Help on caravan and car compatability

Is the Club Together Community there to help one another ? Obviously not in your case but luckily you are a rarity and there are plenty of members who enjoy helping others.

For your information I did research as much as I could with my limited knowledge of caravanning but as I met with only limited success sought the help and advice of others who have the knowledge and would be kind enough to help.

you cannot take the laden weight as the figure for calculating the ratio.

I can if I want to .... so there!!    

As I said WW based on 'correct' procedure and weights I have 87% ratio. f is my view that the additional 100KG for OH, table chairs, tins of diet coke, and other important items within the car can only be an improvement,

(The 96% was using CC incorrect tow car info which underestimates the weight of my car by 200kg) 

Just an idea - As you say you are not yet a caravanner why not look at possibly buying a smaller lighter used caravan that your current car is able to tow to see if caravanning really is for you.   You can then p/x both or sell on the caravan if caravanning does not suit you.  There are lots of matching services on line to use by filling in your car details.  Good luck.  

I would not argue that more weight you add helps provided you do not exceed the vehicles maximum weight, but the fact is that the extra weight is not relevant to the guidelines calculation. The clubs advice though is that this is for beginners, and like me you have many years experience of towing which the guidelines accept allows a greater ratio percentage. Given the cars kerb weight is in fact higher then the 96% figure looks to be wrong.

My feeling though is that we should not be suggesting that we should take any account of the extras carried in the car as it misleads newcomers who may read the posts.

At least your car is on the website which is more than ours is. When I did try to put the same model in for a different year it told me the caravan weighed more than the car, which is news to the manufacturer.