Collecting your caravan: the handover, hitching up and the first 20 km

The short version

Give the handover a full hour. Walk round the caravan with the owner and photograph it. Read the licence disc, ask for the gas certificate. Hitch up from a checklist, not from memory, and test the lights with someone standing behind. Then drive 20 km, pull over and put your hand on every wheel nut and every hub. The rest of this page is that afternoon in detail.

What to bring

Your driving licence, your vehicle's licence disc and the booking confirmation. Code B is fine for a caravan with a GVM up to 750 kg. Heavier than that and you need Code EB. Crossing a border? Then add the owner's authorisation letter, witnessed by a Commissioner of Oaths, with both ID numbers, both registrations, the countries and the exact dates on it. If you have not settled whether your car may tow this caravan at all, read What can I tow? first.

The walk-around with the owner

Slowly, phone out. Photograph every panel, every window, the inside of every locker, and the chairs. When the owner demos the tent, gas, water and electrics, video it. You think you will remember the order of the switches. At the campsite, in the dark, you will not.

The reverse lock matters the moment you back onto a stand, and the reversing guide explains why. On tyres, the regulation sets a 1 mm floor, and a tyre is also illegal the moment its tread sits level with the wear indicator bars (about 1.6 mm on modern tyres). That binds the caravan's tyres just as much as your car's. The gas certificate is law too. Regulation 17 of the Pressure Equipment Regulations calls for a certificate of conformity after any gas installation, modification or change of ownership, and only an installer registered with SAQCC Gas may issue one.

Hitching up

Ask the owner to talk you through it once. Then do it yourself while they watch. The breakaway cable and the plug are the two things people forget. The jockey wheel left down is the one they find out about on the N1.

The plug

South African caravans use one of two plugs. The big round 7-pin does the lights. The 13-pin adds a reverse light and a permanent 12 V feed for the fridge and battery. One will not go into the other, so ask before the day which one the caravan has and sort out an adaptor if you need one. Plug in, test every light with your helper, then check that the fridge is actually charging off the car.

Mirrors

Nowhere does the regulation say "towing mirrors". It sets a test instead: can you see the traffic behind you? With a caravan on the back your interior mirror shows you caravan wall, so extension mirrors are the practical way to pass. Fit and adjust them with the caravan hitched, before you pull away.

Loading, nose weight, tyres and wheel nuts

Heavy things go low and over the axle. Light things go up high. Spread the load front to back so the nose weight stays in range. Weight behind the axle is the classic cause of sway, so when in doubt, move it forward.

The compulsory build standard for South African caravans puts the load on the ball between 25 kg and 100 kg with the caravan loaded. The "7 to 10 percent" you read in magazines is a guideline, and on anything much over 1 000 kg it runs straight into that 100 kg cap: 10 percent of 1 800 kg is 180 kg, and no compliant caravan may put that on the ball. With a heavy caravan, aim for the top of the legal band. To check it, chock the loaded caravan on level ground, wind the steadies up, put a bathroom scale under the coupling with a short plank on it, wind the jockey wheel up until the hitch is resting on the scale, and read it.

Tyre pressures come off the caravan's own plate or handbook, set cold, spare included. Your tow vehicle's placard is for your tow vehicle. Wheel nut torque depends on the bolt size, and that is on the axle plate or in the handbook. On an AL-KO chassis, M12 bolts on steel wheels take 88 Nm, M12 on alloys 110 Nm and M14 bolts 135 Nm. Cross pattern, no power wrench, and never past the figure. An over-tightened bolt distorts the rim.

The first 20 km

Drive gently. After about 20 km, pull off somewhere flat and safe, hazards on, and walk round the whole outfit.

AL-KO says recheck wheel bolt torque after 50 km, so if a wheel has been off recently, do the nuts again at the next fuel stop. Grinding, grease on a rim or a burning smell means stop now. From here, Towing for the first time covers the driving.

If something does not fit

Do not tow it and see. A tow ball the wrong size, a plug that will not go in, an expired licence disc, a breakaway cable with nowhere to clip, a caravan whose GVM is more than your car may tow: any one of those means you stay on the driveway. Phone the owner first. Most of these have a simple answer. If it cannot be sorted there and then, Kampi is the next call, and the unsigned handover form is your record.