Hook up and just Send It??

Whether you're a novice at trekking or you've lapped Oz a dozen times, the conversation of vehicle/caravan weights will be mentioned more than once in your journey. The conversation seems to get flogged to death, but I feel it's always for good reasons as a lot of people are out there towing crazy weights with no idea or care in the world. In my experience also, it's not always the newbies that are breaking all the rules.

What is Safe and What is Stupid?

I'm not going to dive into explaining all the jargon of GVM's, GTM's and TARE's as there is lot's of crew out there explaining these in great detail. Check out this video from Cam at Wild Touring if you want to learn more or just need a bit of a refresher -

I more want to have a bit of yarn about why I think people load up and travel so dangerously and share a couple of the stories we've come across along the way.

The big issue I see is education and carelessness. The fact is that anyone with an Australian driver's license can legally jump in a car, hook up a decent size caravan and be 6 or so tonnes of metal, cranking down a road at 100km/hr, with absolutely no prior training, experience or education before doing so. In saying that, yep in some way or another (a little less extreme) this is how most of us learnt or started off, but unless we are forced to, most people won't go out of their way to pay for a course or do additional training before hooking up for the first time either.

A bit of story about this; I recently had a chat with a fella when trekking across the

 Nullarbor after he popped over to me ask me if I knew anything about caravan brakes as he was concerned his had failed. After a short conversation, I realised that although he had already driven his brand-new setup over 3000km and crossed 2 state lines, he had not been advised on the correct usage/setup of his electric brakes. With a brief inspection, I found they were neither on nor connected properly. As I had the exact same electric brake system, I gave him a few pointers and he was more than happy for the advice. We also chatted about weights and suspension upgrades etc, which hopefully pointed him in the right direction for future road trips and will help him get his rig a bit better sorted. The overall conclusion after a good 30min chat, was that he'd recently retired, bought his first ever 4wd and Caravan, hooked up and just sent it without ever having towed anything in his life.... yep, not even a trailer he reckoned! The bad thing was that he was just unaware of the finer details on caravanning and could have potentially caused a major accident. The good thing was that he realised something was wrong and sought advice... even if it was from a homeless bearded gypsy 🫡

This is just one of many stories I have of similar situations we have seen and heard over time. For me, the way I see it, it usually comes down to education...but not always.

The other side I see and hear of is the people who know what they need to do and what they shouldn't do but they just do it anyway. It's fairly common to chat to someone about weights and they'll openly admit they are overweight when towing (which is usually on the tow vehicle GVM). I'm not trying to say that we are perfect - our '21 DMax sits right on the limit at 3.1t fully loaded when towing and we have to be super careful how we load up and where we put everything. Unofficially, we've done a GVM upgrade, but we still keep it under the factory weight limit... just.

I approached a fella earlier this year who also had a similar DMax to mine. It came into the campground with its arse hanging low and towing a 21 ft caravan. He popped over to ask about my bullbar and we got onto the topic of weights and suspension. He told me he hadn't done any suspension mods because he was told by the manufacturer about voiding his warranty (another can of worms I won't get into). I agreed that yep, if you modify parts of your car then certain issues may not be covered but isn't it worth that upgrade to make everything else perform correctly which makes your setup safer? After a lengthy convo he knew the setup drove like a pig (towing 2.9tonne completely stock) but was not keen at all at changing anything. Saying that, yep, he was still under his legal towing capacity but at what cost?

Which brings me to the next topic.

The other issue I see often, which I think is also to do with education, is tow vehicles.

 From a mechanical background and a family of light and heavy vehicle mechanics, I've had access to knowledge to know the saying "just because it says it can, doesn't mean you should", in other words, just because a factory spec 4wd says it can tow 3.5tonne, doesn't mean the 3.5t caravan will sail behind it with ease. To put it simply, 4wds aren't built from factory to tow all day every day. Yep, some do it better than others but without some mods it's life will eventually end quicker than most and its performance on road while towing will be terrible. I know for some people, me included, it's a hard pill to swallow after you've spent your hard-earned cash on a brand-new car but then have to turn around and fork out more money just so it can do the things it's already advertised it can do.

 Some of my 2 cents worth of advice is -

- get your setup professionally weighed. There are companies all over Oz that do it and some even travel fulltime so you can find them in caravan parks around the place. Worth every cent! Also don't just get it done once and think you're all good forever. If things change in your setup, consider what weights you've added where and what it will affect.

- setup your tow vehicle correctly to suit the weights you are towing. Common modifications are - GVM upgrade or suspension upgrades, transmission coolers, tyres and tow tunes (refer to Cam from Wild Touring's video link above).

- If you're new to towing, look into watching some YouTube vids about weights and get your head around all the GVM jargon (again, refer to Cam from Wild Touring's video link above).

- consider additional maintenance on your tow vehicle. If you're towing a lot, factor in an extra service here and there and changing oils more frequently.

I'm not too sure I have any other answers other than if you're unsure then ask a professional or educate yourself with the topic until you understand.

Change the mentality of "she'll be right".