{"id":1118,"date":"2011-08-08T20:35:13","date_gmt":"2011-08-08T10:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.privatefleet.com.au\/?p=1118"},"modified":"2020-06-20T01:53:55","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T15:53:55","slug":"towing-it-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/home\/towing-it-right\/","title":{"rendered":"Towing it right."},"content":{"rendered":"

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Every now and then, most of us have need of a trailer.\u00a0 There are many different trailers and loads one can tow.\u00a0 There\u2019s the camping trailer for the weekend away; or what about the caravan, instead, for a little more luxury.\u00a0 Perhaps some of us will have a horse and will require a vehicle to tow the horse float.\u00a0 \u00a0Most of us could do with a small trailer to get rid of household rubbish to the dump.\u00a0 One thing that\u2019s very easy to do, particularly if you have little experience, is to mismatch a heavy load to a small tow vehicle.\u00a0 Now there\u2019s no way a Mini is going to pull a tandem trailer full of wood without straining. What are some things to look out for?<\/p>\n

Firstly, do you have the right vehicle to tow?\u00a0 Some of the very small cars on the market are, in fact, not well equipped for towing. A lightly built vehicle is going to struggle to tow much more than 500 kg and sometimes the vehicle manufacture will actually state in the car\u2019s manual that it is not fit to tow.\u00a0 Do check whether your Ford Festiva or your Fiat Punto is actually recommended for towing.\u00a0 Sometimes it comes down to the car\u2019s structural integrity being too light to cope with the stresses that a trailer will put on the car\u2019s bodywork and chassis \u2013 and the manufacturer will state this.<\/p>\n

When considering towing, make sure that your car has good brakes, plenty of torque and power, is preferably rear-wheel-drive or four-wheel-drive and has a suitably rated towbar for the task at hand.\u00a0 Light trailers are, generally, fine for any type of car.<\/p>\n

Front-wheel-drive cars with a load on the back are ok for light towing that is done on the flat; however, for heavier trailers front wheel-drive cars are not ideal. Their front wheels can sometimes struggle for traction and cause a lot of stress on the car\u2019s driving componentry \u2013 particularly when going uphill on gravel roads.\u00a0 In some cases, the gradients on gravel roads will be too steep for a front-wheel-drive car to cope with and you\u2019ll get nowhere.\u00a0 It\u2019s very funny for bystanders to watch but not so great for the driver of the car, and the repair bills.<\/p>\n

A little trick to remember when towing a trailer: Make sure that your load is well distributed on the trailer.\u00a0 Have the heaviest part of the load sitting over the trailer\u2019s axle\/axles.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t distribute the weight correctly on the trailer, the unbalanced weight can greatly affect the vehicle\u2019s handling, making driving dangerous.\u00a0 Numerous times trailers that have too much weight behind the axle have caused the tow vehicle to jack knife.\u00a0 Also, with too much weight sitting in front of the trailer\u2019s axle the tow car can be pushed heavily down at the rear which lightens up the front end grip and steering characteristics \u2013 tow vehicles can sometimes keep going in a straight line instead of going around the corner when this is the case.<\/p>\n

Do check that the bulk of the load is sitting over the axles and is secured so that the load does not move.<\/p>\n

Try a bit of practice at backing!\u00a0 It\u2019s not always as simple as it might seem.\u00a0 Do master it before heading down to the dump. Many times I\u2019ve seen plenty of people smiling at the driver who is trying to back the trailer with little success. http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/zaymi-listing.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every now and then, most of us have need of a trailer.\u00a0 There are many different trailers and loads one can tow.\u00a0 There\u2019s the camping trailer for the weekend away; or what about the caravan, instead, for a little more luxury.\u00a0 Perhaps some of us will have a horse and will require a vehicle to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1118"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12439,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118\/revisions\/12439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}