Grumpy

The Caravan Clubs on-line booking system is excellent, it makes it so easy to choose and book a site. Also with the Caravan Club you get access to CC's (certified locations) these are much smaller sites (up to 5 vans if I recall correctly) one of my neighbours swears by these.

I could be talking rubbish here but as far as I am aware, there are 2 basic types of stabaliser:- 1) Leaf-spring type These have a bracket attached to the tow bar which has a set of friction plates and a clamping arrangement to push them all together. From this a leafspring extends which rests in a "U" shaped bracket attached to the caravan draw bar. The leafspring does 2 things, first it resists the caravan turning (because of the friction plates) and therefore damps out snaking (where the caravan swings back and forth on the hitch until you crash!). Secondly the leafspring pushes the caravan draw bar down onto the tow bar and prevents pitching movements between the car and caravan. 2) Built in type These have friction pads built into the hitch which react directly onto the tow ball and damp out snaking by virtue of the friction generated. The second type is more normall on newer caravans, however the first type seem to work fine although its one more job to fit it each time you hitch up. A decent fitter should know about reversing sensors, when mine was fitted they had to go away and get "something" to cure the problem of the sensors seeing the ball. It normally is not a problem, last year when I fitted the stabaliser, the longer bolts touched the bumper and slightly angled it and this caused the sensors to see the ball, this problem went away on its own. I have heard (but it could be a myth) that the sensors learn and can ignore obsticles that are always there.

My tow bar is a fixed one, it sometimes interfears with the reversing sensors but normally its OK. A removable tow bar is better but if I recall correctly, you cant use a leaf-spring type stabaliser (which I use) with them as the stabaliser bolts between the ball and bracket. My current bar was fitted by a mobile fitter organised by the garage I bought the car from. In the past I have fitted my own, used mobile fitters and a specialist trailer center, and have never had any problems. When I priced up the tow bar 4 years ago for my Xantia there was not much cost saving between DIY and using a nearby Indespension trailer center, so I let them do it. If you want to go down the DIY route then check out www.towsure.co.uk, they are pretty good and stock just about anything you need for caravanning. 2 other things you will need especially if you want to get insurance on the van:- Wheel Clamp Hitch Lock Note that some insurances insist that you either apply a wheel clamp or hitch lock whenever you park up (eg motorway services) my hitch has a built in lock so it automatically locks to the car whenever you attach the caravan.

Best of luck when choosing your caravan, you will enjoy it (or else!!) Best tip I van give for reversing is to set up the angle between the car and caravan whilst going forward then reversing is a simple matter of keeping this angle as you go back. To expand on Adrianf, you will need as well as the cravan:- Fresh water container and submersible pump Waste water container and connecting pipe Gas bottle (preferably 2 if you need to rely on it) Gas regulator(s) Battery Electric hook-up cable Towing mirrors Step Leveling ramps And its good to keep in the caravan:- Cutlery, crockery, pans etc (easier than emptying the kitchen cuboards everytime you hitch up) Washing up stuff Bedding Camp chairs Windbreaks Kids games (indoor and outdoor) As to sites, we tend to use the Caravan Club sites, these often have kids play areas which keep out 2 (4 & 8) happy but do not offer entertainment etc. These sites also feel pretty safe for kids and even before I have finished setting up the caravan, the kids usually have dissapeared and are playing with the other kids around. One really useful feature of the Caravan Club is being able to brows for vaccancies and then book a site on line.

Caravaning is great, we have just returned from the New Forest albeit early as the rain sent us packing! Most important thing about towing is to make sure you have a well matched outfit, the Caravan Club recommend that the max laden weight of the caravan should not exceed 85% of the unladen weight of the car, as the Galaxy is fairly heavy then this gives you a wider choice of caravans. I dont know how much the van you are looking at weighs but check it before you buy and allow for the awning as these can be very heavy. My van is around 1200kg and we only have a small porch awning. As long as you take care and dont rush, towing is just about as easy as solo driving. Make sure you give plenty of room on the inside of curves especially if pedestrians or cyclists are about. It is a good idea to have a stabaliser to prevent snaking, these make motorways much more relaxing Reversing is simple once you have practiced a little and assuming you have guides to hand to help out, its a right pain whan pitching up at a Caravan Club site without assistance as you have to reverse the van up to a post which of course you cant see We go away 4 or 5 times in the year and a normal pitch fee for our family is around

Ah yes, having a complete set of camping essentials (crockery, cutlery etc) stored ready for use is great. Thats what I do, although like bingo nightly mine are kept in a caravan ready to hook up whenever needed.

The best way to stop "im indoors moaning the whole time spent in the great outdoors" is a well stocked coolbox for the beer, a few bottles of wine and a comfy chair with foot rest. Well that works for me!

