was as expected so by the time I add passengers and fuel they are a good match. Harder to sort is the nose weight, I bought a cheap gauge from tinternet and the first signs of an issue were on first use the caravan destroyed the gauge ! When checked with the good old bathroom scales the nose weight came in at 120KG with nothing in the front lockers, the cars limit is 75KG. Ive read the various articles about redistribution from front to back but its goes against all my experience to have anything of weight in the rear ? My plan is to try various configurations and do test runs until it feels right. The scary thing is that after 5 caravans and many racing cars towed all over the country Im only understanding these limits now. As an Aside do people like the reich style nose weight gauge ?

When you have been caravanning for a while you can sense the nosewheel weight when you wind up the jockey wheel or try to lift it manually. If it is easy to lift then the nose weight is too low, if it is impossible then it’s too high.

When we ordered our Bailey Valencia the dealer asked me what car I was going to use for towing. Obviously some dealers are better than others.

I have a Clubman CK and even with just a 4.5Kg Butane Cylinder the noseweight is around 90Kgs with the wardrobes at the rear fairly full. The scope for adding extra weight at the rear is limited by the payload. Its not a problem but you wonder where manufacturers get the idea you can carry two 7kg cylinders in a front locker.  

Going to one refillable gas bottle will help as they are also lighter.  Plus management of load.  All heavy stuff in the car boot and then arrange within my the van. 

My car is 90kg noseweight.  If the van gets to 80-85kg noseweight  it is horrible to tow.  90kg tows brilliantly.  Why on earth 5kg makes such a difference is anyone’s guess. 

Assuming the battery is in front of the axle, in extremis, you may find you could unclamp the caravan battery, which only takes a few seconds, and put it somewhere safe in the car. Reconnect when you get on site. 

Not ideal, but better than overloading the tow bar, or loading heavy stuff too far back to compensate.

And the gas bottles 

Apologies if I've missed it but are the caravans with 'impossibly high' nose weights being checked when they are ready for a trip out? Our Lunar has a high nose weight when empty but by the time we have got clothes and food in, which is mainly all loaded behind the axle line, I can easily achieve my desired 90kg. Occasionally I adjust the balance by moving the position on the floor of my 5kg hook-up cable. I usually only carry one gas bottle (15kg max weight) as I know how long a full bottle lasts.  Before moving off from site I always drain off the water heater as, although the weight of the water is allowed for in the MiRO (strangely), it is all at the front of the caravan. This immediately removes 8kg.