Tow Vehicles . . . in the Alps

[Last_Train]

Traveling in Germany, Switzerland and Austria - seeing configurations like this a lot:



This is a horrible picture, partly because we're traveling 80+ mph while passing this rig, and I didn't want to be too obvious in taking the photo.
Nevertheless, it appears that this single axle TT is maybe 23'-24' in living space. And we are traveling in the Swiss Alps, and the tow vehicle is a Volvo sedan. Didn't get a look at the hitch, because everything was happening so fast. I've seen multiple configurations like this and many more with smaller SUV's towing similar rigs.

Wonder what the "yellow sticker" specs are on these vehicles?! ??

[travelnutz]

Our Son owned a manufacturing company in the Midlands of England and when we'd visited him and his wife we went to a trailer sales place near Birmingham and looked at their hard side travel trailers they had on the lot. They were so thin walled and everything flexed including the floor. Incredibly light built and that it really hit us and is why they only need a single axle and no WD hitch and pull them with small vehicles with tiny engines. You couldn't hardly give one of those cracker boxes away here in North America. I'd written about this before on this forum and all I got was snotty replies. BTW, I have 2 witnesses who were there and seen the real facts!

The sales person even showed us how you could very easily push a new 22' (about 7 and change meters) hard side travel trailer with one hand to push is around on a Caravan park site as he said it was a great feature to have. I don't remember the exact weight of the new unloaded trailer or the name of it as this was about 11 years ago but it was extremely light and flimsy built and the salesman said it was a top of the line trailer and the price was simply ridiculous. I even had no problem pushing or pulling the trailer all around effortlessly and chuckled about it. Not even remotely possible and any similar sized North American made travel trailer. Heck, you couldn't even push our boat trailer around with our 19' Sea Pro Centra cuddy cabin 4 cylinder I/O on the single axle trailer and the whole thing only weighs 2600 lbs.

Foreign made travel trailers fit for where they are made for and sold as everything is smaller in most overseas countries but not a chance they have happy owners over here. So different!

[Bedlam]

Many of them have the most weight centered over the axle giving them light tongue weights more like our boats or less. The single axles will be close to the lateral cg of the trailer allowing this balancing act. You will also see many with speed restrictions of 80, 90 or 100 kph that is enforced - You're not going to see one blow by at 120+ kph.

[qtla9111]

Yep, it's from Europe. Can't be any good. They don't have any technology, education, experts, and they most of all they don't have any of those good ole rules that seem to protect companies from liability.

Millions of Europeans can't have the same knowledge about rving as in the U.S.

[Ivylog]

It's a single axle RV with 14" tires and It doesn't have WD...in many travels in Europe I have never seen a rig with WD as they build rigs that weigh a lot less than here. They also do not build roads with 6 percent grades. They also do not have web sites with nosey weight police.

[spoon059]

GordonThree wrote:
It's Europe, their physics are different than ours here in the Western Hemisphere.

Exactly!

downtheroad wrote:
Europeans use helium in all their tires.

While that would increase the payload, it makes the car lighter and therefore unsafe (tail wagging the dog, right?). The RV.net weight police will be here any second to explain why this person is a menace and likely an international terrorist who specializes in unsafe driving...

[downtheroad]

Europeans use helium in all their tires.

[GordonThree]

It's Europe, their physics are different than ours here in the Western Hemisphere.