Help on caravan and car compatability
I am very interested in taking up Caravaning and have selected a Twin axle Lunar as my preferred choice. However, I am unable to find a suitabley sized SUV that meets with the Club's advice on the 85% weight ration plus the required BHP.
Is there a kind member out there who could check this out for me - because I am not a member I am unable to use the Club's website to determine a suitable vehicle but what comes first - the chicken or the egg. Obviously I am not going to fork out for the membership fee until I know that I can afford the recommended vehicle and definitely want to go ahead.
Comments
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yes, a quick look shows anywhere they are from 1515 to 1725 kg, but at the heaviest weight you would be looking at a car at about 2000kg. A Kia Sorrento at 1950 kg might be fine?
The 85% is only a guideline but as a new tower perhaps a good one to follow. A dealer will also check your match as well for free and there are free matching services on the interweb. Google it
Why a twin axle?
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I have no faith in CC tow match. Try this one
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KIA Sorento, Hyundai Santa Fe or similar would be your best choice. If going for an older Sorento get one with self leveling suspension.
Ssanyong Rexton's have a good reputation but can be a bit agricultural if going for anything less than the current model. Think KIA 10 years ago.
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Thanks for that. I had looked at the Sorento but reluctant to spend out on a diesel as I believe that with the ever increasing concerns about polution created by diesel cars that the Goverment and local authorities will end up hammering us with more taxes and possible bans from entering city centres.
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In many ways I do not consider that a major problem. The characteristic of the caravan that are important are its MPTLM. If the model that you have is not available it is relatively easy to choose a model with the right MPTLM to carry out a comparison. It is also possible to increase the weight of the caravan to account for a weight upgrade. The much more difficult thing to find is the weight of the tow car and what the comparison site includes.
For the CC check site it advises that my cars 'kerbweight' is 1515kg and the match with my Lunar CLubman is 96% weightwise when compared to MPTLM of 1450kg. The car weight being given as 1515kg. No indication of how this weight is calculated.
For Towcar.info the result is initially 80% based on a used payload of 150kg. If I go down the bottom of the page and increase the payload to its full available amount to reach 1450kg I get a ratio of 81%. The site will tell me that my car weighs 1700 kg and that it has assumed a 50kg load in the car. If I enquire further it tells me that the weight for the car is based on the car plus 90% full tank and a 75kg allowance for driver and his bits and pieces. I can then adjust to give my actual increased full MPTLM usage based on a weight upgrade. I can add the weight of partner etc as if I tow laden caravan it is with partner. The result is then a ratio of 81% still.
I weighed my car with a full tank. Made adjustments of 75kg added for driver and deduction of 10% of fuel weight and I get a figure of 1719kg. Pretty close to Towcar's 1700kg but then I had a towbar fitted at the time.
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nice of the Op to come back on after all the work we've done for him/her?
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Seems like lazy people cant to be bothered to do there own researcher
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Thanks EasyT.
Have tried it but not had a lot of luck mainly because I am unable to find a petrol driven vehicle that will do the job. Not very keen on spending out on a new diesel when I suspect that in the not too distant future diesel owners are going to be penalised even more as the clamp down on polution increases.
My present vehicle is a Maxda CX5 AWD Auto (diesel) and I put that in on towcar inconjunction with a Lunar Clubman and was disturbed to find that it only recommended that combination was suitable for experienced towers which I am not.
I have been driving large vehicles around the UK and Continent over a number of years but whilst a lot larger than a caravan they were rigids. Naturally I had intended to go on a CC training course but I don't think that it make me an "experienced caravaner".
Hadn't expected it to be so involved.
Anyway, thanks for trying, much appreciated.
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85% is not a legal limit but a recommendation based on some very old research and possibly needs up dating. Certainly with a good modern 4x4 or SUV it should be possible to exceed this by a small margin although as a beginner I would not go beyond 90%. Easy T is a very experienced tower so while 96% is safe fir him I would not start out that high.
Personally I would say the Lunar is a big caravan and challenging as a first tow and I would go for something a bit smaller.
The caravan will require a B+E licence to tow it. If you passed your test from 1997 onwards then you need to take an extra test to tow this.
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Easy T is a very experienced tower so while 96% is safe for him I would not start out that high.
If you re-read my post WW you will see that I tow at around 87% if you don'y consider that the car being laden with OH makes a difference and that the CC matching site is bunkum
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Diesel isn't going anywhere anytime soon so don't fall victim to the ill informed scaremongers. As a fuel it is too embedded into the transport infrastructure of Europe to kill off too quickly. And the reality is, as you are finding there simply are too few alternatives - for very good reasons, the alternatives either cost a fortune, don't work or the environmental credentials are a mirage. The club matching service is simply rubbish however there is more to the club and for all its detractors and faults, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages for me.
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yes have got this one - thanks.
Don't worry too much about diesels, they will be here for a long time yet and the latest engines are as clean as they can be.
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Agreed, diesel will be with us for a long time. However, that wont prevent the Local and Central Goverments from trying to dissuade us from buying diesel engined vehicles by imposing charges or even bans on entering city centres and , of course, increasing fuel duty at a higher rate than for petrol.
Thanks for your comments on the matching service.
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Just to give confidence to future of diesel, for those with deep enough pockets Audi have just introduced mild hybrid performance versions of the SQ5, S6 and S7 all with V6 diesel INSTEAD of petrol.... and with 5.1sec 0-60 time..... so no, diesel ain’t dead.
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Is the Club Together Community there to help one another ? Obviously not in your case but luckily you are a rarity and there are plenty of members who enjoy helping others.
For your information I did research as much as I could with my limited knowledge of caravanning but as I met with only limited success sought the help and advice of others who have the knowledge and would be kind enough to help.
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you cannot take the laden weight as the figure for calculating the ratio.
I can if I want to .... so there!!
As I said WW based on 'correct' procedure and weights I have 87% ratio. f is my view that the additional 100KG for OH, table chairs, tins of diet coke, and other important items within the car can only be an improvement,
(The 96% was using CC incorrect tow car info which underestimates the weight of my car by 200kg)
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Just an idea - As you say you are not yet a caravanner why not look at possibly buying a smaller lighter used caravan that your current car is able to tow to see if caravanning really is for you. You can then p/x both or sell on the caravan if caravanning does not suit you. There are lots of matching services on line to use by filling in your car details. Good luck.
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I would not argue that more weight you add helps provided you do not exceed the vehicles maximum weight, but the fact is that the extra weight is not relevant to the guidelines calculation. The clubs advice though is that this is for beginners, and like me you have many years experience of towing which the guidelines accept allows a greater ratio percentage. Given the cars kerb weight is in fact higher then the 96% figure looks to be wrong.
My feeling though is that we should not be suggesting that we should take any account of the extras carried in the car as it misleads newcomers who may read the posts.
At least your car is on the website which is more than ours is. When I did try to put the same model in for a different year it told me the caravan weighed more than the car, which is news to the manufacturer.
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