EP 29 - What Causes Trailer Sway (And How Tuson Fixes It)

If you tow a caravan or trailer, understanding sway could save your life.

In this video, we break down exactly what trailer sway is, why it happens, and how the Tuson Sway Controller helps keep your rig stable and safe on the road.

We’ll cover how the system works, when sway is most likely to occur, and most importantly — what you should do if it happens. We also talk through whether a sway controller is a “magic fix” (spoiler: it’s not) and share practical towing tips to help you avoid sway in the first place.

Plus, we dive into the Tuson and MDC relationship and how this system is used across our range.

If you tow regularly, this is must-know information.

Escape with Confidence

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:00

I came across the um sway controller by Tucson and I thought I'll put that in the back of my mind and wrote that would be awesome for us.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

MDC are probably the only company I can recall who actually came to us to use the product to source world's best practice in safety. What are other things that really cause sway? Sway in simple terms is the caravan is now travelling faster than the colour.

SPEAKER_05 0:24

Then you react by braking, and then that comes at the back, and then it's done on the dance.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Because I think there is a bit of a little leaf out there of your speed up. Speed up and put on your brake control, and that's common of what I've got.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

In my experience of travelling off load, I'm not seeing many people tumbling their caravans with Ferraris. So if you think you're going to speed up and pull them to correct us, I don't think it's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Hi everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Off-Grid Down Under Podcast. I'm your host, Sam, and um I'm sitting here with some guests with me today. Vaughn Heinley, director of um MDC Campus and Caravans. Sam, thanks for having me back again. Oh mate, we we you're on nearly every episode now, aren't you?

SPEAKER_06 1:14

How good? This is like my permanent spot.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

I know. I'm very comfortable in this seat. Mark Banks from Banks is Beach to Bush.

SPEAKER_05 1:21

Hey Sam, thanks for having us back again.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Mate, thank you. I think you're going to provide some interesting insights for us today, so it'll be interesting. And uh a very interesting guest. We have Kevin English from Tucson Australia.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Hello, Sam. Thank you very much for the invite. Really looking forward to uh sharing with you guys as uh arguably market leaders in in in uh in what you guys do. Um we've got some really important uh things we want to talk about for the benefit of not only uh your existing clients but also those who want to enjoy the wonders of our great country.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Awesome, mate. Thank you. Well look, it's an interesting topic today, and it's I think it's probably a bit of an understated uh topic, but it's very important, obviously, from a towing perspective with caravans, but obviously safety and as vans get bigger, sway controllers and vehicle stability is just becoming so much more important. You're towing a big heavy weight down the road. Vehicles are building in their technologies, but I guess what you guys provide is a an advanced technology for towing. So we use it on all our vans now and um getting some great results. So we're very happy, got very happy customers, and that's what we'd like to get your insights, you know, from from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

So yeah, look, it's it's certainly look just um for the viewers who um may not know, um, I think, and I stand to be corrected, but um MDC, uh probably the only company I can recall who actually came to us to use the product. Um now um I know where I was when when we got the phone call, which was uh on the Lang Lang Caravan Park. Um and uh what was what was important to me to know, to find out, well, first of all, why you're calling us is to understand the due diligence and the process that you guys have taken to source world's best practice in safety for not only your caravans, for your customers, um, to uh what I would categorize as to lead the field in making sure that people can invest in something where nothing's skimped on. That you're searching to make this the most enjoyable experience not only for on-road but off-road, and we'll certainly spend some time time on that. Yeah, and um so that's great credit to MDC. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

I think Vaughan, the business owner, would be pretty happy to hear that.

