Heavy Duty Rear Springs For Towing ?

[Calligrapher]

I have a RAV 4.2 and I tow a caravan. I have been using the inflatable balloons thingies inside the spring to stiffen it up a bit but they cost around £85 each to replace when they split.

I thought about spring helpers down the middle of the main rear springs or even replacement progressive springs but these are very costly so out of my budget range.

I can get heavy duty springs for £108 all in. Will they be suitable with or without the caravan on tow?

Got a quandary, help and advice needed.

Trevor

[Doosan]

Hi Trevor, I to tow a caravan and I have fitted Grayston Rubber Spring Assisters on and lt takes about 20mins to fit and work fine for me.

http://reviews.halfords.com/4028/662031/reviews.htm

Dave

[Bezzer]

I tow a 1500kg van and always keep close to the recommended max noseweight (80kg for the 4.3 dunno what the 4.2 is) . I've done so on the original standard springs for the past 5 years with no issues. If your springs are in good order and you keep within the cars noseweight limit there shouldn't be a problem. Saying that if I had to I'd use uprated springs not assisters.

[Tech01]

The max permissible drawbar (towball) loading for a RAV4.2 is 75kg. This equates to one adult, sitting in the rear of the vehicle. Assuming you are carrying no more than four adults in the car, you should not need any additional spring assistance, since the RAV is designed to seat five.

Spring assisters are frequently used to "correct" overloading, or to compensate for old or weak springs on vehicles that were never designed for towing - eg wallowy old saloons from the 1950s and 60s. The RAV just isn't one of these.

What I would recommend though, is keeping the rear tyres inflated to either the textbook figure, or to a "max load" pressure - somewhere in the region of normal + 2psi.

Check the noseweight of the loaded 'van with a set of bathroom scales and a block of wood (to keep the drawbar horizontal).

Chris