Towball weight

If you lighten the ball weight too much you risk the van getting the death wobbles. This is basically when it sets up a swaying motion that magnifies and can quickly throw the vehicle. Also the insurance companies would not like the practice.

Better off getting something that can handle the van as it's set up.

I agree with Notso. You will get a lot more information from these two links.

http://www.caravanandmotorhomebooks.com/pdf/vehicle_dynamics_complete.pdf

http://rvsupertramp.com.au/Portals/0/galleries/articles/caravan_dynamics_cw.pdf

You do need another tow vehicle.

Messing wit ball weights in the manner you suggest is a short cut to disaster. The 10% ball weight rule is a good rule of thumb. Some say it is too heavy but in my experience it is a safe bet.

Everything depends on your budget of course, you are not alone in that, however as you are upgrading to a small van then can I suggest that another upgrade to a bigger van again is somewhere in your future. With this in mind I would get a vehicle which can tow about 2.5 tonne or better. Overkill for the moment but capacity for the future. They are a vehicle designed to tow unlike the Passat which are a very good vehicle for their intended use.

A good second hand Turbo Diesel Prado would be a good choice considering you are a diesel person.

Just my thoughts on the subject.

Cheers, Bruce.

While,any enforcement of light trailers is...um...irregular and the criteriour are a litle vague.......most of the enforcement is done after the fact....that is after the accident..and most of the peanalty is appied by the insurance company.

Current vans will have both the ATM and the drawbar weight stamped on the Compliance plate.

Your vehicle will have the towing capacity and the permissable drawbar weight declared and published somewhere if it is not stamped on the towbar.

Regardless of the practical realities...if you are towing a trailer with a declared drawbar weight on 155KG with a vehicle with a declared maximum drawbar weight of 80Kg.......there IS a compliance issue.

After the rig has jackifed, rolled over and burned...they ( both authoroties and insurers) will not be much concerned about how the vehicle was loaded.....the first thing they will do, is compare the declared capacities, as published......they wont need to look any further for avreason not to pay.

cheers

Rob, Kim and Will,
The VW recommendations are a little peculiar and IMO are more suited to Germany where towing speed is restricted to 80kph. Our Tiguan has a 2000kg tow capacity (huge for a small vehicle!) but only 100kg ball weight. We've towed the TVan (1250kg) on odd occasions but had to do a major weight redistribution to get the ball weight down to 100kg. The Tig towed it fine, but we kept the speed down.
I think if you were to use the Passat to tow a bigger van through hilly country, at reasonable highway speeds, you'd get the death rattles as mentioned above if your towball weight was only 80kgs.