Caravan Motor Mover with Automatic Engagement in a Standard Duty Specification

A motor mover: the rollers engage themselves at the press of a button, which matters most to anybody who would struggle to kneel on wet grass.

Towing is the one thing you can buy for a car where the wrong part is not merely disappointing. Every towbar listing here states the type approval number, the D value, the maximum noseweight and whether the bumper has to be cut, because those four facts decide whether a bar is legal on your vehicle and whether it will pull what you want to pull. Every electrical listing says plainly whether it is a dedicated loom or a universal one with a bypass relay, and what each will and will not do. We would rather lose a sale to a cheaper part than sell you one that does not fit.

Specification

• Fits: single axle caravans with a chassis we can confirm from your VIN plate, and twin axle on the four wheel drive model. Send us a photograph of the chassis between the wheels and we will tell you before you order
• Approval: not a type approved part, but the installation must not foul the chassis, the brake linkage or the waste pipes, and the instructions state the clearances
• Rating: 1800kg maximum caravan weight, measured on a 25 per cent gradient rather than on the flat, which is how the honest figures are quoted
• D value: not applicable, this is an accessory rather than a load bearing towing part
• Noseweight: a mover adds 34 to 42 kilograms to the caravan, and most of it sits close to the axle rather than at the hitch, so the effect on noseweight is small but not nothing. Noseweight is the downward load the trailer puts on the ball, and the figure you may use is the lowest of four numbers: the towbar's S value, the vehicle handbook's noseweight limit, the towball's rating and the caravan coupling's rating. Most people know the first and none of the other three, and a combination that is legal on paper is often over the limit on the one that matters.
• Ball height: not applicable
• Electrics: 12 volt, drawing 80 to 100 amps under load. A motor mover draws a great deal of current, typically 80 to 100 amps under load. It will flatten a tired leisure battery in minutes and it will refuse to move a caravan at all on a battery below about 12.2 volts. Any mover bought without also sorting the battery out is half a purchase, which is why the battery is an option on every mover listing here rather than an upsell afterwards.
• Fitting time: three to five hours, and the rollers have to be set to a 20mm clearance from the tyre with the caravan at its normal ride height
• Bumper: not applicable
• Materials: the standard specification, which covers the great majority of cars and caravans on UK roads
• Weight: approximately 38.4 kilograms
• Guarantee: five years on the drive units, two years on the electronics
• Battery: chosen above. A mover on a tired 75Ah battery is a mover that will stop halfway onto the pitch. A motor mover draws a great deal of current, typically 80 to 100 amps under load. It will flatten a tired leisure battery in minutes and it will refuse to move a caravan at all on a battery below about 12.2 volts. Any mover bought without also sorting the battery out is half a purchase, which is why the battery is an option on every mover listing here rather than an upsell afterwards.
• Current draw: 80 to 100 amps under load, which is why the supplied cable is 25 square millimetres and why using anything thinner is a fire
• Engagement: automatic, at the press of a button
• Gradient: rated on a 25 per cent slope. Movers quoted on the flat will claim several hundred kilograms more than they can do
• Tyre clearance: 20mm set at installation, and it has to be checked when tyres are changed

What arrives

• the drive units and the chassis brackets
• the control box and the fused battery cable
• the handset and a spare battery for it
• the leisure battery if chosen above
• a chassis specific fitting guide
• a clearance gauge for setting the rollers

Fitting

Three to five hours. The brackets clamp to the chassis without drilling on almost every caravan, the cable is run in 25 square millimetre to the battery box with a fuse within 300mm of the battery terminal, and the rollers are set to 20mm off the tyre. Fitting is available at our centres and mobile, and we would suggest it: the clearance setting is the difference between a mover that works and one that grinds a tyre to nothing in a season.

Before you order

Two things decide whether a mover is worth its money, and neither is the brand. The first is the battery: 80 to 100 amps under load means a 110Ah AGM at the very least, and a lithium if you want it to still work on the last day of a fortnight off grid. The second is the gradient figure. A mover advertised at 2000kg on the flat will struggle with a 1500kg caravan on a wet grass slope, and every figure on this page is quoted on a 25 per cent gradient for that reason.