SPEAKER_06 3:47

Yeah, I can talk um to that a little bit and about sort of how it all started, and um Kevin appreciate that we've driven a lot of business towards you guys because typically what happens in our segment in the market in Australia is we incorporate something new and then you've got the followers that go, hey, that's a great idea, let's do that. And no doubt there's other companies that are using the Tucson um suede controller as well in our segment now. We did have exclusivity of where we were sourcing that product for a couple of years, um, which was great for us. But where it all started is we were looking to go into the USA market in 2018 and we started visiting uh their industry wholesale shows, so that was run by the RVIA, which is the RV Industri Industry Association in the US, and there was a show in Kentucky where all the big names um in industry go to show what's happening in the next year with their products, and all the dealers attend, and um the dealers put in orders from the manufacturers, and as part of that, there's a a section where there's all the smaller part suppliers, which was really cool, which I found really interesting. And there was a couple of blokes there, and I came across the um Sway Controller by Tucson, and I thought I'll put that in the back of my mind. Alright, that would be awesome for us um to implement the MDC product in the US and in Australia. And so a couple of years later it came up. We had James Field um join us, our um chief technical officer um product and innovation, and um said, Hey, I remember seeing this back at the show. Can you get in contact with these guys? Um which we all put together, and you know, the product is actually made in Taiwan, and as you know, um electronics in Taiwan are best in the world. And Kevin, you'll talk to your suede controller um of how it works, and it's a very technical piece equipment, and um you know it our products made in China, Taiwan's just off the coast of China, so it was a natural sort of association where we get that into our products, which we did, and initially we branded it the BG5000, so that was after Brad Kiddy, who had been with the company for around 10 years, he retired at the age of 72, and that was a bit of a going out sort of present for him where we re rebranded it as the BG5000. I don't know why 5000, but no, where did that come from? I was gonna say, was he 50 or something when he left? Well, he was 72, he hadn't been with us for 50 years, but he's certainly been in the industry for 50 years. So, yeah, that's how we'd um come across you guys.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

So, how what was on the market before then, Vaughan? Were you you were the MDC vans fitted with any sort of stability control in that respect?

SPEAKER_06 6:36

Or no, they weren't.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

And was it a common product on the market around that time?

SPEAKER_06 6:42

I believe there was some product on the market, um, but our vans around that time started getting longer and bigger and heavier, and that's where we've sort of made a decision. Hey, if there's something there that works really well and we can put that in our product and and give that to our customers to ensure that should there be an oh shit moment, um, that that's there to sort of protect them and help them out of a sticky situation.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

This is one of those things we you don't ever want to have to use it, but it's nice to know that it's there, right?

SPEAKER_06 7:16

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Look, I think that's uh it's a bit of a segue, it was a bit of a loaded question that one, but um I think where where Tucson fit from an MDC perspective was I guess the off-road capability of the product. That was something that really stood out and I it was introduced into the Mark III range of products of all our off-road products. So do you want to tell us a little bit about how the Tucson Sway controller or what it is and and a little bit how it works and and how it applies to both on-road and off-road situations?

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Sure. So I think what what I'd like to do is actually um take us on a little bit of a journey um to um um s speak about what what Vaughan spoke about in regards to if we go back to uh the the beginning of sway controls, uh the best way I can explain it is a lot of people will be familiar with um um I guess the the brake control is where you um I can go back to a number of brands that where you pushed across and you can control the brakes on the caravan. And then there was a um uh a great credit to uh Elko who bought out BSC. I think they were the first ones in Australia who did it. And what they actually did um for the viewers is that um, if you're not familiar, is in the old Voyager or the or the new red arcs, you push the button and it activates the brakes and it stops both both wheels brakes to take speed off the caravan. And what Alco did was they automated it so that the the they had um uh some technology in there that worked on two axes that had felt that sideways movement and it reacted to a sway and it would pull the caravan up to take speed off. So, in essence, and I'll simplify um uh w what is sway. Sway in simple terms is the caravan is now traveling faster than the car and it wants to overtake, right? But it's got this thing called a hitch on it that's gonna try and prevent it. So if we go back to to um my understanding of the history of of the progress of safety in this area, um uh what Tucson did was they thought, well, every car manufacturer in the world, every car manufacturer uses asymmetric technology for safety. And a lot of the viewers will be familiar with um certainly ABS, and in latter days we s we see um uh traction control. So it will actually break left and right wheels.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Um to bring them back, obviously, to the same speed or yeah, to control the correct, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Correct. But what they also did was was they they put in place the algorithms are really sophisticated, and I won't get too into detail with them, but what it does, it's measuring sway 200 times a second. So it's proactively measuring a sway event. It's not it's not going to react to it. And it should be. Always on. Always on. Always checking. Always on, except when we get off-road, and and and we will talk about that. So um if you look at the types of safety controls there are. So if we look at um at, I'll call it ground zero for want of a better description. We look at the the push-button brake controller. That was the first manual operation of some form of safety. Then we had uh a number of companies who developed automated what we call symmetric braking. Symmetric braking is both wheels are stopping at the same time to take speed off the van. What the Tucson does is because it's progressively measuring a s a sway event, it will progressively break the left or right wheel to bring the caravan back in. So this leads me into um a modern um install into vehicles, into cars, uh, which is you got inbuilt uh sway inbuilt into the car. Now, what I what what I need to impress upon the the um the viewers and and and car and owners is that the way it works is is it absolutely works asymmetrically. It's the safest, according to the laws of physics, it's the safest way to control a sway event. And it's trying to control the sway at the tobal. So what it will do is it will break the car asymmetrically on its wheels to try and bring the caravan back into into under control. It's been described to me as a terrifying and horrific event because you're trying to control a swaying caravan with a car, and it's also reactive. And this is the great thing about the MDC Tucson, is it's proactively measuring a major sway event.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

