Just introducing my wife and I. I'm Pete and my wife is Maz and we are currently looking at getting our first caravan. Initially it will be for providing better accommodation than our tents during one of our other 'hobbies' - Rogaining. Having a 2005 Kia Carnival at the moment but know I will have to upgrade as it has a tow ball weight limit of only 80Kg. We are currently looking at getting a second hand caravan around 15-18' as our starter 'van to learn the ropesand then hopefully upgrading to a better rig in the future years. Currently busy paving where the caravan will be stored.
I am a draftsman and my wife is in the medical profession. My other hobbies include Model Engineering and Robotics while Maz enjoys stamp collecting.
One thing I have noticed is that all of the towing courses I have looked at you need to provide car and trailer, whereas I was hoping to go on a course before picking up our 'van, as we have fairly tight gateways to get the van into. Guess thats enough about us for the moment.
Welcome to the gang Cabpete, enjoy here and out in the playground.
We all have to start somewhere my friend and you have done that by joining this great forum. I started out with a Avan Camper and have had a great time in the "Den" but the time has come to upgrade to something bigger. I am now at the narrowing down to only 3 on the list. Two are on and maybe a third soon.
Good luck with your hunting.
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Hi Cadpete,
Welcome to the group. I am bemused by your post about the towing weight limit of your Carnival.
The 80kg towball weight limit doesn't mean you can't tow a reasonable sized van! The 80kg refers to the maximum downward weight on the towball, so it refers to the balance of your van. If the van is correctly loaded and balanced, there need not be much downward pressure on the towball at all, even if the van is fairly heavy. Websites like Carsales have research pages where you can check the total towing capacity of your vehicle, and I would be surprised if your Carnival's rated towing capacity was less than 1800 or 2000 kg. - not that you would necessarily want to tow that much weight. Keep in mind that the total loading, not just the caravan and its contents but also what you load into the Carnival itself, is going to strongly influence the rig's handling, performance and fuel consumption.
There may be other GNs out there who have experience with this type of vehicle, and might suggest a reasonable weight you can expect the Carnival to tow comfortably. Try the other forum pages, there is one just for tech talk.
Cheers
Rudy22
Just had a quick look, the 2005 Carnival is rated to tow 2000kg. Provided the van has brakes, of course! Unbraked maximum tow weight is 600kg.
Cheers
Rudy22
If you stick with the rule of thumb that you need 10% of trailer weight on towball to give stable tracking, that would limit your towing weight to 800 kg. Anything more than that and you run the risk of the van swaying.
Just my humble opinion of course.
Peter
PJK
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Thanks for your replies and welcomes.
The Kia does have a towing capacity of 2000Kg, but as PJK states, and as research tells me, I would prefer around 200Kg tow ball weight for better towing, which the 2006 and later carnivals had! Given that the engine in the Kia is not renown for long life and I have already had the vehicle for 9 years I don't mind the idea of upgrading. Current contenders are dual cab Mazda BT-50, Mitsubishi Triton or Nissan Narvana, though will probably need to buy second hand. I am also currently spending my weekends paving a hardstand area for the van when we eventually get one.
