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XC60 Pitching ride when towing

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Old Oct 2nd, 2018, 22:05   #1
Gower50
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Default XC60 Pitching ride when towing

I have an 2017 XC60 D4 AWD Auto and a Coachman VIP 545/4 caravan (1645kgs) and the ride on A roads is terrible almost to the point of making us feel sick. Motorways are not too bad.

The tyre pressures on the car are as recommended as are the caravan tyres, the nose weight is spot on 90kg's. We do not carry much in the van except the normal things, food, clothes a few books etc but no awning or anything heavy.

The tyres on the car are Continentals and on the Caravan Club forum it has been suggested that they may be the problem.

Has anyone got any ideas how to cure this or even had the same problem and managed to fix it ?
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Old Oct 3rd, 2018, 08:07   #2
green van man
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My coachman vip 545 /4 causes no such problem behind the xc70 or the discovery.
Volvo I run 41psi all round and van 65psi.
Tyres are pirreli zero all season on the volvo.
How's your hitch? Worn friction pads can cause all sorts of unwanted movement. Did you clean the paint off the towball before use? As the paint will render the friction pads inoperable.
Apologies if Im teaching granny to suck eggs but while tyres can contribute to problems I don't see them being the whole problem, otherwise there would be far more problems.


Paul.
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Old Oct 3rd, 2018, 09:23   #3
Gower50
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Thanks Paul, the side friction pads are new and I am about to change the front and rear pads and the hitch has been cleaned.
I have only been towing for about 7 months having had motor homes for the previous 30+ years.
I even took the van to my local approved caravan service centre and got them to check out the hitch, brakes and ATC and everything was OK. The van has also had new tyres as when I bought it the van was four years but the tyres were six and a half years old !
Have tried loading the van with 2x6kg gas bottles in the locker but it takes the nose weight to approx. 95kg. The allowable weight on my car hitch is 90kg. was advised not to try and counteract this by putting a couple of heavy items under the rear bed.
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Old Oct 3rd, 2018, 09:38   #4
Tannaton
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gower50 View Post
Thanks Paul, the side friction pads are new and I am about to change the front and rear pads and the hitch has been cleaned.
I have only been towing for about 7 months having had motor homes for the previous 30+ years.
I even took the van to my local approved caravan service centre and got them to check out the hitch, brakes and ATC and everything was OK. The van has also had new tyres as when I bought it the van was four years but the tyres were six and a half years old !
Have tried loading the van with 2x6kg gas bottles in the locker but it takes the nose weight to approx. 95kg. The allowable weight on my car hitch is 90kg. was advised not to try and counteract this by putting a couple of heavy items under the rear bed.
I would personally try loading to about 110-120 Kg nose weight, initially just to see if that changes anything. The car is capable of way more - the Volvo XC models are rated for 180Kg nose weight when sold in Australia, where it is a legal requirement that a nose weight is a minimum of 7% of the trailer mass. This is when Nivomats come into their own as they just balance the car again. [Note: carefully worded, that's what I would do, I'm not encouraging you to break the law...]

However my feeling is that if its so bad then the odd 20-30 Kg isn't going to make a transformational difference.

As always, any extra load in the caravan should be over the axle or as near to that as possible. The more weight distributed to the front/rear of the van, the greater the dynamic load on the towball and hence pitching of the car caused by the caravan.

It may also be worth checking your shock absorbers?
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Last edited by Tannaton; Oct 3rd, 2018 at 09:44.
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Old Oct 3rd, 2018, 19:17   #5
green van man
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gower50 View Post
Thanks Paul, the side friction pads are new and I am about to change the front and rear pads and the hitch has been cleaned.
I have only been towing for about 7 months having had motor homes for the previous 30+ years.
I even took the van to my local approved caravan service centre and got them to check out the hitch, brakes and ATC and everything was OK. The van has also had new tyres as when I bought it the van was four years but the tyres were six and a half years old !
Have tried loading the van with 2x6kg gas bottles in the locker but it takes the nose weight to approx. 95kg. The allowable weight on my car hitch is 90kg. was advised not to try and counteract this by putting a couple of heavy items under the rear bed.
Mines has a nose weight limit of 75kgs, took me some fiddling to get below that but achieved it with both gas bottles in the front locker. As I said I have no problem at all with pitching or sway. Mine has the rear island bed and central washroom, 1638 kg all up.

As tannon says the cars are rated for heavier noseweight in other countries, of course that will hold no water if pulled by vosa in one of their motorway test stations. Have you cleaned ALL the paint off the towball? I started with 1200 emery cloth but found it needed wire wool to finish the process. By that time the pads were contaminated so I ordered new and rebuilt the hitch paying particular attention to pad preloaded. In fact ended up with more packing behind one side pad than the other to get them into limits. What a difference that made to stability especially on tramlined motorways. That was with the old van and since changing to the coachman I realised I could of gone tighter on the pad preloaded when I rebuilt the hitch. I went for good preloaded where the new hitch on the coachman is set for maximum preloaded and I find I have to use quite considerable force to engage it, more than on the rebuilt hitch of the old van.

I would ensure the ball is clean with wire wool, set the preloaded of your rebuilt hitch to the maximum possible, ie just inside the tolerance markers on the forward end and ensure your pads are clean as I found the paint had contaminated mine and even wire wool struggled to clean them sufficiently in comparison to uncontaminated new ones.
Just one point, how are you measuring noseweight? I baught a noseweight gauge and promptly threw it in the recycling as it was so inacurate, I now use a slater bathroom scales with a piece of wood across it to spread the load and a stout stick to take the weight of the hitch when measuring noseweight.

Paul.
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Old Oct 3rd, 2018, 21:10   #6
Gower50
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Paul, thanks for the advice when I had the new friction pads fitted it took a lot of extra effort to close the handle so I am assuming they are correct. I have yet to change the front and rear pads but as they are only made from what appears to be plastic I don't know what if any affect they will have. Just out of interest I believe that brake cleaning fluid can be used on the side friction pads.

I take your point about the nose weight and agree that overloading it is not the way to go. What did you move to get the weight down and where did you put it and what size gas bottles do you use standard or Calor Lite ? As soon as I bring the van out of storage for its pre-winter clean I will have an experiment with bathroom scales.

Lastly I will give the tow ball another clean but I think it is probably OK as it is clean with no rust.

Mike
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Old Oct 4th, 2018, 18:08   #7
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Not so much a case of moving but not putting. Baught the van new and as old van has been retained for family use I had to equip this one from scratch. Gas bottles are standard calor 6kg propane.
I carry the water barrel bagged in the shower and the waste carrier bagged on the floor alongside the bed, the wheel lock on the floor mid van over the axil when traveling, other than that, front draws empty and front locker lightly loaded. For instance, milenco stacking plastic packers rather than wood blocks for packing the feet. A bucket and sponge, the waste pipe and bathroom scales to check noseweight, that's it.
If I buy an awning it will be a pump up to avoid the weight of the poles and may have to be carried in the car.

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Old Oct 5th, 2018, 21:16   #8
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We had horrible pitching with our van when it was new and empty - found out eventually it was very nose weight sensitive - has to be between 80 and 90kg I thought I was going to be sea sick the first time I towed it with a very light weight on the ball. 2016 D5 Auto, single axle 1500kg van.
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