I have the chance of getting a very very cheap caravan, the only problem is that its bloody massive. Now license limitations aside for now, weight wise the superb should be fine towing it with it being 1.1 Ton and 1.5 Ton fully loaded (85% rule out of the window though), the only issue for me is that its a twin axle and I think stability would be an issue with it being so long. There is obviously a reason why people tow these things with a big 4x4 up front so I'm probably going to pass on it.

 

Just wondered if we have any caravan towers on here who have a variant of superb, if so how big/heavy is it?

 

I recently bought a tandem caravan with a max weight of 1200kg. Towed it home easily. twin axles don't sway around as much as singles. I'm actually chopping it up to make a 20' X 8' trailer to carry approx 1 ton and I'm certain the  170 Superb will have no problems towing it. I also tow other trailers for work.  Under our licence regs its legit on a car licence. 

I have the chance of getting a very very cheap caravan, the only problem is that its bloody massive. Now license limitations aside for now, weight wise the superb should be fine towing it with it being 1.1 Ton and 1.5 Ton fully loaded (85% rule out of the window though), the only issue for me is that its a twin axle and I think stability would be an issue with it being so long. There is obviously a reason why people tow these things with a big 4x4 up front so I'm probably going to pass on it.

 

Just wondered if we have any caravan towers on here who have a variant of superb, if so how big/heavy is it?

It would help if you put the make, year and model of the van, and the weights , these are the MIRO and MTPLM  , these will be on a plate near the door of the van, MTPLM is the maximum you can load it to.

I tow a swift single axel, at 1450, with a tow ball max weight of 75 KG on the tow bar,, this van was also towed with a 1,9 tdi both very stable, skoda recon the 2ltr tdi are fine with a van up to 1800 KG but I like to stay within the cars kerb weight.

There are some twin axel vans that look big but are fairly light , at around 1600 to 1700KG if you have the 2ltr 170 bhp you should have little or no problem towing as long as you don't go over the skoda recommended towing weight, but never go over the tow ball weight of 75KG so get the bathroom scales out and a length of broom handle, place broom handle onto the scales and into the tow hitch and lower van, if to heavy put something in the bac of the van to reduce it

Check your book the weights should be in there, or here  http://carleasingmadesimple.com/data/skoda/superb/towing-weight-limit/

Edited 11 August, 20169 yr by skippy41

It would help if you put the make, year and model of the van, and the weights , these are the MIRO and MTPLM  , these will be on a plate near the door of the van, MTPLM is the maximum you can load it to.

I tow a swift single axel, at 1450, with a tow ball max weight of 75 KG on the tow bar,, this van was also towed with a 1,9 tdi both very stable, skoda recon the 2ltr tdi are fine with a van up to 1800 KG but I like to stay within the cars kerb weight.

There are some twin axel vans that look big but are fairly light , at around 1600 to 1700KG if you have the 2ltr 170 bhp you should have little or no problem towing as long as you don't go over the skoda recommended towing weight, but never go over the tow ball weight of 75KG so get the bathroom scales out and a length of broom handle, place broom handle onto the scales and into the tow hitch and lower van, if to heavy put something in the bac of the van to reduce it

Check your book the weights should be in there, or here  http://carleasingmadesimple.com/data/skoda/superb/towing-weight-limit/

 

The weights are in my first post but to be more exact they are 1160Kgs MIRO and 1500KG  MTPLM but as I said, the weight doesn't concern me. The max tow ball weight of the superb I believe to be 80Kg?

 

The caravan is a Lunar Delta 580/4 which is 5.8 meters long internally and 7.65m shipping length. So IMO for the size of the caravan its pretty light compared to the more modern ones but the size of it still puts me off.

 

Ideally it would be better for me to get a caravan that has a 1400KG MTPLM as I could tow that with the Superb without having to do a B+E driving test as I'm under 3500KG MAM. (Passed test after 1997)

I tow a Bailey Unicorn Vigo 3.

 

7.4m shipping length MTPLM 1500kg, MIRO 1346kg, so not that different. Single axle.

 

The car is a 170 4x4 manual estate. I think Skodas limit is 2000kg towing limit but that would be well over 100%. It's the best tow car I've ever had by some margin and I have towed with Discoverys (back in the nineties).

The towing weights quoted in the owner's manual are based on the car's ability to restart on a specified incline at or near sea level. Oddly in my handbook it doesn't say what incline that is for the 2.0 TDI (it does for all the petrol variants and the 1.6 TDI). In that sense, it's very much an upper limit based on the car's performance capability rather than what might be good from a safety point of view. A caravan will present an aerodynamic challenge as well as the dead weight.

 

The type plate on the vehicle will show what the maximum allowed train weight for the vehicle is too i.e. the maximum you can load up the car/trailer combination to.

 

If the drawbar on the caravan is around the same height as the ball on the car then I'd imagine the tandem axle would be more stable to tow. If it's a case that one of the caravan's axles is consistently unloaded or lightly loaded compared to the other then it's going to be a nightmare to tow.

 

If you have the OE towing electrics on your car then the ESP will switch to a towing mode when the trailer is connected up which is supposed to help with swaying.

 

It would be worth asking if you could take the caravan for a test drive to see what you think of it behind the car if you're not sure.

I know the MAM of the car is 2096kgs which leaves me ~1400Kgs for towing at the moment before I hit the combined MAM limit of 3500 Kgs. After I complete the B+E training and test this is no longer a problem.

