LDV Van - Affect of Wind and Lack of Traction!

The message from snipped-for-privacy@greymatter.com (Phil P) contains these words:

Your friend is right - they have sod all traction when empty because there's no weight over the back axles. You can ballast it if you feel like it. Concrete is inconvenient, try water[1]. Or try driving a suitable vehicle!

Welcome to the wonderful wacky world of commercial vehicles. The problem with wind is what all van and truck drivers have to put up with all the time. I'm sure you will on occasion have heard that bridges, particularly the severn bridge, get closed to high sided vehicles, and now you know why. Getting blown over is rare, but happens. Not so rare is getting blown nearly over, so that the driving wheels lose traction and the wheels spin, your speed reduces, the wheels come back down and grip again. This can also happen on bends/roundabouts, when the weight of the body makes it lean over.

Difficulty turning round on the grass is also a common problem. I have an LDV with single rear wheels, so I avoid grass whenever possible! Try this- engage 1st gear and let the clutch pedal up slowly *without* touching the accelerator pedal. You are obviously more used to a small car with front wheel drive which is much easier in these circumstances.

And remember next time you're stuck behind a van or a truck, he's not holding you up deliberately, he's doing his best!

Regards, Steve

Gotta love those 53 foot trailers. They will be driving down the road in a cross wind with the tractor over the line on one side of the lane and the back of the trailer is hanging over the line on the other side. And when there is a really strong windstorm there will be empty trailers being blown over all over the place.

But if using water, doent allow any 'slopping' space, ie fill container fully, otherwise you'll get the'Herald of Free Enterprise' effect.

The message from "shazzbat" contains these words:

The Norbert Dentressangle tanker which overtook me yesterday (while I was doing a little over 70mph, guv) was certainly doing his best.

Don't they have speed limiters on the continong?

Allegedly. Although foreign drivers in UK know that they are pretty much asbestos. There's very little chance of being nicked, and if they are, there's very little chance of follow up, especially if the come the old "Que?"

Mind you I had the same recently on the M40 from an initial city link double decker. I was in a 7.5 tonner at the time, so allowed to do 70 mph. I overtook him, a puff of wind dropped me down to 65 before I could get back in to lane1, next minute I'm behind him again, still doing 65.

Steve

FWD Transits (the full sized one, not Connect) don't have these problems, though.

What they do get is over-light steering when loaded.

That's a two way street, I'm sure you'll notice that from the first post, the thread has been posted to misc.transport.trucking as well. Whitelightning

Come on Conor, give the guy a break. Given what NG this is, (I've just noticed the crossposting, but I'm not subscribed to the others), The OP was somewhat OT anyway given he wasn't talking about a car or about maintenance. Lets not get too hung up eh?

Anyway, now you're here, answer me a question if you will. Why are susies so called? I've been asking other drivers this for 20 odd years and the nearest I've got to an answer is " Susie invented them".

Steve

And misc.transport.trucking

The message from "shazzbat" contains these words:

What's a susie?

The curly pipes between the unit and the trailer. They're always called suzies AFAIK. They probably have a technical name, but it has withered away from lack of use.

Steve

They're bad in the wind & vague the rest of the time. You get used to not correcting for minor deviations after a while or you change all the rubber bushes in the front. & then it'll still blow about in the wind almost as badly as a Micra, esp. when empty

There's no weight on the back when it's empty & if you've got Michelin pattern tyres on they're truly crap on grass, the Dunlops with bigger sipes are better

Only if you position some of the 2.2 tonnes over the driven wheels

The message from "shazzbat" contains these words:

Ah - I thought it might be that tinplate cut-out of an improbably narrow female hugging her knees.

thanks for all the brilliant advice. I put some breeze blocks in this morning and it felt much better

Phil

A couple of plastic packed sacks of ballast ( builders term for shingle/gravel/sand mix) worked fine when we had the cabstar.

Of course when we wanted to go anywhere and needed it him-indoors had invariable built something with it and the builder centre was shut!!!!

:o)