Wing mirrors on cars

The logic for putting a towbar on the front as well as the back is so if you need to manoevre the caravan, you can do so with the front of the car which has two advantages:

- you can see forwards through the windscreen rather than needing to use mirrors or looking over your shoulder through the rear window to determine where the caravan is in relation to side walls/hedges

- you can move the front end of the car side-to-side (to steer the caravan) with far less steering effort than if you are steering the caravan using the end of the car without steerable wheels

Reply to
NY
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No, the bumper is on the towing vehicle. On cars with no front bumper, a bar with a towbar ball is bolted to the front load-bearing part of the body.

You are pushing the trailer by its normal towing hitch. The number of trailer axles probably doesn't matter. The wheels on the trailer almost certainly aren't steerable (do caravans and small trailers ever have steerable wheels?).

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Reply to
NY

I've never known anyone do that. Most just use the rear towball, then push the caravan by hand if their skill isn't good enough for the tight space. Big caravans usually have handles to allow people to grab all 4 corners.

Reply to
James Wilkinson Sword

FFS, how dense are you?

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Watling is in Hertfordshire so not all Brits are quite as dim. The narrative is even in that plummy British voice that you may be able to understand.

Reply to
rbowman

Controlling speed with a dry clutch for any distance may result in copious quantities of smoke.

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That's a good summary of the differences. Oddly noise is a big factor. Keeping the mandated noise levels down has resulted in other design changes like water cooling. There are other benefits but wrapping the engine in a water jacket damps down the noise.

BMW traditionally used a dry clutch that was a pain in the ass to maintain. That had nothing to do with wet versus dry but the rather automotive design with the crankshaft oriented longitudinally rather than transversely where the clutch is hanging out in the breeze.

My first bike had a dry clutch, but it was also a foot operated clutch where you changed gears with your hand. That made low speed maneuvering interesting. Borrowing a smaller bike with a hand clutch for the road test was a good idea.

Reply to
rbowman

Watch the video I linked in another reply.

Reply to
rbowman

He is a well known an attention seeking troll and every reply you make feeds him. Starts many threads most of which die quick as on the UK groups anyone with sense Kill filed him ages ago which is why he now cross posts to the US groups for a new audience. This thread was unusual in that it derived and continued without him to a large extent and his silly questioning is an attempt to get noticed again.

He is in Scotland so that may not be the case.

G.Harman

Reply to
damduck-egg

Err, because you were asking why normal autos couldn't be as fast?

It had nothing to do with UK taxpayers, Tata bought it fair and square and invested in it. And fords problem was they thought they could sell a "premium" line simply by shoving a premium badge on a 2nd rate product made out of parts from the Ford parts bin. Turns out people with money generally arn't stupid and can tell when they're being had.

So no one is buying ranger rovers or jags? Really? You might want to take a look at their sales figures.

If you want the engine to remain at its torque peak you'll be doing a lot of slipping. Its not an issue with electric motors with max torque and zero rpm and a more or less flat torque graph.

Very few cars develop enough torque to spin the wheels on a dry road surface.

Depends on how they're built. There's no reason they couldn't produce it for a short while and if the rpm hasn't built up enough then the computer can reduce the power to prevent overheating.

Well I suggest you tell pilots that the levers at their sides arn't throttles then either.

Reply to
boltar

BMW have always been shit at designing things. Most of their cars are tail happy, and all of their cars look identical.

Reply to
James Wilkinson Sword

It's an invention for a problem that doesn't exist. You tow from the back, then push by hand when you encounter tight spaces and/or shitty driving. I've never in my entire life seen anyone towing the other way round.

Reply to
James Wilkinson Sword

Then why are you reading his posts? GET A KILLFILE.

But clearly you didn't, because you're seeing his messages. How stupid can you be?!

Reply to
Kyle Fogerty

I've seen a few Land Rovers with a towing ball on the front bumper as well as at the back - sometimes it's a towing ball, other times it's the sort of hitch that agricultural trailers use, where a vertical pin locks trailer to towing vehicle.

I remember on one of the sites where my parents used to stay when we had a caravan when I was little, the site had a little two-wheel buggy for moving the towing hitch of caravans when positioning them. That was mainly for positioning the big static caravans, but they also let touring people use it if they didn't have the skill to manoeuvre using their car.

I imagine that it you have such a towing point, it's easier to use than to have to push the trailer by hand (requiring several people). I presume it's just used for the fine tuning when manoeuvring into a parking space on a caravan site or fitting the caravan between gateposts that are not much wider than the caravan, where the extra visibility and the easier manoeuvrability (because you don't have to swing the front end of the car a long way to cause a small movement of the towing hitch and the caravan.

I bet there's a lot of snobbishness about them - "real caravanners don't need to rely on a front hitch for manoeuvring" :-)

Reply to
NY

I see the replies to him , not the original a concept that is probably too simple for you to have thought of but then Kyle is one of those names that were fashionable amongst the thicko underclass for their bastard offspring who have now reached their twenties and thirties, even if it is not your real name you plainly chose it from the Chav names you grew up with. You can join him in my KF.

G.Harman

Reply to
damduck-egg

In the US many of the RV (caravan) parks prominently advertise 'pull-through' sites. It saves much embarrassment from drivers who have a snowball's chance in hell of backing a 35' trailer without destroying something. It also saves the park owner from the time and expense of replacing electric pedestals, picnic tables, and small trees.

Reply to
rbowman

The point he was making is that your killfile isn't working as well at it should be. For example, if I don't like what you write, I never want to see your posts again, and I also don't want to see replies to them, so I simply add the rule "If [entire message] contains "damduck-egg" then delete".

Reply to
James Wilkinson Sword

And I guess you can't see the above, so here you go....

Reply to
Jim Owen

I can see they might be useful when trying to get things unstuck when they get into mud and ditches.

Well since I've never seen one, maybe the Brits are just better drivers?

Reply to
James Wilkinson Sword

Or pointlessly placed bollards:

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Reply to
James Wilkinson Sword

Not just France. They do the same thing in Germany and Spain. Some pals of mine who ran a bar there got a spot fine for having their music playing too loud after midnight. They thought 900 euros was outrageously punitive for such a minor misdemeanour. I had the dubious pleasure of pointing out it was actually a demand for 9,000!! Oh well, that's Spain for you and it's only 2 generations since Franco died. :-/

Reply to
Cursitor Doom

That's way too expensive. The fine for noise in the UK is 2000. And only after a first warning.

Reply to
James Wilkinson Sword

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