We followed the Tour de France last week for a few days with the Eriba Troll 550 GT (2004) and while using the motorways, the Eriba behaved admirably. However, once we came on the D classified roads the whole situation changed. The Eriba was simply bouncing its way at 20 mph which was extremely tiring and uncomfortable.

The tow car is a Renault Scenic DCi 1.5 Dynamique which we used to tow our Hymer Nova 390/2, and experienced no problems on any type of road, We have recently had a Titanium Mover fitted in the UK and a Leisure Battery which has been housed under the seat at the dining area.

The calor gas medium sized cylinder is stored in the gas store area at the front of the caravan. The rest of the contents have been distributed around the caravan evenly. We have been caravaners for over 20 years, with different makes of caravans and never experienced the rough riding of our Eriba.
Inspection has been made of the shock absorbers and they do not appear to be leaking oil.

The history of the caravan is that we bought it this June from it's original one owner. He confirmed verbally and in an email that he had used the Eriba only twice, once to Corsica and once to Monaco. The caravan was then stored and we bought it after it had been checked over by a caravan specialist, and new tyres were fitted, due to the expiry date of use, The caravan is in remarkable condition except for the rear lights and the bathroom style dating the caravan you would think it was a 2/3 year old. We would like to sort out this problem as we doubt very much that we could find another Eriba in this remarkable condition and complete history.

Any constructive ideas would be more than welcome. Thank you

You need to check your nose weight.
Gauges are available.

Also check you are running your tyres at the correct pressure, try this calculator.
http://www.tyresafe.org/check-your-press...ure-calculator/

or this one

https://caravanchronicles.com/guides/cal...r-your-caravan/
Dave

It sounds like you have covered everything from the loading to the tyres, if the suggestions of the tire pressure and nose weight do not cure it it may be that your shock absobers need changing...

Are you doing up the stabiliser correctly on the hitch?

Noseweight most likely.

Zitat

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Eriba Troll 550 GT (2004)

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Those were normally fitted with an AL-KO AKS 1300 STABILISER

like this

P1000648.JPG - Bild entfernt (keine Rechte)

Check the arrowed knob turns

Procedure
when hitch is on towball with red handle up wind knob in until it clicks then push handle down

When removing raise handle wind out knob until you feel a slight resistance then wind in 1\2 a turn (do not wind out too far or it may jam open)

operating instructions here

AlKo AKS1300 Stabiliser

Thank you for your email. Yes we have the ALKOAKS1300 stabiliser, and I have carried out the loading and unloading as you suggest. The only thing you have not mentioned is how many clicks do you turn the wheel when loading? Hopefully, tomorrow I will get a set of hitch pads from ALKO, and see if that improves the situation. Thank you for your help, much appreciated
Dafydd and Beryl

How to: Change the Pads in an AL-KO AKS 1300 STABILISER

Zitat

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The only thing you have not mentioned is how many clicks do you turn the wheel when loading?

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Its a ratchet system so should not be able to be overtightened I usually just do 2 or three clicks before lowering the handle.

Many thanks.
I used to wind it up to around 10clicks, then we had the snoring noise, so a good clean of the tow-ball reduced this considerably and maybe if the clicks were on 2 as you recommend, maybe the snoring sound would end.
Dafydd and Beryl

Turning the wheel past 1 click or 10,000 clicks doesn't make any difference to the pressure applied to the pads.

The ratchet mechanism starts when the pads make contact with the towball, and pressure is applied only when the lever is pushed down.

Although I very much doubt the stabiliser is the cause of your van bouncing along the road.

If the noseweight is sufficient (ideally at the maximum allowable) a lightly-loaded van will bounce along because the shock absorbers aren't loaded enough to be effective - the only way to counter this is to let some air out of the tyres so they can absorb some of the bounce.

But it may be worth checking to see if the correct shock absorbers have been fitted for the weight of the van.

Yes remove any paint or rust from the towball and remove any dust do not use oil or grease.

Zitat

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I very much doubt the stabiliser is the cause of your van bouncing along the road.

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I mentioned the hitch because we had a member at last years meet who had the same hitch, the van was sold to them by one of the leading dealers who did not explain how it worked when the van was collected.
It was towed something like 200 miles with the knob stuck in the outward position and as you can imagine towed very badly, I had to do an onsite repair on that one but as you say this member seems to be doing all the right things so you are probably right to say its something else.