towing a car on a trailer

[fesspark]

Morning members, I am thinking of having a tow bar, trailer,and a smaller car,to tow behind my new ixeo 4 ton m,home, as now I have reached the young age of 80,my legs do not take me far when I am parked up.? I would like do,es and don,ts and sensible advice on the subject please, I have experience of towing and I have a C1 licence.Thank you all in anticipation. Fesspark.

[Skipper43]

First of all, check the Gross Train Weight of your vehicle to see if this is viable. From the Gross Train Weight take the fully laden weight of your Motorhome and the difference is what you can tow. When you tow a trailer you have to have nose weight on the hitch which effectively adds to the laden weight of your motor home.

Next consider the weight of your proposed trailer loaded with a car to see if it fits in with the figure obtained from your laden weight to the Gross Train Weight.

 

I have noticed a company advertising trailer for motorhomes and a twin axle trailer will weigh around 400kg. Add the weight of the car. The Toyota Aygo, Citroen C1 and Peugeot 108 all weigh in under a 1000kg for example.

 

The other option is for the UK only. Companies such as Tow Bars 2 Tow Cars (there are others) can fit an A Frame to small cars such as those above and that includes a system to use the car’s own braking system. The advantage with that set up is you only need to have a Train Weight which covers the weight of the car + the A Frame set up which is less than 10kgs.

You cannot use A Frames in France or Spain and it looks like Germany is about to go that way. In the UK the A Frame is Legal and saves you the hassle of having a trailer and a car to pitch.

[takeaflight]

Having towed a trailer and car for over 10 years, generally in Europe, I would recommend a tiltbed, no heavy ramps, I have used twin and single axel. No problems, but I always felt more comfortable with a twin in case of a puncture on the move, the good remaining tyre will probably save the day. We also used a box and had fitted a caravan motor mover which was great when fully loaded on grass, there is no way we could have pushed it around, however check that the trailer can take these, the ones with an axel on each wheel can't.

Also have a tow bar fitted to the car. If we was staying infer for one night or a pitch allowed it, I would always try to pitch with the trailer connected, if this was not possible then I would stop by the pitch off load the car, detach the trailer pitch the motorhome, then hitch the trailer to the car and park that on the pitch. Sounds a lot of work but in reality this only took a matter of minutes, unless I attracted an audience and had a question and answer session. We preferred the trailer for the following, no mods to the car, and we did change the cars when our circumstances changed, I used the trailer on occasions for other things, I have always bought second hand and sold them with no monetary lose. Assuming weight is OK then 100% legal.