 

I believe the train weight listed would be the maximum laden weight of the car 2096kgs + the maximum towing limit which is 1800kgs, like you say, not necessarily safe once you combine that with the aerodynamics of a caravan. Another thing to consider is manoeuvring the caravan, reversing a heavy load about isn't going to be very good for the clutch either, even with an unladen trailer I have had a smell of clutch before on previous cars just reversing it into the drive (did take a few attempts as the opening at our old house was very narrow)

 

The towing kit I will be fitting is full integrated but it doesn't help with stability at all unless the ESP/ABS is active under skid/loss of traction conditions.

 

A test drive would probably be a good idea.

I just took a quick look at my own car's plate (CR170 Combi FWD). The maximum allowable train weight is 3940 kg, which turns out to be the total of the 2140 kg for the car plus 1800 kg for trailer. That's actually quite reassuring - some cars have a smaller total than the individual GVW and towing weight. In other words you can either tow up to the limit or load up the car fully but not both. In the Superb's case it seems they've rated it for towing at max GVW, which means there's a little overhead to go above the stated towing weight if you keep the car's weight down.

 

The ESP's towing mode will gently apply the car's brakes on individual wheels to bring things under control if it starts to detect swaying. It doesn't wait until everything's gone to hell before it does its work. Having had a trailer sway badly on me before in a crosswind it's something I'd be glad to have.

The ESP's towing mode will gently apply the car's brakes on individual wheels to bring things under control if it starts to detect swaying. It doesn't wait until everything's gone to hell before it does its work. Having had a trailer sway badly on me before in a crosswind it's something I'd be glad to have.

 

Obviously our idea or swaying is a bit different, I suppose if you do get a good swing on it to the point where the tail is wagging the dog then it would intervene 

Edited 11 August, 20169 yr by SuperbTWM

Obviously our idea or swaying is a bit different, I suppose if you do get a good swing on it to the point where the tail is wagging the dog then it would intervene 

My understanding is that the ESP intervenes long before it becomes dangerous/unrecoverable.

I tow a Bailey Unicorn Vigo 3.

 

7.4m shipping length MTPLM 1500kg, MIRO 1346kg, so not that different. Single axle.

 

The car is a 170 4x4 manual estate. I think Skodas limit is 2000kg towing limit but that would be well over 100%. It's the best tow car I've ever had by some margin and I have towed with Discoverys (back in the nineties).

 

We tow a Vigo 3 also.  The Superb and Vigo combination tows much better than the Olympus 460-2 we had previously.

Edited 12 August, 20169 yr by Conor1974

My understanding is that the ESP intervenes long before it becomes dangerous/unrecoverable.

It does, but ESP will only act if one or more of the wheels break traction, or it detects the car is moving in an opposite direction to where you are steering using a plethora of sensors. So you would have to get out of shape before it could even figure out how it could help.

 

It cannot correct anything until there is something to correct such as a slide or a skid, only then can it take action. The only time I have been saved by ESP is when I hit ice on a slight incline and started to slide, I steered into the skid but the rear end kept coming round until the ESP decided it was time to take action and straightened me up. 

It does, but ESP will only act if one or more of the wheels break traction, or it detects the car is moving in an opposite direction to where you are steering using a plethora of sensors. So you would have to get out of shape before it could even figure out how it could help.

 

It cannot correct anything until there is something to correct such as a slide or a skid, only then can it take action. The only time I have been saved by ESP is when I hit ice on a slight incline and started to slide, I steered into the skid but the rear end kept coming round until the ESP decided it was time to take action and straightened me up. 

It can work before the wheels break traction too. There are wheel speed sensors, yaw sensors, steering angle sensors, probably pitch sensors too. If a caravan is starting to sway, it's going to see that in the steering angle sensor and yaw sensor as the car starts to yaw in response to the trailer. A small nudge of the brakes on one side to correct it and you're good.

 

We're a very long way past the days when you had to be in serious trouble before the car would pick up that things are going wrong and correct it. Modern systems can kick in and act without the driver even realising there might have been something amiss. Small, early corrections are far better than waiting for it to fall apart.

The ESP will start to work a long time before the wheels break traction, using the plethora of sensors on the car. With the trailer stability turned on it will be fine. I tow a 1300kg caravan with my Yeti and I find it very stable and the engine is more then up to the job.

Because his wife doesn't have the necessary B+E licence and he was busy working I had to pick their new caravan up with their Discovery, the old one being traded in was a single axle and the new one was a twin axle of much the same weight and dimentions. It was night and day the feeling behind the wheel, I could feel the single axle pitching quite a bit and swaying slightly, whereas the twin axle was solid as a rock. I can't see you having any problems at all.

Ian

Seems like the bigger van would be more stable than I thought, When I get my tow bar fitted I will look at taking it for a spin and see what I think

I reckon you will be fine with it. As for moving it about, if you have a few quid spare you could invest in a motor mover and that will help preserve your clutch a bit.

Ian

I reckon you will be fine with it. As for moving it about, if you have a few quid spare you could invest in a motor mover and that will help preserve your clutch a bit.

Ian

Or let the clutch up in the normal manor, and just apply more power if required

Or let the clutch up in the normal manor, and just apply more power if required

" Another thing to consider is manoeuvring the caravan, reversing a heavy load about isn't going to be very good for the clutch either, even with an unladen trailer I have had a smell of clutch before on previous cars just reversing it into the drive (did take a few attempts as the opening at our old house was very narrow)"

 

That is what SuperbTWM said hence my comment about the motor mover, I definitely wouldn't be letting the clutch up in a normal manner and giving it the beans in that situation, recipe for a visit to the caravan bodyshop!

Edited 13 August, 20169 yr by countryboy