New caravan totalled in Coast M1 rollover Local Gold Coast News | goldcoast.com.au | Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
poor bloke.
ps: it wasnt mine
poor bloke.
ps: it wasnt mine
Check out my new caravan!
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thats like wen i worked in a motorcycle shop.
a very rude customer that was quite hard to deal with, swore black and blue that insurance was a load of bs and hadn't needed it in 10yrs of riding.
as he left on his brand NEW cruiser, barley keeping it up right on the drive way... pulled out onto the road, made it 10 meters and slammed into the back of a parked truck....
he was fine, bike a write off...
a very rude customer that was quite hard to deal with, swore black and blue that insurance was a load of bs and hadn't needed it in 10yrs of riding.
as he left on his brand NEW cruiser, barley keeping it up right on the drive way... pulled out onto the road, made it 10 meters and slammed into the back of a parked truck....
he was fine, bike a write off...
Do you have a link to the latest article?
Just started following this in another forum.
Cheers
Justin
Just started following this in another forum.
Cheers
Justin
I fit tow bars etc for a living, looking at this pic you can clearly see that the hitch is still in the receiver collar the hitch pin is still in place and the R clip is still in place. It looks like the collar sheared off of the tow bar possibly a weld failure? Or the van exceeded the rating, if the welds failed then the towbar manufacturer is liable if the bar broke because of excessive load then the owners and or whomever connected the van to the bar is at fault for not checking the load rating specific to the load attached. Either way would have been a really scary ride.
surely some degree of negligence by the caravan coy, as they fitted it to the vehicle, and presumably checked the coupling and hitch. However the driver also has a responsibility to make sure it is secure before hitting the road, definately one for the legal eagles to make a few bucks out of, there will only be two loosers here, the van coy and the owners.
On another note, it is something that is ever on my mind with the van, I check my hitch release pin at least twice a year for wear. I got rid of the pclip retained pin and put in a keylock pin, but I am not properly convinced that just because it is pretty chrome plated that it is good quality steel, what coming out of China is? However it still has the chrome plating on it and it is still straight, last time I checked it that is!!
I had read on caravan forums of these types of key lock pins suffering premature failure, but i guess there would have to be a fair bit of slack within the hitch tube to generate the fatigue loads required to break one. maybe for peace of mind should drill out the other and fit a padlock instead. Nah wouldn't bother to check it then..................
WHOOPS davess, I see that now, that is an issue, and something that I have been concerned about for a long time, I see these new vans, dual axle monsters, ( to me anyhow) with the axles right back past the balance point, the tow ball weight must be huge, far in excess of the 200 kgs static mass on my genuine Nissan bar. The Dynamic loads must be horrific. I worry at times about my 170 kgs, my van axles are in the middle and when the jockey wheel clamp slips the hitch goes almost to the ground.
On another note, it is something that is ever on my mind with the van, I check my hitch release pin at least twice a year for wear. I got rid of the pclip retained pin and put in a keylock pin, but I am not properly convinced that just because it is pretty chrome plated that it is good quality steel, what coming out of China is? However it still has the chrome plating on it and it is still straight, last time I checked it that is!!
I had read on caravan forums of these types of key lock pins suffering premature failure, but i guess there would have to be a fair bit of slack within the hitch tube to generate the fatigue loads required to break one. maybe for peace of mind should drill out the other and fit a padlock instead. Nah wouldn't bother to check it then..................
WHOOPS davess, I see that now, that is an issue, and something that I have been concerned about for a long time, I see these new vans, dual axle monsters, ( to me anyhow) with the axles right back past the balance point, the tow ball weight must be huge, far in excess of the 200 kgs static mass on my genuine Nissan bar. The Dynamic loads must be horrific. I worry at times about my 170 kgs, my van axles are in the middle and when the jockey wheel clamp slips the hitch goes almost to the ground.
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i would be looking at the van brakes , no brakes on the van equals jacknife , then again i cant see how a tow bar assembly could rip off like that
wouldnt the tow bar rip off because of the way the car fliped and the van only went half way? wouldn't that be alot of twisting force on them welds?
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i would have thought the tow ball should be the weak point , that should break before ripping off the entire tow bar, it sort of rendered the safety chains useless, although that situation it didnt matter
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You can see the pin is still in the hitch, the big black lump is the load transfer mechanism.
the receiver tube has cracked off around where it is welded into the cross-wise tube.
My vote is a combination of bad welding on the hitch (undercut) and overloading due to the load transfer mechanism. The way those bars twist the hitch to force the front wheels of the car into the ground is an unnatural way to stress the tow hitch, it's effectively putting the underside in tension. The hitch is designed for a given amount of "pull" and a given downward force on the tow ball.
I bet they didnt engineer it to be pushed down and also twisted upwards. Anyone from a tow bar company able to provide some info?
the receiver tube has cracked off around where it is welded into the cross-wise tube.
My vote is a combination of bad welding on the hitch (undercut) and overloading due to the load transfer mechanism. The way those bars twist the hitch to force the front wheels of the car into the ground is an unnatural way to stress the tow hitch, it's effectively putting the underside in tension. The hitch is designed for a given amount of "pull" and a given downward force on the tow ball.
I bet they didnt engineer it to be pushed down and also twisted upwards. Anyone from a tow bar company able to provide some info?
I think your'e right dave, it looks like one of those aftermarket Hayman Reese height adjustable hitches and it looks like the reciever part has torn out from the towbar from the welds. Even looks like rust in there around the welds if you zoom in on the pic.
The driver was stopping to pull over because the van was already 'wobbling and shaking'. The hitch was likely breaking away already and the braking of the vehicle caused it to jack knife, tip over and shear right off the towbar.
The hitch looks like it sticks out a fair way from the tow bar which would put a lot of leverage on the welded points where it was welded to the towbar.
I'd say too much leverage on the hitch and too much weight on the tow ball.
There's another product out there to be wary of too, it's called a friction sway controller. It's an attachment that connects to one side of the draw bar and the other end connects to the same side on the tow bar hitch with each end using a large heim type joint. Works ok at controlling sway but turn to the left too sharp and it binds up on the draw bar and shears off causing a bit of a mess. Had a couple of grey nomads call into me a few months ago to fix it, on their maiden voyage with brand new everything and this happened to their rig.
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Hi,
A bloke I used to work with ( about 20 years ago ) put a caravan on the roof of a Magna, still connected to the tow-bar. Tow bar didnt break and the car was repaired !
Regards B M
A bloke I used to work with ( about 20 years ago ) put a caravan on the roof of a Magna, still connected to the tow-bar. Tow bar didnt break and the car was repaired !
Regards B M
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