Towbar Height

It looks far too high to me, how high is your van coupling when the van is level, ideally the van should ride level or slightly nose down.

It does look a bit high, but a few things:-

- is your car totally level

- there is a lot of space over the rear wheels in the arch for the car to settle on the suspension

- what is the height of your caravan hitch as "towball heights are 350-420mm, and trailer hitches are between 385-455mm from the ground" - I got this bit from https://www.towbarexpress.co.uk/guide/towball-heights/

Add all these together and the problem may not be what you expect it to be.

Colin

Does your car have self levelling suspension?  

Hi LLM,

No, my car does not have self levelling suspension. Thanks for responding 

Hi Colin,

yes my car is level and I’ll check how it looks when trying to hitch up when I go to the caravan storage next week. I’ll update then

I had a very similar situation in 2007 when I collected a new VW Touran with tow bar. I seem to recall the centre ball height was about 490mm and I was concerned. I contacted the dealer and tow bar installer. Both directed me to the same figures you have regarding "loaded height". My problem was the Touran would need to be loaded with 660kg to get to fully loaded.  That summer, when both car and van were loaded within limits for a month in France the van was slightly nose down. The attached is not very clear but supports my memory.

Colin

Two possible explanations come to mind:

1. Perhaps they fitted the wrong towbar

or

2. Is the car fitted with standard rear springs or is the rolling radius of the wheels perhaps larger than standard?