So it shouldn't it sh we're anticipating it shouldn't get to that point, right? You can shouldn't get to the point of being scary, it should already be activating and working to prevent that occurring.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Correct. Look, let's let's be brutally honest, is that there's no sway control on the market that will overcome a poorly designed caravan, uh, a poorly weighted caravan, an overloaded caravan, depending on the road conditions, the surfaces, um, you know, the driving conditions, I I guess. Um no sway control is going to control um an event that's uh it that it's not meant to try and control.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

What I can I just stop on that for a second. I just want to dive into what are the things that really cause sway? And I'm I we talked about things like poor weighting, balance, things like that, speed is another factor. Uh Banksy, in your experience, you've towed a lot with various different cars, big vans, small vans. You know, what experiences have you had around sway incidences?

SPEAKER_05 13:06

Um sway, like you can be going on the freeway and you're coming from a uphill, coming to a down, and all of a sudden there's a natural um cutaway in the side of the mountain or a bridge, and you come across that, and all of a sudden there's that airflow coming across. That just makes the van unstable because of that crosswind. Um I've had it where the difference is in road thickness, so you're driving along in the outback, um, you've got bitchman lane, it's one lane, um, and on the side of that there can be drop-off that's 50mm, and there can be drop-off that's 150. And if that tyre goes off, that'll go down, and then it'll suddenly do a pull on the the tow vehicle, then you react by braking, and then that comes at the back, and then it's doing the dance. Um and then it's a matter of okay, back in the old day and used to go onto the controller, um, used to do the slide across the push the button, but you've got to try to remember all that while panic's heading in and it's bucking around, where the Tucson sway control will just then activate that brake and just pulls it back. So it's in that like coming down from under load to offload, and the van tries to overtake you, and then there's that wind coming across that gets you. Or that dropping off off a surface of the road that will bring on that sway.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

I think you summarised that well, Kevin, just in the fact that it's the van trying to overtake the car. It's the best way to describe it.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Yeah, well, I think we've got we've got to just try and keep it simple and understand that that people would be um and I certainly want to support exactly what you know you everything you you've said. There's no doubt that when you drive around the roads off-road, I mean, it do it doesn't matter whether it's um the close ones with Birdsville Track, any of those sorts of ones, a Gibb River Road, you're going up the Cape, even if you do it every year, conditions change. You you can get it where they've graded the road one day and you can sit on 130 kilometres an hour, you go there the uh the next year, and you're flat out doing 20 for corrugations. But to go back to to some of the things to support, uh, what's been said is that um uh the the things that can cause um um sway is not paying attention to your tow ball weight, tyre pressures, making sure that your wheels are aligned, get them, get your caravans serviced, right? And when you buy a caravan, get to know it. The moment you get it, take the time to invest in your own safety, go and go and check what the T weight is, go and check what the tow ball is, learn how you do your weights, because it's so fundamentally important. And some of the things that I've seen on on YouTube um is about well, what where does a 10% bore weight come from? What what do you use? I've seen people who who will suggest five to seven percent um because but then maybe in Europe you do that. We've got the toughest environment in the world, unless you unless you want to talk about parts of Africa. Um certainly where we I I know that companies bring their vehicles here to test, um, and and I want um it's just so important to know that um to get your caravan serviced, to understand how it works, and one of the things that I've I've written down for everyone to do their own research because I did it through thanks to my American colleagues, um Alan, is to the only thing that I could find on what weights you should have on your tow ball is SA International J2807. And basically what it says is 10%.

