Are you sure

[TonyN]

The way I understand it the maximum gross weight of outfit (i.e. trailer weight + load weight) must not exceed 3500Kg for normal cars (ie. no tacho)

The rule of thumb is not to exceed 85% of the kerbside weight of the towing vehicle, you can only go what the vehicle maker recommends, nothing is laid down by law regarding how much a curtain vehicle can tow, but if your stopped by the law, or in an accident your at their mercy to prove your being sensible with what your towing.

So if a Surf weighs roughly 2 ton, it will tow 1.7 ton, but this puts you over the Max allowed vehicle train weight. So get a tacho!

The stupid thing about the regs is if you have a lighter car, less able to tow heavy trailers, you can pull a heaver trailer and stay under 3.5T

A UK 4Runner 3.0TD has a Kerb weight of 1900kg (according to Bundubasher), leaving you only 1600kg for the trailer. A 4Runner fully loaded at it its GVW of 2510 kg leaves you only 990kg.

Specs for a Land Cruiser Colorado 3-door
Kerb Weight=1890kg
85% of KW =1607kg
but, Manufacturers Max Towing Weight is 2800kg+kerb weight=4690kg, well over the max for towing without a tacho.

[Phil H]

I have the email address for the caravan club technical department somewhere in my workshop. I will dig it out and ask them to give an answer according to current law. It will be interesting to know where you stand with the max train weight etc. Even with my van it will be close to Max when the car and van are loaded.

Phil

[gemini]

but the surf is easily classed as a commercial vehicle and the question is what is the combined maximum authorised mass of a surf

and who in the caravan club wrote the article ... the partime girl who babysits for the major . Me ... I would only take a fact as fact if it was quoted from a govt doc Iano (unless or course it was an official www.hiluxsurf.co.ok brief ). The fact that it says commercial vehicle ppiisssseess me off coz it implies you must be involved in business to have such a vehicle .... bull****, can't somebody own a transit for the hell of it. What do you call your man the boxer yeh Chris Eubank who has the Kenworth in his garage, he's not pulling for Tesco is he.

Ian, as always , respect...

jim, when it says commercial, i understand that to be a twin wheeler commercial vehicle which needs a class 7 mot as opposed to an ordinary mot, over here anyway, with a maximum laden weight of 3 1/2 ton ie. transit twin wheeler or something similar

[rockey]

Wow I two pages for my third post
Sorry Caravan is 24' (finger trouble) and 1700kg is my laden weight, anyway it would seem that the Surf is O.K. which is exactly what I was hoping.
Thanks all for your input, I'm so pleased I found this site, I use another for my Motor bike and find the people on these sort of forums so willing to help and advise
Now thats sorted I can get down to some serious searching.
Thanks again
John

[TonyN]

Wow I two pages for my third post
Sorry Caravan is 24' (finger trouble) and 1700kg is my laden weight, anyway it would seem that the Surf is O.K. which is exactly what I was hoping.
Thanks all for your input, I'm so pleased I found this site, I use another for my Motor bike and find the people on these sort of forums so willing to help and advise
Now thats sorted I can get down to some serious searching.
Thanks again
John

Yeah, toyota reckon a similar in weight 3door L.Cruiser will safely tow a 2800kg trailer, so your good to go.

[Keith]

I think that it is important that we are very clear on certain things. Manufacturers quote a towing limit based on the ability of their vehicle to move a towed object under certain circumstances - e.g. starting off on a hill of a certain steepness. They are not necessarily concerned with the safety of you, your family or other road users. The caravan council make a very sensible recomendation that the towed vehicle should never weigh more than the kerb weight (unloaded) of the towing vehicle and for the less experienced towers 85% should be seen as the safe maximum. There are very sound reasons for this. If the tail is bigger than the dog then when the tail wags the dog wags too. I have towed for 30 years and am well aware that the most dangerous part of towing is snaking. This can be caused by poor road surface, cross winds and most frequently by the suction effect of large vehicles passing too closely. If the caravan starts to snake the only thing that it going to stop it is the towing vehicle taking charge, and to do this it needs to have the weight advantage.
My caravan has a maximum gross weight of 1800kg but as its unladen weight is 1340kg I estimate that I tow it weighing about 1550kg.
My 2.4 tdi Surf weighs about 1800kg and it tows it beautifully. I use a top quality stabiliser and ensure that the van is loaded properly. It tows beautifully and is within not only the limits of the vehicle in terms of power etc. but also maintains a significany weight advantage.
If you want to tow with no margin of safety tow a caravan which weighs more than the towing vehicle. It is your choice and your responsibility but please let the forum know so that I can be on a different road. When the **** hits the van the badly matched unit is the one which crosses the carriageway and four or five tons of metal does a lot of damage.
Some 4x4s weigh about 2200kg+ (Disco's etc.) and I would urge you to go for a vehicle in that bracket and be safe.

Keith

[da SLUG man]

thats what I was missing dabigman,

still not giving up thoug coz when the circus pulls into town you see big pickups with '5th wheels' in the load space, and on the front of these huge 40ft caravans a kingpin (just like on an artic, a 5th wheel is the wheel sized receiver with a wedge shape missing from it where the kingpin clicks in) . They've got the weight capability. Can u sense I'm beaten and am clutching at straws... go on hit me one more time. (by the way redneck, why not be the first in the caravan park to show them all how it can be done, its easier to reverse a longer trailer than a short one and you know it)

i've been thinkiing about this all day... even checked on the MOT plate of a 40tonne scania!... then it struck me that if a 45 ft trailer had wheels in the middle, you'd have one hell of an overhang!!

