Will a motor mover save me buying a 4WD car?
Hi, I've had my caravan for a year and we've had some superb trips, but grassy sites (including the site where I store our van) out of summer are an issue, as I've got stuck in the mud a few times already.... Embarrassing and time consuming having to get towed out by a tractor/4 wheel drive!
We have a 2 litre VW Passat which is perfectly adequate for towing on roads, but not so good towing anything like off road, and we're seriously thinking about getting a new 4 wheel-drive towing vehicle.
I'd rather not though to save money and hassle, and I'm wondering whether getting a motor mover fitted would do the job, enough to help us get across wet and muddy ground?
I'm guessing one would be fine for this but just wondering if anyone would advise against it, or has done something similar?
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I doubt if a motor mover would cope with a lot of mud. The caravan would have to be unhitched and the jockey wheel would sink into the mud. The small drive wheels would soon get coated in mud and possibly slip on the tyre. You could ask the manufacturers and I think they would agree with me.
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Not sure how your Passat is equipped in the tyre stakes DS, might be worth looking at MUD and SNOW tyres or similar first -- Much cheaper than a 4bee to start off. As far as motor movers are concerned everybody with one seems to rate them very highly on grass and hard stands as well -- JUST DON'T PUT THE CONTROL DOWN & FORGET WHERE IT IS
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Have you thought of getting some mats? even had to use them with my 4/4 ifyou have road tyres on a 4/4 you will still get stuck
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Never had a problem with mud affecting the drive onto the tyres s although I have used a motormover over soft ground the turf has been intact and any mud has been limited to muddy water. I suppose a larger tyred jockey wheel might help such as a blow up one. On very soft ground where a couple of motorhomes had bogged I parked the car on a hard area 30m from the caravan. To avoid the jockey wheel bogging I rotated the caravan on the mover and reversed it out on the mover spinning it around again when I reached hard ground by the tow car.
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Ah okay. Thanks very much all for your feedback, sounds like adding a motor mover would improve things but probably isn't the silver bullet I was hoping for!
Which motor mover do you have though EasyT? Soft ground with turf basically intact is the sort of ground we want to be able to go on but got stuck in.
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Two very interesting points, I hadn't heard of mats (in this context...) before, and your point on getting stuck in a 4/4 anyway cools my rush to go and get one. Thanks!
Mats are a pretty good option are they? Have you used them much, good success rate?
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A MM certainly isn’t a silver bullet. As others have said, they’re great on firm ground.
We had 4x4s as well as a mover as they serve different purposes but, if you must choose one or the other, I’d suggest a 4x4 fitted with AT tyres.
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The make does not really matter. In the past Powrtouch but presently Reich. Go forward with a standard, narrow and hard jockey wheel and jockey wheel will plug if really soft. Spin around and reverse caravan to better ground and less drama.
We presently have an X-Trail with optional auto 4 wheel drive or 4 wheel drive lock. I have used the auto on poor carriageway on twisty and high gradient areas but only used the lock when on soft sand and or on a site where the alternative was to be sited by site tractor.
Many of the problems town off wet grass came when family cars went from rear wheel drive with the caravan weight over driven wheels to front wheel drive.
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in the locker on our van we have two very lightweight traction tracks like this:
We got after after being stuck on one of our very few non club sites visits in the early days. Been hard standing ever since.
That time someone lent us some old strips of carpet that worked just as well. Suffice to say they are still in their wrappers after almost 20 years
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Thanks again all. I think I'll get some of those tracks, but also be a bit more realistic about where we can go with our tow car...
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If my storage location was soft ground I would invest in a couple of 1.5 metre long offcuts of builders scaffolding plank rejects and sit the wheels on these in storage. The big issue on soft ground and storage is settlement into the ground and the pull or push needed to climb the wheels out of those depressions. Once rolling. as you come off the planks, you are generally okay and so don't stop till at least the car is stood on something pretty solid, best both are.
The ability of the mover on wet ground largely depends on the caravan's weight as the friction of a loaded roller on a rubber tyre is virtually the same for a 1200 kg van as it is for my 1900kg van. There is no way with that sat in a muddy water depression of any real depth it would climb out, the rollers would just mill the tyres.
With 4 x 4s there are 4 x 4 and 4 x 4 ststems as well as the mentioned vast difference in traction from road tolerable tyres to off roading tyres, plus now there are traction control intervention systems using brakes and locking diffs.
It is far from as simple as just buying a 4 x 4.
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Agree completely ,, dont like hardstanding ,prefer grass , use short lenghs of wood to let the caravan tyres sit on ,so when you pull away the initial momentum keeps you going , You can put the tracks in front of caravan tyres for a bit more help , or if front wheel drive , under drive wheels , But if its a bog were all struggling.
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It’s a shame that modern saloons won’t perform on grass sometimes particularly if it’s wet, but that’s the way it is now with caravans having become heavier (and cars lighter). I wouldn’t even consider my Seat Leon Estate a towcar. I too prefer grass pitches. Due to the fact that I have a towcar that is well capable of looking after itself on all terrains I have been asked to assist people off sites and will no doubt be asked in the future. The problem is here of course that unless you have very deep pockets and can afford the Range Rovers, Discovery or Toureg type vehicles, it is inevitable that you will encounter problems from time to time. I was fortunate. I found a Toyota Surf, now some 23 yrs old which I fitted with Grabber tyres and which runs like a watch and cost me very little but has afforded me the freedom to visit any site I wish which is very important due to the fact that we are completely off-grid caravaners and the pitches are always grass. I have to say, that I have found since fitting a mover, it has been a real boon on site. I wouldn’t want to be without one now.
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It is a long time since we were on a muddy grass pitch at Harrogate (now not a club site). The wardens were having to tow most people off, but we got our caravan off using the motor mover for some distance. It was no problem but I would accept that backwards would be better if the jockey wheel was sinking.
That was in the early days of movers, so our set up tended to be something that others stared at, and probably sold the makers quite a few more.
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disavaged we have just changed to a motorhome previously had a caravan with mover & a 4x4
we had to move the van backwards from its storage space down a gravel path & turn it - move it uphill to hitch up
On return > Turn & move the van forwards up the gravel path
Yes the jockey wheel dug into the gravel But it was far easiest way to hitch up and repark
On site you just pull in from of your pitch Unhitch and move the van to any point on your pitch
We found it more manouverable that using the 4x4
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A decent four by four with suitable tyres, and learning how to pitch up using the four by four to manoeuvre, will see you pitched up almost anywhere except the deepest of mud. Motor movers are good for that last shuffle to get into awkward pitches or storage spaces. But not if it’s muddy.🙂
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As others have said, a MM isnt a substitute for 4wd however i would not be without either. I would first start with the less costly option of changing the car tyres to something better suited to muddy ground and get some old mats to use, a trick as old as the hills and also works in snow. I would also look at the exit route on/off your pitch before selecting to minimise traction problems. On those rare occasions we are on grass i try to ensure the departure direction avoids any dips or uphill bits. Maybe some specialist driving skills/techniques might be worth looking into (try youtube). If you still need 4wd remember you can get a Passat Alltrack (i drive one) and equivalent used
4wd Insignia and Mondeo estates so changing vehicle doesnt have to be expensive.
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