Tips for Safer Towing and Longer Tyre Life

When you’re towing a caravan across Australia’s vast and varied roads, safety and reliability are everything. One often overlooked factor that can make or break your trip is wheel alignment. A caravan that’s even slightly out of alignment can cause uneven tyre wear, poor handling, increased fuel consumption, and, in the worst cases, dangerous sway on the highway.

Why Wheel Alignment Matters

• Tyre life: Misaligned wheels chew through rubber much faster, leading to costly replacements.
• Fuel efficiency: More drag equals higher fuel consumption — a hidden cost of misalignment.
• Safety: Poor alignment can reduce stability, especially at highway speeds or on rough outback roads.
• Stress reduction: A van that tows smoothly takes stress off the tow vehicle, driver, and passengers.

Monitoring Alignment on the Road

Australia’s roads can be unforgiving, potholes, corrugations, and long stretches of uneven bitumen can all knock your caravan’s wheels out of alignment mid-trip. That’s why it’s important to keep an eye on things as you travel.

A simple DIY method I use on my own caravan is marking the alignment adjusters with a permanent marker. This way, I can visually check at a glance if anything has shifted while I’m on the road. It only takes a second during a fuel stop or at a campsite, and it gives you peace of mind.

This method only works if you know the wheel alignment is correct to begin with. So, the best thing to do, before going on any trip, is to load the caravan up and get it wheel aligned professionally.

I have been advised that when you get a new caravan, the initial wheel alignment (if any) would be done on an empty caravan, as the caravan gets loaded up, just like your car the alignment changes.

So if you have just got a new van, or second hand one, best to get a wheel alignment done by someone who knows what they are doing.

Other quick checks:

• Look for uneven tyre wear when you stop.
• Pay attention to changes in towing feel (does the caravan start pulling to one side?).
• Check wheel temperatures after long hauls — one wheel running hotter can be a sign of trouble.

A Habit Worth Keeping

This is something I did from the beginning, when we first got the caravan, I marked the adjusters, and every now and again I poked my head underneath to have a look, they just stayed there, nothing moving. All good.

It was not until we started the Oodnadatta track that the adjusters would start moving, every night, at camp I would check, and get the spanners out and put them back to where they should be.

By the time we got to Alice Springs, I was adjusting them back nearly every night. Even when we left the dirt roads and back on the tar seal, they would still move out of adjustment. It was not until I got a wheel alignment done at Alice Springs that ever since then everything has been ok.

We even went from Alice Springs to Boulia over the Plenty/Donohue Hwy, no problems.

I am convinced, had I not marked the adjusters, I would have not known about the wheel alignment moving, and I would have probably destroyed 2 tyres, or worse got stuck somewhere with a blowout.

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