[Silver Surfer]

Don't get me started on construction and use regulations, I used to know most of them as I had to learn these rules to pass my CPC in road transport, but I've forgotten most of them. Some points I remember, and one is about showmens wagons, a showman used to be able to tax his tractor unit for less than a private car, but he could carry no weight in his unit, that's why you see them with dolly trailers, and perhaps a generator on the back of the tractor, which was classed as plant. On the subject of axle placement there is a formula which dictates how much of a vehicles body can be to the rear of the back axle, and this is base on length and axle weights. Caravans can be fitted with over-run brakes quite easily so that stops you being pushed into the ditch by the trailer. The worst experience I had when driving an artic was when the trailer suzie broke, so I drained the trailer air tanks, and made for home, the first roundabout I came to I braked at a slight angle and the f*****g trailer nearly pushed me into the middle of next week. Scary stuff. So whatever you're towing be aware of the fact that it can bite you from behind if you're not careful.
John

[rockey]

Keith,
I have no intention of towing a trailer heavier than the tow vehicle, as I said the Laden weight of my van is 1700KGs, and as an aside did you know that 'Stabilizers' of the bar type (i.e. Bulldog) are only designed to help limit snaking, I also have been towing for some time albeit not as long as you and the first thing I do on renewing my van is to fit an alko hitch with built in friction clutches which are designed to stop snaking occuring, of course no stabilizer is going to help the idiots who tow using repmobiles such as mondeo's with grossly overweight caravans behind them, I used to have a Disco and to be honest I found them lacking in just about every department, I thank you for your input but I cant understand why you would want to be on another road, after all with my van fully laden at 1700KGs it relates to about the 85% which is only a guide as you must be aware.
John

[Phil H]

Keith,
I have no intention of towing a trailer heavier than the tow vehicle, as I said the Laden weight of my van is 1700KGs, and as an aside did you know that 'Stabilizers' of the bar type (i.e. Bulldog) are only designed to help limit snaking, I also have been towing for some time albeit not as long as you and the first thing I do on renewing my van is to fit an alko hitch with built in friction clutches which are designed to stop snaking occuring, of course no stabilizer is going to help the idiots who tow using repmobiles such as mondeo's with grossly overweight caravans behind them, I used to have a Disco and to be honest I found them lacking in just about every department, I thank you for your input but I cant understand why you would want to be on another road, after all with my van fully laden at 1700KGs it relates to about the 85% which is only a guide as you must be aware.
John

John,

As I have already covered most of the points that Keith has raised I must aggree with him, although when I asked you to check the weights there must have been some confusion because I was under the impression 1700kgs was the unladen(kerbweight) of the van and not the Max laden weight. These are usually 200ish kg different.

As I mentioned in an earlier post 85% of 1810kgs(published weight for the Surf you want) is 1538.5kg. NOT 1700kgs. 1700 is in fact almost 94% of the car weight and would equate to a handfull at best.

I am a member of the caravan club and they will do a free check for members to ensure a safe match. If you are not a member send me the details of your caravan (make model year trim level etc) by email and the Surf you are after and I will Do the check for you. and let you know what they recomend. It may be the basic unladen weight is quite low and you will be much lower than the limit unless you take the kitchen sink with you. They have all the figures from the manufacturers.

You are much better off knowing now than when the van has put the Surf on its side..(like the mondeos and primera's towing huge caravans.)

Phil.

PS I saw a micra towing a caravan at Gt Yarmouth this year. Madness!!

[Phil H]

John,

I got your mail...

I have phoned the CC and they could only see one model with the 1700 max laden wt. and that was a 1999. If that is correct then the unladen weight is 1330kgs. That would leave you 208kgs spare for packing(up to 85%), and with the experiance you said you have probbably a little more.

If you can confirm the year or any other details they said they could give more accurate figures..

Phil.

[Flip-Flop]

Wrong post

[Keith]

Dear Rocky,
There seems to be some confusion. In your original post you stated that the caravan kerbweight was 1700kg and the length 26 feet. You now say that the, I presume, maximum gross weight is 1700kg. The length of a caravan is normally given as the length of the interior. My current van is a 5.20 metre (17ft approx) and the longest normal caravans are about 6.50m. I presumed from your original information that this was some unusual (showman's?) caravan and laden would probably weigh in at over 2000kg.
The bottom line is that a Surf is best towing up to about 1550kg and certainly not more than 1800kg. I also use an Alko stabiliser and would not be without it.

Hope this clears things up.

Keith

[TonyN]

Remember in this sue happy sociaty we live in, Toyota would'nt recommend anything that could come back to haunt them in lawsuits. As long as you keep it under what they recommend I'd share a road with you

A set of Terra Claw discs here.... and braided brake lines will help in stopping duties if you really want peice of mind.

I'd stick with street tyres, or really good A/T's this time around. (shock, horror!!! Tony not telling people to buy M/T's )

[JimL]

Pulling a 45' Tesco trailer out of their yard for a 1 hr spin to the shop I thought the trailer felt fairly heavy on the tractor when braking. Being the lazy lad I am IIII only checked the suzy tap on the way back from the shop and it was closed (bad - no brakes) but honestly, its not that hard to be safe if you want to...