Volvo XC60 bumpy ride when towing

You will not go far wrong with a Kia Sorento or Sportage go and have a look

Even if the nose weight is satisfactory after loading the van, if there is any appreciable load under the rear bed this can induce 'bounce' on a bumpy road.  If you can keep the under-bed area fairly free from significant load, and put any heavy items on the floor (over the axle and slightly to the front of it) whilst keeping the nose weight at 90kg., this should give you a more stable outfit.

I had a Bailey champagne and now a lunar Lexon 570 and have found the XC60 to be a great towing car. I’ve certainly not experienced the bounce you describe! 

Hi I must agree with the original post. We have an XC60 D4 SE LUX NAV auto 2014 model with just front wheel drive. Our first van was a Sterling Elite 480 2 berth and the towing performance over anything less than a smooth road was just appalling! The van seemed to fight the car and created a bouncy jittery ride that could at times be enough to pitch you off your seat. Our particular car only has a 75kg nose weight limit which we now believe is the real cause of these issues. We checked tyre pressures, loaded weights of both van and car all to no avail. 

We recently swapped to a fixed bed 4 berth and on towing our new van home noticed a vast improvement. Checking the nose weight revealed it to be at least 100kg however so whilst the increased load on the tow bar improved the ride it was unfortunately over the prescribed limit and had to be adjusted asap. The only way we can get anywhere near 75kg (80kg is our best yet!) was by moving everything apart from the gas cylinder from the front locker to under the transverse bed! The middle wardrobe is over the axle so all clothing went in there but other than foodstuff in the fridge everything else also has to go under the bed or the nose weight just rises again. We have a Safefill gas cylinder incidentally which is just 12kg when full! The ride is better than with the shorter van but still not as good as when running at a higher nose weight!

We took car and new van to a weigh bridge and now know that the car is just 2005kg against a maximum permissible 2500kg so we wonder if this gives us some freedom to operate at a higher nose weight as the limit is presumably based on the capacity of the rear suspension? Does anyone have any advice on this please? The van is under its permissible maximum when fully loaded so we are happy this is within legal limits.

We have also considered changing the car too! Does anyone have experience of towing with a late model XC60 BD5 4x4 fitter with air suspension? Was wondering if the AS makes a noticeable difference?

Thanks in anticipation 

Michael

Corrected post, - couple of important words missed out..

If my schoolboy physics is remembered correctly from 60 years ago, even though the static nose weight may be correct, any heavy load towards the rear of the caravan would potentially create a pendulum effect, the static weight becoming a dynamic weight which could then increase. Centred around the axle it would create a negative effect on the towball.

Dear JohnM20,

I too fully appreciate the downside of loading too far behind the axles which is why I am keeping everything behind but still as close as possible to the axle line. However my initial dilemma still remains in that I am faced with a choice of overloading the tow hitch or creating a potentially dangerous situation of the van starts to swing! Hence my query on the possibility of raising the nose weight without fear of consequences, given that the car is well below its maximum running weight and therefore nowhere near the maximum designed loading for the rear suspension? If not then I am faced with little alternative other than to change the car 

Not sure of exact weights but are you not over 90% with that combination. The higher the towing ratio the more likely the van can be felt.