Careful caravan loading can help improve towing performance

by Chris Jefferies
Towing a heavy caravan can be a tall order for some cars and it is made even harder when it is full of all your belongings for an extended getaway.
To ease the strain on your towcar, the insurance experts over at Towergate have come up with some top tips for packing for a trip away in your tourer.
The key thing to remember is that your baggage shouldn’t exceed the maximum user payload, and this means you should weight all large items on a pair of bathroom scales before putting them in your caravan.
Once you have whittled it down to the essential items, it is important to pack them into the caravan as close to the axles as possible, as this improves stability while on the road.
For this reason, caravans with under-bed storage and cupboards that are situated at knee-height are very useful.
Towergate insurance expert Edward Cross told CaravanTimes: “Overloading your caravan can cause several problems. The axle can even become bent and this will put your caravan under increased stress while towing, which can then lead to other structural problems.
“Our general advice is to try and pack your caravan with the weightier items over the axle. If you’re not sure if your caravan is overloaded, then have it weighed at a weighbridge.”
For more tips and advice from Towergate on how best to load your caravan, read their original article: How to load your caravan for safer towing