ATB Farm sounds good, what is it called? Cheers Nick

My first Capri was a 1.6GL bought with 13,000 miles on it, my last one was a 96 2.8i Special. I do miss it.

This sounds horribly like a slipping gearbox rather than kick-down. Does the car accelerate hard when this happens or not? There is a fault with the auto box on the diesels but I would have hoped by the 03 model they would have sorted it. Put the car in tiptronic (the gear selected is displayed on the dash [it is on mine anyway]) and select 4th or 5th then accelerate hard but not right down (to avoid kick-down), if the gearbox is slipping then the revs will rise to the redline without the gear display changing. If this happens then it could be a major re-build required. From what I understand, the gears in an auto box are always in mesh, a number of clutches are used to engage and dissengage each gear.

I totaly agree with the comments on the different driving styles of auto V manual. My Gal is auto and my Xantia is manual, I drive the Gal a lot more sedatley (whether or not the family are on board). Mind you the other difference between the Gal and Xantia is the fuel computer on the Gal, I always like to see this displaying as high a reading as poss and this does affect my driving style. Autos are much more relaxing, especially in traffic and lets face it even on an open road you are unlikely to be attacking your fav B road with gusto in a Gal! If auto boxes go wrong they can be very expensive to fix, mine did, the warranty paid most of it. In the end get whatever you feel most comfortable with. As regards to economy, my Gal has reported 46MPG on a long run (mix of M'way and A roads) but overall seems to average around 31 based on total qty of fuel bought over the last 1 1/2 years. The school run is normally in the 20's

Another important thing to remember when purchasing from a dealer is to use a credit card for at least

I believe (but I could be wrong) that under consumer legislation, whilst a dealer is obliged to fix faults, they are not obliged to recover the vehicle.

I seem to recall on my car, only 1 pad on each offside end (if you see what I mean) has a sensor wire. The system assumes that all pads will wear evenly, which they probably will unless there is a fault. The "Check Brake Pads" warning on the dash is very useful. Unless the dash is faulty that is. But I am not going into that one again.

Does there have to be a case of either here or there but not both? The www is big enough for more than one forum site. I am a member of several sites in many subjects, each offers slightly different content and each is useful in its own right.

I dont know about the rest of you but I seem to be paying more and more tax for less and less services. Our local hospital has closed its emergency dept, it has closed its maternity dept. We now have to travel 15 miles (OK nor too far but the old one was 2 miles) to the next hospital then pay an arm and leg to park (surley a form of tax for using the hospital) The police service seems to have been replaced with GATSOS, the army it seems is under funded, under equiped and overloaded. The Navy is heading towards a Navy without ships (well not very many) The bin men wont walk 5 feet down my front path to empty my bin. The roads are over crowded and badly maintained If I want to get away I have to pay more tax on my airline ticket If I decide to hide in a bottle I have to pay more than the rest of Europe to buy it. My motorbike got nicked but the police only wanted to know how well I thaught they answered the phone My council tax keeps going up And now we cant afford the Red Arrows Where is my tax going I am getting so p!$$ed of with this country under the dictatorship of Phoney Tony ps And you wondered why I call myself Grumpy?

Ahh, it sound like I have a twin! Different faults but the same feelings of love for the car!

Out of interest, what is the problem with the Dunlops? I chose these as they matched the ones already on the car.

Last time I looked for tyres, the best deal seemed to be

As I said, I like the car, whether I would buy another or not I dont know, time will tell. If you watched Top Gear yesterday, all 3 presenters said they would not reccomend an Alfa Romeo they were testing, but they all would buy it over the other cars in the test. Enough said?. When buying tyres for a car my family is to be in I always tend to buy known brand names. When I had the chance to shop around I paid around

So far Faulty booster heater Failed auto gearbox False warnings on dash Parking sensors that sometimes have the "day off" Expensive tyres I live in dread of the next "BEEP" from the dash My Citroen has 117,000 miles on it and only minor problems My Galaxy has 70,000 and has just had approx

Last summer I was in Cirencester with the family & caravan and was getting a slow speed wobble in the steering so I took the car to a tyre & exhaust place to get the fronts balanced. When they took one front off there was a lump of tread missing (inside of tyre). As you can imagine, I was:- a) relieved it had been found :( much poorer in the credit card dept 20 mins later! I dread to think what might have happened if it had popped with 1200kilos of caravan hooked on the back

Definatly recomend a sat nav, would have saved you around

Ditto the dirt. Mine started beeping continuosly and I thaught the towbar was to blame but a quick wipe with my thumb over the sensors this weekend got it working again!

Homer That looks like a great outfit, make mine look a little inadequate. Still its not size that counts (so I keep telling the missus!)