Choosing a Vehicle to Tow a Trailer or Caravan

Whether you want to buy a caravan for your holidays or a trailer to use for your work, as well as making sure that you choose the right caravan or trailer for your needs, you also need to ensure that the vehicle that you are using to tow your trailer or caravan is well suited to your needs too.

When choosing a trailer or caravan you will obviously need to choose something suited to your needs, be aware of maintenance that is required, where to get the right trailer parts like this autoandtrailer.com/ from and be aware of legal requirements for towing.

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Firstly, you should be aware that in 1997, the law changed on towing. Anyone who passed their driving test before January 1997 is able to tow, and you can tow a combined weight of 8250 kg or under, however if you passed your test after this and you want to drive a car and trailer or caravan that has a combined weight of over 3500 kg, you will need to take an additional test which is a B+E towing test.

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The weight of the towing vehicle is something that you need to consider, and the kerb weight (which is the weight of the car when it is full) should at least be equal to if not it should exceed the weight of what you are towing. You can find the kerb weight of the car in the handbook if you are unsure.

You also need to consider the power of the engine, as of course you need to make sure that the engine can manage the weight of the caravan or trailer. An automatic gearbox is also preferable for towing, as there isn’t the wear on the clutch to deal with.

Richard Brown

Richard

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