Weighty matters

I started getting concerned about towing the caravan some time ago. Not about my ability to drive a towing vehicle (for training reasons and much experience). Not about the car’s ability to tow the caravan because that’s never felt like (and never looked like) that could be an issue. No, I started getting concerned when I began reading articles about *legal* towing limits. Legal towing limits are the absolute benchmark, just like legal speed limits. For example, it’s all very well and good that you have a 200mph-capable motorbike, but the law says the national speed limit is 70mph so that’s what you never go beyond. That’s the legal speed limit. The legal towing limit is a mathematical equation that dictates the maximum combination your car/caravan must not exceed. It also dictates the maximum weight your vehicle can tow. So if your vehicle can tow 2,000Kgs but your caravan weighs 2,500Kgs then that’s a big bucket of ooops. That’s when you would be over the legal towing limit.

There are a number of websites that calculate the individual and total towing weights of a car and caravan combination for you. They’re easy to use. First of all you try an independent website.

Don’t try the towing calculator on We Buy Any Car though. Google offers it to you at the top of a list as an advert/paid search result:

It takes you straight through to the website where it asks if you want the UK site or the US site. So you click ‘UK Site’ and then they try and give you a price for your car. No towing information at all:

That’s when you notice that if you own a Vauxhall you have to go somewhere sensible because WBAC don’t even list information for buying a Vauxhall in the first place. Well that’s mad.

Maybe try this one. You select your vehicle, select your caravan press the button and Robert’s your Mother’s Brother, the website tells you that your car/caravan combination exceeds the legal towing weight and wait, what? That’s not supposed to happen! So you try a different website. Maybe try the Camping and Motorhome Club one? Of course, you have to be a member of the club to use this but luckily, I am a fully paid up member! So you give it a go. The first thing you notice is that although the club name is the Caravan and Motorhome Club (since 1907, apparently!), the URL says caravanclub.co.uk.

Well that’s odd. But it’s got a padlock and it’s https so you cast your security concerns aside and enter all the car details correctly, then you press the button and enter all the caravan details correctly and press the button again and… You get a big fat X (not in an Elon Musk kind of way, this X is red in a ‘computer says no’ kind of way). Well, bugger. But does that mean that you are breaking the law? No, of course it doesn’t. Because you click the link for ‘more information’ and you see this info:

So in a nutshell, because the Club doesn’t know this information it just declines the search. Hmm. Fair enough. Maybe. But they make you hunt around for the notification of why they’ve ‘X’d’ your search and like the dodgy URL, that’s not good for a service that you’re effectively paying for.

I had much better luck with towingcapacity.co.uk. They returned the right kerbside weight of my car and the correct towing capacity. Except they call the car a Sports Tourer instead of a hatchback but that’s probably not too important, officer? However this website doesn’t have a padlock and isn’t https so…

You could try outandaboutlive.co.uk who look pretty good. I tried them. And the return was wrong because they have the incorrect weight for the chosen caravan in their database so why would you stick around there?

I can recommend towcar.info who give crisp advice, have an easy to use, padlocked, https website, and their car and caravan information is bang on. They ask for some financial assistance which is fair enough. Bung them the price of a Café Latté because they’re considerably better than anyone else I’ve tried. Including the members only Caravan and Motorhome Club.

However, there is a method of doing all this without resorting to the Internet. Visit your car’s VIN plate (usually tucked away in a front door jam). Whip our your phone calculator, subtract the second largest number from the first largest number and there you have it – that is your vehicle’s towing limit. Your caravan will have its kerbside weight on its own VIN plate. If the caravan’s kerbside weight is greater than the vehicle towing limit then ‘beware Will Robinson’ (ask your Dad, kids).

Needless to say that doing the manual exercise gives me exactly the same result as towcar.info which is reassuring. I’m glad that little worry has been put to bed.