What do you do with your car on a trailer when you stop for one night?

[LittleGreyCat]

Idly considering a small car on a trailer for more flexibility on our MH trips.
Most sites I think you would have to park the trailer alongside the MH to fit on the pitch.
My first thoughts would be to just unhitch the trailer and park it up like a caravan.
However it would be quite heavy, and a motor home may not be the best option to reverse precisely.

This made me wonder about motor movers.
A 12V battery on the A frame charged from the 13 pin socket should provide enough power.
Having had to unhitch our caravan to turn after going down the wrong road, I can also see advantages for more than just parking.

Has anyone gone down this route?
If not, how do you park the trailer overnight?

 

[jonsea]

Bump

 

[Verteuil Man]

You could always put a 12 volt battery on the from of the trailer and run the mover of that. Also tap into the car battery with some 'Crocodile' type clips to power the mover.

 

[G7UXG]

I have a trailer for a Can Am Spyder. It has a motor mover, and very useful it is too. The trailer weighs about 900kg with the Spyder on and about 400kg without. Takes all the physical effort out of moving the trailer around.

 

[bigtwin]

You don’t have that quandary with an A-Frame (but UK sites will still charge you extra for it, unlike the case of a car and caravan ).

Ian

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[Mikeco]

You have to be careful and plan ahead a bit more than normal. I’m towing a trailer with a car on to Spain and going Newhaven Dieppe so I’m having to look and see where I can park up on the way down through France .

 

[jongood]

We're travellingvwith a trailer with a road legal 4wd buggy on our way to Morocco, wouldnt bother with a campsite for an overnight, just picked aires where we know trailer wont be a problem and clipped one of these on trailer

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-Screamer7-Alarm-Yellow-black/dp/B085QM16NZ/?tag=mhf04-21

 

[jongood]

You have to be careful and plan ahead a bit more than normal. I’m towing a trailer with a car on to Spain and going Newhaven Dieppe so I’m having to look and see where I can park up on the way down through France .

Not such an issue this time of year in France, Spain will need a bit more planning after new year.

 

[monzer]

We're travellingvwith a trailer with a road legal 4wd buggy on our way to Morocco, wouldnt bother with a campsite for an overnight, just picked aires where we know trailer wont be a problem and clipped one of these on trailer

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-Screamer7-Alarm-Yellow-black/dp/B085QM16NZ/?tag=mhf04-21

What buggy you got?

 

[EuroTrotters]

A lot if camping car parks allow trailers and easy to park

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[zac]

Idly considering a small car on a trailer for more flexibility on our MH trips.
Most sites I think you would have to park the trailer alongside the MH to fit on the pitch.
My first thoughts would be to just unhitch the trailer and park it up like a caravan.
However it would be quite heavy, and a motor home may not be the best option to reverse precisely.

This made me wonder about motor movers.
A 12V battery on the A frame charged from the 13 pin socket should provide enough power.
Having had to unhitch our caravan to turn after going down the wrong road, I can also see advantages for more than just parking.

Has anyone gone down this route?
If not, how do you park the trailer overnight?

That's exactly what we have, a small car trailer with a motormover fitted to it. We use it mainly abroad like now whilst we are in southern Spain. Wouldn't be without it, been down the aframe route in the UK and that certainly has its advantages but abroad deffo a trailer. Ours is a woodford single axle 1500kg. Runs off of a lithium battery that I had spare when I upgraded the motorhome lithium last year. Also charges whilst driving or separate charger on the back of the trailer in a waterproof box. I fitted a Bluetooth shunt as well just so I can keep an eye on the charge as I have a small tracker fitted to it which runs from the battery.
We've not had any issues whilst travelling with it and stopping for 1 night in places. Bit of forward planning but nothing major.

 

[Bill-H]

I tow a single axle lightweight trailer (275kg) with a small car on- just moved from a Hyundai i10 to a Suzuki Ignis (845kg). Although I rarely book a site in advance, I do often look on google earth and streetview to see how big aires and campsites look for turning, reversing a trailer etc. Some aires and wild spots are big enough to leave the loaded trailer attached, a few campsites I found make you leave both trailer and car - either loaded or unloaded, in a car parking area. I've found some pitches big enough to either drive straight on to or reverse on with trailer attached.
Unloading the car just for a one night stop can be annoying but have done it more than once, it becomes a routine and only takes a few minutes, the trailer is light enough to push about by hand when empty.
I carry a longish chain and padlocks for securing it to suitable stationary objects or even lock the end of the chain through a trailer wheel as well.
Never thought of the motormover option but don't really want the added weight of mover and battery - or the expense, although I like the idea of the added convenience. A downside I can see might be when the ground is a little softer or gravel as the jockey wheel on a single axle trailer has 60-100kg bearing down on it and the wheel is quite narrow.
The trailer I have is as wide as the motorhome so I can see it when reversing, and my travelling companion can yell fairly loud if I'm making a pigs ear of it.