SPEAKER_04 16:37

Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Now on bigger vehicles, um I assume now that you're in America, which I understand when they call it overlanding rather than what we do, the things that I've learnt talking to our American colleagues is that Australia is very, very far in front of America in regards to living off the off the grid, living off, living off-road. So there should be a lot of confidence that people take uh in America, knowing the experience that MDC have had in the conditions that Australia have got. Um so basically that's um um the other one is is when you're going downhill, if you're overweight, your caravan's trying to push your car. All right. So it's just it's always important to understand that it's your caravan, but understand safety's your responsibility. Right? It's up to you to make it. No one's helping you when that caravan's pushing you down the hill. Well, I think we've y you can go on YouTube yourself, but you can go and have a look. And and I think that the it's around about four to five seconds you've got before it's too late. And it's just an investment that um is great credit to MDC that it is the world's safest sway control, and the and the laws of physics prove that. Every car manufacturer in the world, as we've said before, uses asymptotic technology to control um an event to um hopefully not save your life because we don't want you getting in that place in the first place. But the uh but I I also want to dwell on uh and I will go uh shortly on to the benefits of on-road and off-road.

SPEAKER_06 18:21

But Sam Before you go there, Kevin, um talking about understanding your weights is very important.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 18:27

And one thing that we do here at MDC is when the caravan comes off the production line, we have a weigh bridge in our production facilities in each one that actually we measure the tear weight of that actual van. And then that is stamped onto the VIN plate. So down to the kilo as it comes off production line, that tear weight is accurate. And so if you want to understand exactly what your caravan weighs, if you are to measure, and I know Banksy's done this before, is everything you put into your van, if you weigh it on the way in, you can run a little Excel sheet, add it all up, there's your total weight.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Yeah, that's awesome. And I know one of the things I've done, um probably the anal one, is I know I on my I've got spreadsheets where I've measured everything, from how much pepper and salt weigh to you name it's gonna go in a van, I've got it. Yeah, right. Right, and it's so fundamentally important because it's so easy to get overweight. Right? Because you sort of think you you you you fill your caravan up and you feel like it's sitting beautiful. You know, I haven't got a problem. And but once once you hook it up, so for example, you've got water tanks, are they in front of the axle? Are they behind the axle? Is it grey water, is it water, are you carrying water or are you going to get it when you get there? Correct. Are you um, you know, it's like um a litre of water is a kilo. But if you've got if you if you're carrying jerry cans, well um, you know, um 20 litres of diesel is only what point point eight three or point eight five. Well go and fill your gas bottles.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Go and fill two gas bottles, right?

SPEAKER_05 20:09

Nine kilos.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Yeah, nine kilos each, yeah, it's pretty solid weight. I think I've and the gas bottle itself, right? The gas bottle itself would be a few kilos in that. So um what does the what does the suede controller do then in terms of its function, both driving down the bitumen road on the highway use, or versus then off-road use and things like that, because the Tucson system is quite unique in its uh the way that it works for off-road in particular.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Yeah, okay, there's there's a number of really important aspects. Um first of all, it uses a uh a gyroscope, so it's measuring the three-way axis, it's measuring the sideways movements and the upwards movement. Um now, when you're going down on the black stuff, um in certain parts of Australia they've introduced a um a new um thing to swerve around, potholes. Right? I've seen a few of those lately. Yeah, and and I think it's one of those um uh unconditioned reflexes that when you see you you just swerve.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

You do.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Right? And so we if we talk about the black stuff, so uh on on the roads, um you've you've got, as mentioned before, um the wind. So you can sometimes, like in New South Wales, you're gonna cross out out from the hills, then you cross a large bridge going across a body of water, and then all of a sudden you get hit with the wind. Right? Um so that that's that's one of the things that it's it's nice to know that your Tucson is there measuring York's way on your caravan 200 times a second. Right? So it's it's it's it is the it is the world's safest, and and when you're driving on the black stuff, um it's just comforting when you're going downhill, you know that the last thing you want to be worrying about is what is what's in your rear vision. Wh where it comes into the fore, and this is really, really important for people who want to go off-road onto the dirt tracks, is that we have other elements that generally come into play depending on where you are in Australia. Up north it can be camels, emus, um, and kangaroos, all the all the usual. And what I want to highlight to people is that when you're off-road and you're driving down a road and you have to swerve, when you're going around, if you get a sway, if both your rear wheels lock up, that van becomes a sled. Right? But with your tucson, because it's asymmetric, only one wheel will grab to free you up to bring you back. So off-road, if you're going off-road, it's a must to have a tucson sway control on your van. It's not even open for debate, in my humble opinion. I've travelled most roads in Australia and I've been very fortunate too. And there's no way known that I would go off-road without without a Tucson.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

So understanding when you get on a dirt road, naturally you're going to have a bit more play in the vehicle driving down a gravel road, for example, there it will be looser. The module itself detects that and goes, well, that's actually normal for this situation. Is that how it works?

