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caculating vehicle towing weight.
scotty g - 17/8/08 at 12:58 PM

Hi everybody,
a mate if mine is planning on building a small Locost Caravan to tow behind his Locost.
Now when you buy a Trailer or caravan you have to take into account the towing vehicles "towing weight" ie the most your car is allowed to tow.
his question is this, How does he calculate his Locosts Towing Weight?
Cheers

Mark Allanson - 17/8/08 at 01:11 PM

AFAIK a braked trailer should not exceed 85% of the towing vehicle, the nose weight varies from 25-75kgs, I don't know what nose weight a locost should have

mookaloid - 17/8/08 at 01:29 PM

As above - spot on

scotty g - 17/8/08 at 03:32 PM

What is train weight?
He SVA'd it as 500kgs front and 500kgs rear.
I never even heard of train weight?

adithorp - 17/8/08 at 03:44 PM

Trian weight is the max' amount its can tow.

adrian

omega 24 v6 - 17/8/08 at 04:05 PM

quote:

Trian weight is the max' amount its can tow.


Mmmm I thought train weight was the COMBINED maximum weight of car and trailer/caravan.??

hillbillyracer - 17/8/08 at 04:36 PM

I'm pretty sure you're right there, the train weight is everything added together. So you can work out your towing weight by subtracting you vehicle's weight from the train weight.
If you dont have a train weight then it seems plausable that aint supposed to tow anything.
This will mean that you can tow more if the towing vehicle is unladen & less if it's fully loaded, right?

omega 24 v6 - 17/8/08 at 05:12 PM

quote:

This will mean that you can tow more if the towing vehicle is unladen & less if it's fully loaded, right?


Mmm it MIGHT but it's more likely to be a theoretical weight if you see what I mean.

hillbillyracer - 17/8/08 at 06:28 PM

I aint sure either! My van has a maximum towing weight in the handbook of 2000kg, but if you take the maximum loaded weight of the van from the train weight you get 1700kg which is what leads me to think it works that way.

Schrodinger - 17/8/08 at 08:39 PM

I'm not 100% sure but I thought that a vehicle had to be designed to have a towbar fitted and the towbar had to meet certain criteria.