 

[DDJC]

I tow a single axle lightweight trailer (275kg) with a small car on- just moved from a Hyundai i10 to a Suzuki Ignis (845kg). Although I rarely book a site in advance, I do often look on google earth and streetview to see how big aires and campsites look for turning, reversing a trailer etc. Some aires and wild spots are big enough to leave the loaded trailer attached, a few campsites I found make you leave both trailer and car - either loaded or unloaded, in a car parking area. I've found some pitches big enough to either drive straight on to or reverse on with trailer attached.
Unloading the car just for a one night stop can be annoying but have done it more than once, it becomes a routine and only takes a few minutes, the trailer is light enough to push about by hand when empty.
I carry a longish chain and padlocks for securing it to suitable stationary objects or even lock the end of the chain through a trailer wheel as well.
Never thought of the motormover option but don't really want the added weight of mover and battery - or the expense, although I like the idea of the added convenience. A downside I can see might be when the ground is a little softer or gravel as the jockey wheel on a single axle trailer has 60-100kg bearing down on it and the wheel is quite narrow.
The trailer I have is as wide as the motorhome so I can see it when reversing, and my travelling companion can yell fairly loud if I'm making a pigs ear of it.

Also got an Ignis. 850kg, four adults sized seats, good ground clearance for trailer ramps. Great little car. We had a towbar fitted so it could move its own trailer around. Ebay has loads, at about £150 without electrics and £240 with. The Ignis is rated at being able to up to about 800kg.

And we have a trailer. Used to have a Woodford Lwt 72 (400kg). Now we moved onto a brilliant bespoke Phoenix trailer with sprung hinged ramps, twin axle, Powrtouch mover (with auto engage) and battery box hooked into 13 pin.

We went for Phoenix (about 460kg), because it answered every niggle we had with the Woodford. Phoenix are up in Bridgnorth Shropshire.

OK, so how do we use it. First the Woodford. We used the car as a cargo carrier, up to about total of 1600kg (our MH takes up to 2000), but we always left the driver seat free. There are a couple of sites that we use that you can drive in, ready to drive off, so no uncoupling necessary, but for everywhere else, we had to unload the ramps, hook them on and take the car off, leaving us free to manoeuvre the empty trailer into position. On pitches less than about 60 m2, it gets very snug indeed, so we took the car off (yeah, ratchet straps), moved the trailer by hand and then parked the car back on the trailer. Supreme faff.

So the Phoenix. Ramps kick up and down with no effort or bending at all, but to apply it to the OP question, we don't unload or even un-ratchet the car unless we are going to need it. The mover is used to position the trailer and car, exactly where we want it. The Phoenix we got was bespoke, so it was more expensive, but we needed a trailer that we could use when we are old and creaking. Humping those heavy bloody Woodford ramps about was getting harder, and they got alarmingly slippery in the wet. The sprung ramp on the Phoenix can be lifted with a foot, grabbed and raised effortlessly, without even bending over.

This isn't mine, as mine is longer to accommodate the Ignis length. This is for a Smart car. But you can see the mover and battery box. Mine is currently tarped up for winter, so I can't give you a pic.

On the pitch, we would move it to the farthest corner of the pitch. If the car is unloaded off the trailer, sure it takes space, but with the Phoenix, the ramps are so easy that, we use the trailer as the Ignis's parking place, so we don't use twice the space.

Highly recommend Phoenix. Neil and Julie are lovely people and helped us out with a situation we got ourselves in. And the trailer is genuinely fantastic. Neil is a trailer artist! It is robust, with really strong welding and fully galvanised, but avoiding being overly heavy. Without a mover, it compares very well to the big trailer names. But the Powrtouch is two grand plus fitting, so it costs more.

Totally recommend having a mover, to be able to slide the trailer into a corner, without having to unload the car. The extra two grand for mover and battery box is definitely worth it for us.

 

[Bill-H]

Also got an Ignis. 850kg, four adults sized seats, good ground clearance for trailer ramps. Great little car. We had a towbar fitted so it could move its own trailer around. Ebay has loads, at about £150 without electrics and £240 with. The Ignis is rated at being able to up to about 800kg.

And we have a trailer. Used to have a Woodford Lwt 72 (400kg). Now we moved onto a brilliant bespoke Phoenix trailer with sprung hinged ramps, twin axle, Powrtouch mover (with auto engage) and battery box hooked into 13 pin.

We went for Phoenix (about 460kg), because it answered every niggle we had with the Woodford. Phoenix are up in Bridgnorth Shropshire.

OK, so how do we use it. First the Woodford. We used the car as a cargo carrier, up to about total of 1600kg (our MH takes up to 2000), but we always left the driver seat free. There are a couple of sites that we use that you can drive in, ready to drive off, so no uncoupling necessary, but for everywhere else, we had to unload the ramps, hook them on and take the car off, leaving us free to manoeuvre the empty trailer into position. On pitches less than about 60 m2, it gets very snug indeed, so we took the car off (yeah, ratchet straps), moved the trailer by hand and then parked the car back on the trailer. Supreme faff.