SPEAKER_00 23:20

That's correct. The algorithms are are absolutely incredible. Um I will digress by saying it's that intelligent when you hook it up to your car, it it can read what your car is. When you're going off-road, for example, it's it's predetermined algorithms that will allow it to know what what you're happy, it knows what speed you're doing, it knows, it takes into account everything your caravan's doing. Right? So, and and I'll give you an ex a classic example is that when you go off-road, you take off some of these little tracks and you're going down up to Berkshire or up to Murray when you want to go on those roads where you're going over a lot of culverts, um, it knows what you're doing. And it doesn't, it it knows that you're that you are going slow. So it doesn't, it knows you're not having a sway event. So it won't put your brakes on. But there are other models on the road where you have to remember to get out and disconnect your your your sway control. Otherwise, it'll think here's a sway event, and it'll start using the control. You'll constantly keep locking up where you're on the dirt. So it knows when you're going on the beach, it knows when you're going over slow roads, it knows when you're back into into into a strong driving mode.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

So that would have been obviously a key innovating point from your point of view in that product selection.

SPEAKER_06 24:41

Absolutely. Like when you're out west, typically the uh black stuff turns into dirt road, and then a kilometer down the road it's back in the black stuff, then another 10Ks it's back into the dirt. You don't want to be getting out of the vehicle and disconnecting and reconnecting plugs every couple of minutes.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Have you had much experience, Banksy, with other systems or other sway controllers and what's been your chance on or off road?

SPEAKER_05 25:07

So I haven't had any other different type there. Um but I do know that um by having one um like when we went to the Cape, the wet weather event that came along at the road, been freshly graded, it gets that shine up, so you get what's called the push effect. So you turn in a corner, the mud's built up on your tyres, and the van starts to do that sideways slide because it's nice and shiny.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

Yeah, there's nothing there to hold on to.

SPEAKER_05 25:33

Yeah, yeah. So then you can feel that brake then um dab on, which then just holds that and then it drives along.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

So what does it feel like? Can you describe it? What what do you do in that situation?

SPEAKER_05 25:47

A better question is what do you do in that situation? So you get a confidence of that when you're moving and it starts to move that it stays at that position.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

So you're you're in a big, you know, six-ton truck. What what's the first thing you do when you feel the trailer going?

SPEAKER_05 26:02

Um so one is I look back in the mirror left to right to see like what the van's currently doing. Um and then it's either a braking application or is it something that I can just hold that pace, and then the controller will then grab that right hand wheel and just holds that. So it gives you confidence, I feel. You do get when you you step off the bitchman onto gravel and you've had that big drop that you didn't expect because the last one when you dropped off was only that big. When it comes back off and it does that big woof, and you you actually feel that in your actual truck, even in my truck, you'll still get the big lift up in your seat, and everyone goes a little bit like that. Then it grabs that wheel and then pulls it so that it sits there. And you look back in the mirror and you can actually see the van. So instead of doing that, it does this little so it's the brake left, right, left, right, and holds that.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

So it's important obviously not to panic in those situations. Trust that the controller's going to arrest it and pull it up, but also try and observe what's happening, don't just respond and react and do something. I've had it where I've had brake failure in a quite a big camper trailer I used to have, and it wasn't MDC one, it's okay. Um but it was quite a steep hill and I was just on the brakes the whole way down. It was on the bitumen and it was getting away from me, and the brakes started to fail, and it was literally starting to push me down the hill. And rather than trying to pull into corners where we're only doing 40k an hour or something, but it's scary enough when you're getting pushed down a hill. But even just straightening out to recorre recorrect the turn if the trailer's starting to slide around, things like that, and just think about things carefully. If you've got five to seven seconds, that's a long time when something like that happens.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

