Found a Skoda weakness - tow ball load.

[Hillbilly]

Quote"Also tare ball weight anything up to the cars limit is fine - then it's a matter of correct loading. It is not inevitable that it will increase when loaded. If it does, its loaded incorrectly".. Says who.

Hmm a person who doesnt have a van preaching to the experienced

It is desirable to have a certain amount of positive ball weight for stability. even at the Octavias very low tow limit of 1400kg it should have a ball weight of over 5% which is right on your limit even if a Euro van A 1400kg AUS van would have at least 120-140kg

. You have a lot to learn about towing and weights. I did point out that VWs were built to tow Eurovans but we are not in Europe. If you buy a Euro van you will probably be fine. Otherwise if you want to go vanning you may have to consider a more suitable tow vehicle for our Aussie conditions.

Hooray for your consumption I get 4.9 out of the Polo

[Transporter]

Quote"Also tare ball weight anything up to the cars limit is fine - then it's a matter of correct loading. It is not inevitable that it will increase when loaded. If it does, its loaded incorrectly"..

Says who.
Hmm a person who doesnt have a van preaching to the experienced. You have a lot to learn about towing and weights. I did point out that VWs were built to tow Eurovans but we are not in Europe. If you buy a Euro van you will probably be fine. Otherwise if you want to go vanning you may have to consider a more suitable tow vehicle for our Aussie conditions.

Hooray for your consumption I get 4.9 out of the Polo

Old Holden Kingswood?

[Hillbilly]

Maybe our caravans aren’t built to the world standard.

Or should I say European standard.

Or maybe a certain persons standard

[wfdTamar]

They're just different. Tougher, or rather, more crudely built and they rely on weight for stability where the Euro ones are lighter to save fuel and because their roads are better (generally) and they use smart hitches for stability. Also means you don't need big heavy vehicles to tow them.

It's just like US vans seem to be bigger and loaded up with heavy fittings - weight is no problem with low fuel prices.

[wfdTamar]

Ha ha, this is like the conversations I had on the caravaners forums. People who are wrong and can't admit it, or see that they might be. Who go off on a tangent thinking they're telling you things you don't know. Quite tedious.

My cars limits are 1600/75 - about 4.75%. I have seen approx. 1500kg ATM Euro vans with tare ball weights of 60kg. I'm not even considering Australian vans as I know they're not suitable for the car. I'm not looking to do the Tanami track. Sure if you buy a Euro car and van you're more limited than if you buy a 4WD and Australian off road van, but you use a hell of a lot less fuel.

Don't have a van but passed English at school so know how to read and interpret it.

'Says who?' the rest of what I wrote - loads of UK Octavia owners towing vans. Logic and the basic principles of leverage and mechanics. The fact it won tow car awards. If you were correct it couldn't do that surely?

Great you get 4.9 from a Polo. and?

All I said was (warning potential buyers) a weakness of Skoda's is the low ball weight limit. Correct response surely is something like, 'yes, it's a shame. Probably does limit our choice of vans we can use. Funny that some VW cars have a slightly higher limit.'

I really don't see it as something to get rude about.

[Hillbilly]

They're just different. Tougher, or rather, more crudely built and they rely on weight for stability where the Euro ones are lighter to save fuel and because their roads are better (generally) and they use smart hitches for stability. Also means you don't need big heavy vehicles to tow them.

It's just like US vans seem to be bigger and loaded up with heavy fittings - weight is no problem with low fuel prices.

I seem to recall saying that in my replies. A Smart hitch wont save you when you whack the brakes on at 100kph and the van starts to take over. All it does is clamp the hitch tighter onto the ball to resist sway to a certain degree. However a university study in Great Britain showed that loading had more to do with it than tight balls.

USA have predominatly fifth wheelers by a ratio of at least 10 to 1 saw thousands of them in my last two trips over there but very few caravans like we have here. Also the tugs used in the USA are predominantly light trucks with a much higher tow capacity than the ones we have here EG a F250 or 350 can tow well over 4 tonnes whereas none of our utes can do that

I dont see the low ball weight as a weakness as you put it just something to be aware of as I was when I bought the Passat I checked before I bought it and as it was low didnt bother with a tow bar. HAd I want to tow I would have bought something suitable

[wfdTamar]

A Smart hitch wont save you when you whack the brakes on at 100kph and the van starts to take over. All it does is clamp the hitch tighter onto the ball to resist sway to a certain degree

.......

Er, yes it will. They have brakes - well as good as any other van will. In fact, I'd rather have that setup than 150-200kg pushing down hard on the tow bar (no matter what the vehicle).

[Jondalar]

I wasn't considering towing a caravan when I bought the car, but I had seen that it won numerous UK tow car of the year (in it's weight category) awards. So I presumed it would be ok and in the UK it would be, but not so easy here.

I've been using this site to check various cars to caravans.

Outfit Matching Car and Caravan


Also found this site which has a link to a PDF with loads of cars stats in it (a little out of date though). Vehicle Towing Mass Guide (although it's wrong for my car).

Helpful Hints & Tips - Ian Grant's Caravans

Thanks for the van matching site, very interesting. It's a shame there's no equivalent site for Aussie vans, but then perhaps they'd stop making such inefficient (weighwise) vans here. My wife and I had caravans for many years but sold up in 2016 to concentrate on overseas travel. I was also sick of having to drive a big 4X4. There are definitely Adria vans sold here that you could tow and not all caravanning involves staying in a crowded van park. My fave part was the Outback, or remote coastal areas.