Thread: Towing Caravan with Discovery 3 V6 diesel

Hi Ronny,

I thought all the diesels were air suspension?

Your only bet will be heavier rear springs, but I doubt any manufacturers will have any off the shelf units, you will probably have to go for custom made ones :roll:

Hi

Is this due to difference in height of trailer hitch and towball?

Or due to uneven load in van?

Forgive me if these questions are obvious or stupid, but I thought that a vehicle towing should have very little weight pressing it down, and all the effort is in dragging rather than keeping it in the air.

http://www.aulro.com/modules.php?name=Foru...hlight=3+towbar

This thread talks about height of towbars.

Cheers
Simon

Yeah, can you rearrange the weight in the van to reduce the towball weight.

Originally posted by Ronny
We have a Discovery 3 V6 diesel and we find that when we connect the caravan the car sits too low in the back.
We are unable to fit air bags as the shockies run through the centre of a coil spring.
Has anyone any knowledge of how to beef the rear end up?

Ronny - We have a TDV6 HSE and pull a Trakmaster Offroad van. The HSE comes standard with air bags on the vehicle. I have found that when hitched up the van hitch is about 2 cm lower at the front so to overcome the problem of not being able to use a WDH I am going to reverse the tow hitch, ie place it under the A frame housing instead of its current position on the top. This will make the vehicle and van perfectly level. A friend in SA put me on to this and his is also now perfectly level.

In your situation where the vehicle is too low at the back I would recommend a WDH if it is legal with your suspension.

In my Disco TD5 I had a similar problem and replaced the standard LR towbar with a Hayman Reese and used their WDH. The result was a perfect rig and we did extensive travelling both on and off road.

We did exactly the same thing - reversed the tow hitch so the U on the Treg coupling was on top instead of underneath and it worked fine. That was on our D1 though not a D3. Lifting the camper trailer front higher seemed to balance it better. It was also less likely to scrape. But just test it to make sure you can still open the rear door of the Disco without it hitting the coupling.

Originally posted by seqfisho

I thought all the diesels were air suspension?

Air Suspension comes with SE spec and higher ...
S packs come standard with coils, but (i think) can be optioned with air suspension.