Yeah, I think it's doesn't sound like much, but it is a while. I think it's also important to back Banksy up here is that um in my experience uh of travelling off-road, I've not seen many people towing their caravans with Ferraris. No. So if you think you're going to speed up and pull to correct a sway, I don't I don't think it's gonna happen. So I I agree with Banksy, trial and control, you know, your your Tucson will will break as hard as it needs to, progressively, left or right. But the most important is try and take speed off. Most tow vehicles just a lot of people have diesels. You can put the foot down, but nothing's gonna happen for a couple of seconds, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Because I think there is a bit of a uh a belief out there. I've just speed up. Speed up and put on your brake controller. That's kind of what I've been that's what I've heard along the way. It's hard to feel not as easy to do that as well. No, so to your point, Kevin, it's make sure with the brake controller on or with the yeah, with the sway control, you've you would you can just slow down, you can wash off the speed, the brake controller will do what it needs to do, and you can safely drive off without having to accelerate and try and do all these kind of crazy moves.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

The most important bit of advice we can give is drive to the conditions and understand the conditions. Once you get off-road and now with potholes on road, is that you're not always in control of what of what the circumstances are going to be as far as what your van's gonna go, but if you're gonna have to swerve, whether that's for an animal's, we don't mean to hit the animal, but most people tend to swerve. The other thing is my experience, banks is up north, the camber, the roads tend to be different. Yeah, much higher.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

So they're much higher camps for drainage, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

For drainage, and I don't do this, but some people, depending on the road conditions, will drive on the right side of the road or the left side of the road, depending on what's the best driving corrugations.

SPEAKER_05 29:34

I've definitely done the middle.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

I've I've done the other side, provided you can see longer the distance, because the corrugations will go with the traffic. If you're on the other side, shouldn't advocate this, but it's always a little bit smoother.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Yeah. But again, it's just, you know, I just want to impress upon people that everything everything MDC do, everything Tucson do, please drive the conditions and and and understand that you're better off being late. I mean, I don't know about you, Max. I know I always had a always had a rule that I always stop by four o'clock. Always give me time to get plenty of time to get set up, relax, chill out. Sure it's not to crack a beer by five?

SPEAKER_06 30:09

Is that quarter past four, maybe?

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Well, I think you've got to you certainly got to give your your partner time to prepare. Yeah. You know, prepare themselves to get a shampoo's going or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

You're there on holiday, mate, you're not there working. So we talked about how the gyroscope works a little bit and talked about how it the the controller detects what's normal and then says, okay, this is outside normal. Does it and I guess how far does it have to move before it starts to take action? Is there especially on a bitchman road or things like that?

SPEAKER_00 30:43

It's a great question. Um the algorithms in in in the Tucson are set to avoid a major sway event. Right? So minus minor movement in the back of the van, it's not going to respond to.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Okay. Right. Is there like a tolerance marker in there or is it not really a measured?

SPEAKER_00 30:58

There is a tolerance, but it it it it's it allows for certain movement.

SPEAKER_02 31:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Um and what I go back to the normal the normal things that can cause um movement. That's you haven't got your weight distribution right. Check check your bore weight, check your tyre pressures. But it uh my understanding, certainly from Tucson, I speak from Tucson's point of view, is there to arrest any major sway event that you that that can cause your you and your family harm.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Sure. There's going to be natural movement, of course, but then it's something that's outside that range of it.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Yeah, it's like um you you can go fill up, your van's full, you have the first night, everyone has a shower, and all of a sudden you're missing 60 litres out of your water, out of the front boreway, right? You've used up some gas, right? If you've depending on what you've been carrying forward of your of of your of your wheels, have you moved um water back into your grey water tank? Where are your grey water tanks? But the moment you camp overnight and have a have a big camp where you're using a lot of water, you're using weight, your caravan's gonna be different the next day you drive off.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

Or even two or three nights staying somewhere in one spot. You might go away for the weekend and shift all your fresh water to your grey water. Now all of a sudden it's all at the back of the van and it's very as you say, gas bottles are empty. It doesn't have to have to be one night, quite a significant change.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Sorry, Sammy, and you've just got to be aware of that. That um every time you drive your van, go through your safety checks, make sure uh all the things are important to you, and there's plenty of things that uh you need to know. Um just make sure you go through every day that this is an important task you're doing on behalf of not only yourself but your family. You know, invest in yourself, take the time.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

So how much can you rely on the Tucson controller? This, I mean, is it a is it a cover all for bad towing practice?

SPEAKER_00 32:52

The the answer is no.

