Towcar of the Year - Pick-Up Catagory

Commercial vehicles historically had leaf/cart springs at the back  which were considered a bit firm for a caravan's A frame. I wonder if my neighbour realises that his Hilux has cart springs at the back when he's towing his caravan 😕

I have attached two screenshots of statements from my 2016 Lunar Clubman handbook. One from chapter on Towing Code and the second from chapter on Chassis.

I can see that a vehicle designed to transport weighty cargo as opposed to a rear seat full of passengers with their normal luggage requires heavier duty rear springing, irrespective of the technology that suspension uses.

That "stiff rear end" will not be as compliant to the dynamic movements the van hitch inflicts on the tow vehicle, with the result of increasing the loads from those movements and the induced stresses in the van's chassis.

I used a "Shock-link" to attenuate this issue when using Land Rover 110s for towing caravans.

If the "pick-up" is purely a style vehicle with much the same load carrying as its base saloon it is not an issue, it is those with high load carrying suspension that cause this extra harshness to the van's chassis.

Swift don't seem to have a problem with Ford Rangers as seen on swift talk

ShaneWe do not allow commercial vehicles, which a transit van clearly is. A Ford Ranger is more of a passenger derivative vehicle although it is a bit of a grey area I agree, but we have to draw this line somewhere and we do allow these types of 4x4 vehicleAndy

i would class commercial vehicles as transit vans and Renault traffics etc etc. mind you travellers have used commercial vehicles for years

Whatever your, or my, opinion is regarding the definition of a 'commercial vehicle' it is the opinion of the caravan manufacturer that counts. As we all know in life any large company will 'quote the small print' when faced with a warranty claim.

All those pick-ups, maybe considered to be 'style vehicles', but they are officially classed as LCVs!!

Therefore commercial vehicles.

All relevant information on this subject has been sent to the Clubs Technical Department for advice.  Hopefully they can contact the caravan and chassis manufacturers to get clarification regarding towing with LCV's.

I will post the responses here when I get them.

On the M11 last Thursday I saw a large HGV with 2 new twin axle caravans on board and a 3rd being towed.  On our Journey back on Tuesday, again on the M11 I was doing 60mph and was overtaken by 2 Transit type vans towing new caravans the Vans (doing about 70mph)  were sign written. it was the Marquis group 

Maybe it only applies to the end user and not the caravan trade

Twin Cab or single Cab pickup trucks are most definitely commercial vehicles.

Any Mitsubishi L200's I've seen, have cart springs-------------.Even the trusted "Transit" style commercial vans have proper suspension.  Towing a caravan with a vehicle with really hard rear suspension can, under poor road conditions put undue strain on the Caravan chassis.  

I believe that CMC allow commercial vehicles on their sites, they never used to, but I'm sure that rule was relaxed. 

K