towing by"a frame

[Guest brenroy]

Can anyone help? At the moment I have a scooter on the back of my gazelle f61 and I would like to tow a small car during the winter, can anyone recommend a small car that would be Suitable to have an a frame fitted and where I should go to have it fitted (the wife quite likes the ford KA )

[Guest audrey]

Suggest you contact Car-A-Tow. They would be able to advise you on the suitability of car to be towed by your motorhome. We tow a Nissan Micra.

[Guest Roy]

Brenroy. As far as I can understand the law and read up on "A" frames, it is legaly possible to tow an unbraked trailer of not more than 750Kg, there are two cars that are under this limit, a French Aixam Which I have looked at it is 2 cylinders & runs like a tractor. The other is a Perodua I have not driven one but they look great,The one I saw was a Kancil at new £4700and comes in 660 & 850 flavours. Contacts are aixam.co.uk 01491 415230 or type in perodua Chriss Cox 0121 681 65 13 expert on "A" frames made them for the two cars above. roy

[Guest Rowan Lee]

We have just been through all this, taking a year to make up our minds that we wanted a trailer, then we changed it again and are going to ProTow next week with our Honda Jazz. Have a look at www.protowframes.co.uk. It seems there has been some clarification of the law recently by the DOT - see http://www.ukmotorhomes.net/a-frames.shtml although this is bad news for Aixams etc. This is also published on the DOT site but I couldn't find it again to give you the details! We eventually decided on the A-frame because there is little noseweight compared with a trailer and we are already close to our rear axle weight on the motorhome. Also, our Jazz has a new digital speedo which does not clock up the miles whilst being towed. We proved this by towing it on a rope up and down an old airfield! Hope this helps, but give ProTow a ring, the lady there is very helpful.

[Guest Mel E]

We have just given up A-frame towing after doing it for over 5 years. It was nothing but trouble - for example, we had continuing problems with the brakes on the car not releasing properly, causing overheating and, eventually, a damaged wheel bearing. Whatever the proponents say, it is of dubious legality. In many countries, towing a trailer (which is what the sales spiel says you are doing) limits your maximum speed very severely (to 50mph in Spain and Germany, for example, even on motorways!). Incidentally a note on the 750Kg limit: the 750Kgs applies to the Maximum Authorised Weight of towed car and A-frame and NOT to its actual weight. I believe this puts the Perodua over the limit.

[Guest brenroy]

Thanks to everyone who took the trouble to reply, your responses were very helpful.

[Guest Tony Hunt]

Pro Tow are the experts. I have several friends who have them fitted and have no problems at all. I myself am now going to change from pulling a four wheel trailer to having a pro frame fitted. I have had no problems with towing a trailer other than the usual one of having to find somewhere to park and chain up the trailer whilst not being used. Most sites are ok but had problems down in spain one winter on a busy site trying to fit everything on the space alloted. None of my friends have experienced any brake problems but they do check them out regularly just in case. Maybe mel yours werent set right from the start. The speed limit of 50 mph apply wether using an A frame or car trailer. I have also noticed on a regular basis that I get 2-3 miles less per gallon than my friends with identical vans because of the extra towing weight of the trailer plus car. Over a long trip to spain this mounts up considerably.

[Guest Derek Uzzell]

I suspect Mel E was picky about the brake adjustment on his A-frame, and that the reason people don't generally have the type of problems Mel mentions is because the brakes on their towed cars are only working within a fraction of their normal capability. The vast majority of the cars likely to be A-frame towed have heavily power-assisted brakes using a vacuum system driven by the vehicle's motor. If you switch off your car's motor and then try braking, once the residual vacuum has been used up a huge amount of footbrake pedal-pressure will be needed to obtain any sort of useful retardation. It's patently unrealistic to expect a basic Bowden-cable 'over-run' system that tugs on the car's brake pedal to generate such a force. Probably doesn't matter much in practice as long as you have a sufficiently large towing vehicle and remember that you are really braking for two.

[Guest Roy Hamilton]

To Rowan Lee. Your website address for Prowtow won't work, can you check it please. And as I have also got a Honda Jazz what are you towing it with? Thanks.

[Guest Rowan Lee]

Roy, I took that address straight from their leaflet and have just tried it myself, it seems to work ok. http://www.protowframes.co.uk/ I've just cut and pasted that so try it again. We have a Maesss (Belgian), which is a Fiat Ducato 2.8TD, the usual base. As a motorhome, it handles very well and flies along, at least it did, which I'll tell you about in a mo, but we haven't towed with it yet so I can't comment. Now that we have added the towbar, we are very near our back axle weight on the van though, and this was a major factor in changing our minds from trailer to A-frame, because there is negligible noseweight. Also the recent DOT clarification, which is still not 100% but helps. With regard to the car brakes, there are rules about the braking for trailers, and ProTow have had their frames independently tested and the braking capacity falls well within the requirements, so they tell me. The Jazz is being fitted at ProTow next Thursday/Friday, so if you would like an update I'll be happy to do so. In the meantime, we have the dreaded Fiat no 5th gear problem (at only 30,000 kms), so we have had to leave it at the Fiat dealer whilst we stay in an hotel in Bournemouth - not cheap next week! Sorry, I've rabbitted a bit. Ro

[Guest Tony Hunt]

5th gear now thats another can of worms. The biggest problem with Fiat based motorhomes is not the vehicle itself its the way Mr average drives them. The average motorhome driver has been so used to driving their cars around in mostly top gear and have not had the experience of normal white van man and Mr trucker. All commercial drivers know how to use their gear boxes, changing up and down through the box on every incline as and when needed. I regularly watch other motorhomers in identical Fiat based vehicles to mine on hills. You know theyre still trying to reach the summit in 5th in the belief that theyre saving fuel and theres no way theyre going to change down because to do so will pump more fuel through. I watch them getting further and further behind until we go over the brow of the hill then they catch up again. The moral of this story is if you dont want fifth gear problems use your gearbox for what it was intended. I had this confirmed by 3 different Fiat dealers including Essenjay at Bournemouth.

[Guest Rowan Lee]

Tony, I hear what you say. Unfortunately ours already had 19,000 on the clock and we cannot be sure what the previous owners did with it! We know they went to the south of Spain, so maybe they sat with the engine idling to run the aircon, which I gather would have the effect of not pushing the oil up into the fifth gear area of the box. I don't think we have been guilty of mistreating it in the manner you describe, but I have now read that fifth should not be used below around 50 mph. I guess we do a lot of motoring at that sort of speed in 5th, as you would in a car, so will have to be more aware in future.

[Guest Tony Hunt]

Hello Rowan. Its a very real problem made worse by the fact that most motorhomes are run near their maximum loadweights all the time. A good proportion of the Fiat Ducato vans you see running around the motorways are not carrying the loads that we do. Some obviously do but a lot are used for parcels or by jobbing builders etc etc Fully loaded you have to use the gearbox otherwise your more than likely going to get problems eventually with the fifth gear. Apparently Fiat dont recognise theres a problem because only a small proportion of their vans are used as motorhomes and the bulk of their vehicles used for what was intended dont cause a problem to them.

[Guest Brian]

On the subject of the rear axle weight limit, I was very close to it so I removed the spare wheel under the rear of my Fiat Laika, made a neat cover for it and stood it behind the passenger seat.Wedged with a block with velcro on the bottom to the carpet and a strap to keep it from moving.The wheel actually weighed 29kg this actually put 42.5kg on the rear axle using the calculation as printed in the MMM some time ago,due to the excessive overhangof my M/H, more than compensating for my motorcycle trailer.Theres usually bags to play with on the front axle so try to shift as much as possible to the front.