So the Phoenix. Ramps kick up and down with no effort or bending at all, but to apply it to the OP question, we don't unload or even un-ratchet the car unless we are going to need it. The mover is used to position the trailer and car, exactly where we want it. The Phoenix we got was bespoke, so it was more expensive, but we needed a trailer that we could use when we are old and creaking. Humping those heavy bloody Woodford ramps about was getting harder, and they got alarmingly slippery in the wet. The sprung ramp on the Phoenix can be lifted with a foot, grabbed and raised effortlessly, without even bending over.
View attachment 992115
This isn't mine, as mine is longer to accommodate the Ignis length. This is for a Smart car. But you can see the mover and battery box. Mine is currently tarped up for winter, so I can't give you a pic.

On the pitch, we would move it to the farthest corner of the pitch. If the car is unloaded off the trailer, sure it takes space, but with the Phoenix, the ramps are so easy that, we use the trailer as the Ignis's parking place, so we don't use twice the space.

Highly recommend Phoenix. Neil and Julie are lovely people and helped us out with a situation we got ourselves in. And the trailer is genuinely fantastic. Neil is a trailer artist! It is robust, with really strong welding and fully galvanised, but avoiding being overly heavy. Without a mover, it compares very well to the big trailer names. But the Powrtouch is two grand plus fitting, so it costs more.

Totally recommend having a mover, to be able to slide the trailer into a corner, without having to unload the car. The extra two grand for mover and battery box is definitely worth it for us.

My trailer is a single axle Anssems eco1300, all aluminium apart from the alco axle, made in Holland and only 275kg including the stow-away ramps so very easy to move about by hand when empty and a payload of 1,025kg. You really need a motormover with a 4 wheel trailer as they are difficult to manouver by hand into tight spaces and around corners unless you can wind the jockey wheel high enough to get the front pair of wheels off the ground. Have to agree about moving it when loaded needs an electic motor, so thats one option I miss out on.

 

[DDJC]

My trailer is a single axle Anssems eco1300, all aluminium apart from the alco axle, made in Holland and only 275kg including the stow-away ramps so very easy to move about by hand when empty and a payload of 1,025kg. You really need a motormover with a 4 wheel trailer as they are difficult to manouver by hand into tight spaces and around corners unless you can wind the jockey wheel high enough to get the front pair of wheels off the ground. Have to agree about moving it when loaded needs an electic motor, so thats one option I miss out on.

I like Anssems. Sold an Anssems GT 500-181-HT unbraked trailer in August this year to make room for the Phoenix. Excellent quality.

If I could do my trailer experience by my Pros and Cons, it might help the OP.

Woodford Pros
Cost, new they are going for about £2,700
Double axle stability (I always worry about flipping if I get a blowout when I pulled the single axle Anssems)
Slightly lighter weight at 400kg, Gross 1600kg
Payload of 1200kg

Woodford Cons
Stowaway ramps are heavy, unwieldy and I am not getting any younger
Ramps make a terrible racket when you stow them.
Moving it unloaded was not easy because you had to bend down to push
You cannot move the trailer loaded. That costs ten/fifteen minutes each time you load/unload.
Ramps are slippery in the wet and the way they are stowed means you can't put extra grip strips on them.
Standard jockey wheel
Standard coupling

Phoenix Pros
Double axle stability
Hinged ramp has better grip
Ramp is sprung, so you can lift it with a foot and then lift with one hand.
Weight only 460kg, Gross is 2000kg
Payload of 1500kg
Mover means you don't need to unload, to slide it into tight corners.
Build quality is better
Easier to move by hand empty as you have the hinged ramp to push against
Heavy duty jockey wheel
Knott locking coupling

Phoenix Cons
Cost. £6,000 (but totally worth it for the way we do things)

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[zac]

My woodford trailer has ramps that slide in and out at the back so no carrying around. You must have an older version of it maybe. I had my manual motormover powrtouch replaced this year with an auto version and total cost was £1300 including new spacer kit and fitting, 2k seems expensive but maybe you have a different version (not sure).
I use ours with a Toyota aygo and it's perfect, using lithium means less weight which is a bonus as I was using it with a normal lead acid 100ah battery but I kept forgetting to charge it so would destroy it after a couple of years use.
I looked at the phoenix trailers a long time ago just before I brought this one and at the time they were not putting motormovers on them but of course times change and it's good to know that they are.
All in all choice is always a good thing but none of these things are cheap. Only thing I would say is ensure you have at least 1 spare wheel or 2 like we carry just in case. Also a way of monitoring the tyres pressures I think is essential as you don't really feel the trailer on a large motorhome (ours is a tag axle) so knowing what the tyres are doing for me is very important v

 

[Ridgeway]

For those with movers fitted how are you charging them, via the 12v for the lights some how ? Did anyone diy install there’s and any particular mover recommend ?

Just about to order our trailer over Christmas for March and may add a mover after reading this.