Towing a van with D4 - unhitch at night?

[Drafrete]

Hi,

A question for those of you with larger caravans. I am in process of upgrading from a camper to a full caravan. I have noticed that a lot of people (not Disco's) towing larger vans leave their cars hooked to their vans overnight. I would have thought that with a D4 with EAS this was not a good idea, as the car will try to level out during the night and end up fighting the van or the hitch putting pressure on the connection.

What do those of you with larger vans do? Do you stay with the car hitched up over night or not?

Thanks in advance.

[TerryO]

Whether its considered as being the right or wrong procedure I don't really know, but I now lower our D3 down to access height if I'm leaving the van hitched for an overnighter, even though it usually means the van isn't sitting level.

The one thing I found wasn't a good idea was to put the vans stabiliser legs down with the van hitched, as the Disco will settle and you end up with the Disco's weight sitting on the vans stabiliser legs ...

Others may have different experiences but this is what we have found happens works best with our van.

cheers,
Terry

[PaulGOz]

I have a camper trailer and for overnight stops remain hitched without jockey wheel often kn off foad height i only have rear stabilisers so any settling is unlikely to cause stress on trailer. I guess this is a risk if using front stabilisers or jockey as you could end up witb several hundred kilos of negative tow ball weight. Is an option to release the coupling but not actually remove so if car settles it will just lower the ball out if coupling? Remembering to reset before setting off of course.

[TerryO]

You can't release the coupling if you have a Trigg Hitch like I do and just imagine how far you will jump out of bed if at 4.00 am in the morning if the car settles and there's an almighty bang as the ball pulls out of the coupling if its not sitting centre.

cheers,
Terry

[Drafrete]

Thanks for your replies. My previous camper had a tregg coupling and to avoid all this I released the coupling each night. But the camper was light enough that re-hitching was not a big deal. With the larger van I am not going to be able to move it by hand to line up so was wondering about leaving it connected for a short stop. But I am concerned about the negative load on the coupling.

At least I won't have a WDH to have to worry about as well.

I suspect that if the van ball weight is close to the limit of the car (say 300 kg or so) and I leave it hooked up with no front stabilizer legs then depending on where we move in the van the ball weight could exceed the max for the car and I think that would be most unwise. So I expect that I will need to uncouple each night.

[Tombie]

Ball weight is based on dynamic loading.

And as others already suggested...
Use the Back legs but not the front.

You are worrying about things you need not bother about.

[gghaggis]

Ball weight is based on dynamic loading.

And as others already suggested...
Use the Back legs but not the front.

You are worrying about things you need not bother about.

Exactly - but if not being level really bothers you, you can always pull the fuse for the EAS.

Cheers,

Gordon

[TerryO]

Treggs /Triggs which ever, yes they can both be a real pain in the bottom when hitching up.

However I found the secret, let your better half do the reversing and you stand at the back giving the directions. I have found this make coupling a hassle free exercise that takes five minutes to hook up and get everything sorted.

Before when I drove and my better half gave the instructions it was hellish to say the least and usually took ten to fifteen minutes and lots of angry shouting at each other.

Give it a try it may well work for you as well.

cheers,
Terry

PS ...I'd never go back to a tow ball, having a Trigg hitch makes towing so smooth and noise /bang free.

[games1]

Hey Guys, get a camera. Didn't realise how easy things become when you can actually see the Tregg and only need to adjust the height. Definitely saves the shouting.

[robbotd5]

Gday.
I don't have a D4 but I do have a big van. All you need to do is put on your jockey wheel/trailermate and adjust until you take the weight off the tug. All good.
Regards
Robbo