Matching your car to a caravan
Well I have just sold my old unit and was looking to replace it with a newer one. I used the Match your car to your caravan tool here on the C&MHC Website and it is telling me that no new unit is compatible with any caravan under 10 years old.
How reliable is this tool and is there an alternative way of checking compatibility of car to caravan??
Comments
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I totally agree with Flatcoat and have used https://towcar.info/GB/
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In the past, meeting the legal requirements was always a bit of a nightmare. Now that I pull our 1500kg MTPLM van with a VW Caravelle, I can at least relax by only needing to watch the van's max permitted weight and the noseweight. The Caravelle max. weights are all well above our needs. But I still raise and lower the small difference in tyre pressures between "normal" driving and when loaded and towing.
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The weights of the car are on a weight plate, usually on a front door frame or under the bonnet. From this you can work out what the car can tow. I thought tow weights were on the V5? Anyway, if you have a new car, weights are nearly always in the brochure, or on the manufacturers website.
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Using figures gleaned from a brochure or website can be risky because one can't guarantee that either are always up-to-date. Manufacturers sometimes change their specifications in the course of a model year, such as if a new engine replaces an older one, and this is not always immediately reflected in published data. For definitive information, one must always refer to the plated weights or the Certificate of Conformity.
The tow weight shown on the V5 is not legally enforceable because there is no law which says that it's an offence to exceed it. On the other hand, the plated weights, including the gross train weight, are enforceable.
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I would agree that trusting a brochure is risky but, if the manufacturer and the DVLA have done their work properly, The vehicle's plated weight, its handbook and the V5 should all agree.
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you said earlier that there can be a big difference between the two, people who have been towing for years know that but beginners won't. If all the clubs and forums and dealers and matching services talk about kerbweights then that's what they will go on or try and find out, as you say, only mass in service is printed on most v5c's so why does every authority/club/dealer never say these weights. hope you understand were I'm coming from with this. cheers.
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The thing is, mass in service is a generic value that applies to all vehicles covered by the same type approval, regardless of what their actual weight is. This makes it easy to publish such data because it is largely independent of factory fitted options, some of which can weigh quite a lot.
Kerbweight, on the other hand, is an actual weight that is specific to each and every vehicle. To make any sense it must therefore be linked to each individual chassis number. It is therefore something that can't be listed in any brochure, handbook or database other than for general guidance purposes. A club, dealer, or towing compatibility website can never have kerbweight information because it's not documented anywhere.
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