I want to tow one of the small english Caravans with my Nissan Serena Van which is FWD but have been told that this is for some reason Dangerous. Can anyone tell me why this is so, Thanks
jezz43,
May 31, 2:08pm
probably cause the van is FWD, means the back tyres are just coasting the whole time which could increase the risk of jack knifing. other than that i couldnt see it being very "dangerous" at all
saxman99,
May 31, 2:18pm
Maybe the concern lies more in the direction of bring able to safely pull it at 90km/h on the open road, given that a Serena barely makes that unloaded.
hoonin,
May 31, 2:19pm
if its a 2004 on serena then yes its fwd if its the earlier model then its rwd
phillip.weston,
May 31, 2:54pm
maybe the early diesels are slow but my old 2L petrol was no slouch, I would imagine as each new shape came out they just got better and better.
traderken,
May 31, 5:05pm
This Vehicle is 2000 FWD with a 2500 Turbo Diesel so it has plenty of power
intrade,
May 31, 5:42pm
the problem would only be if the van is empty on the rear and the caravan is also loaded wrong from middle to rear . that would lift the back of your van in a corner at speed and both back and caravan would go down the cliff.thats about all the danger there is.
cjdnzl,
May 31, 9:42pm
Yes, you would be much more prone to jacknifing the van.This problem was found out the hard way by people who bought the Austin maxi's and 1800's and towed vans when using engine braking down hills.No braking effort on the car's rear wheels, all braking on the front wheels tended to lift the rear wheels, and whoopsie! a jacknife.
sr2,
May 31, 10:10pm
I tow a race car on a tandem trailer with a 2.8 litre turbo FWD Ducato van; we do some big trips when away racing. It's one of the better tow vehicles I've driven and is streets ahead of any other van I've ever towed with. As with all vans you do need some weight in the back to keep the trailer under control but traction is never a problem and the FWD is brilliant for pulling the rig out of corners on the open road. If a trailer starts to jacknife on a RWD vehicle there is little you can do to correct it, with FWD a bit of power can often be enough to pull the whole rig straight again. What really surprises me is how competent it is towing on gravel; I often tow a 3 dirt bike trailer to events on some pretty rough roads. I recently had an impromptu race (still keeping things safe) with a mate in a Chevy 4WD towing a similar load of bikes on the forestry roads near North Head. Much to both of our surprise the FWD Ducato wasted the Chev to the point where I had to pull over and wait for him when we reached the sealed main road! I??
richardmayes,
Jun 1, 4:04am
The conventional thinking is that rear wheel drive vehicles can keep a heavier towed trailer under control than front-wheel drive vehicles can. There was probably a lot of sense in this in the early days of FWD cars when they were inevitably small, lightweight and flimsy things with not much weight in the back to press the rear wheels down onto the road.
In reality, how steadily and sensibly you drive while you are towing will probably make more of a difference to whether your outcome is happy or not (unless you are trying to tow a large boat up a gravel hill or something extreme like that!)
Now that the bigger Jap saloon cars all have 3.5 litre V6s you see some pretty big boats, caravans, trailers of rubbish etc being towed around the place by front-wheel-drive cars!
traderken,
Jun 1, 12:35pm
Thank you for your help every one I feel a lot happier now. Cheers Ken
johnf_456,
Apr 28, 5:46pm
Yup but depends on the boat ramp, their is some shockers around auckland that have algae everywhere so what wheels the drive goes to doesn't matter.
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