SPEAKER_03 32:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Um the answer is is that um um everyone's got a responsibility to make sure that the that the van is being towed to the manufacturer specifications and to their guidelines and and what they ask you to do. That includes getting a service to make sure that everything is in fine working order, no different to what your car is. Some people work on, you know, my car's Jeffrey service every 10,000. I've got to make sure I book my caravan at the same time, whatever the caravan requirements are, don't neglect them.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

No, look, I can speak from experience in the fact that I was doing something on my camper trailer and I noticed one of the um uh cam bolts in the trailing arm was just a bit loose just from years of use, and I'd checked it out and it was only on was essentially just fingertight, and that was that screwed up my whole alignment and everything. It was only just through servicing that I'd pick that up. So it was yeah.

SPEAKER_06 33:49

Pretty common on a Black Series back then, Sam. I know, mate.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

Well, I think the other thing is that it's still in the full game, not not to do with Tucson, but but still important on safety is that when you get a new caravan, there's a reason why you tighten the wheel nuts up over a certain period of time because they've got to bed themselves in. Correct. Yeah. So, you know, s safety is not just the manufacturer's done all their ticked all the boxes and all the boxes. Well, at the end of the day, it's your caravan. Treat it as if it's what it's there for, for you to have the best time of your life. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 34:22

Yeah, the suede control is there not to give you a licence to drive like a moron or overweight or worry about the weight distribution, yeah. Yeah, you need to take some responsibility for what you're doing. And it's there as um, you know, a safety mechanism should a catastrophic event um start.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Well, I I think one of the things I'd like to uh I'd like to say to put across is that when you look at the cost of of a two silence weight control compared to the symmetric um competitors, I would say I won't say competitors' options, but the the price difference is negligible. Based on the cost of a van, why wouldn't you want the best? I mean and and and again, this is a great credit to to MDC is that um they could have opted to say yeah, it's got a swag control. But whether it was uh you Vaughn or whoever else inside the company decided that we want the best our customers are important to us.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

And that we want them to have a nice towing experience, right? It's not much fun towing a product that isn't fun to tow. You're not gonna want to take it out and use it, and we want everyone to you know escape with confidence, it's in the motto, right?

SPEAKER_06 35:33

Absolutely, and you know, we don't want to be on the internet with a MDC caravan wobbling down the road. No, absolutely. We don't we don't want to see that.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

Totally. So look, tell us a little bit about the the Tucson and MDC relationship. We kind of talked a bit about it in terms of branching out into well identifying it in the US, it's kind of coming back full circle where we're now taking Tucson and our models back to the US. So they're now standard on all the US models as well.

SPEAKER_06 36:03

Yes, they absolutely are, and um you know our US customers are really taking it up, and it's become a big thing in the US, the sway controls. And over there, you don't really see radar cameras, right? And so I've been towing in the US and um typically we're towing at 80, 85 miles per hour just to keep up traffic, which is quite quick. That's pretty quick. It is, and the roads are very nice.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

You're towing 19 foot bands or anything. Exactly.

SPEAKER_06 36:33

And if you have a uh sway event at that speed, you really do need something there to help you uh mitigate any sort of uh accident, I guess. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 36:45

One thing I'd like to add is that Tucson is an American company, um, and and their headquarters are over there. Um and uh certainly what I can say is that to the best of my knowledge and my understanding of the laws of physics, although I'm not a physicist, is there's nothing that's gonna deal with a sway better than asymmetric control. Well, and I there's no research I've been told of. Um and certainly every car manufacturer, as we said before, haven't come up with anything better. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

Well, look, it's yeah, it's certainly proving itself, and it's uh it's a nice reassurance for any customer that does drive away with one of these that they've got the best in the market, they've got something that's going to work both on and off-road. Um regardless of essentially which model they're looking at. It's certainly worth having a chat to the the sales teams when you go and look at a van. If you're looking at an on-road or an off-road, just confirm which one you're looking at and have a chat to them about the stability control and see what's available and go from there.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

Certainly from my point of view, I think it's also important that um a credit to to MDC is that uh they're not cutting corners for the for prices that they care about their as I said before, they care about their customers.

SPEAKER_06 38:04

Well, like they say, Kevin, it takes two to tango, and um, you know, we chose the best product that we could find in the market, and we still align ourselves with Tucson. And going forward we will be running with your asymmetric suede controllers till the end of time, I think.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

Thank you. Well, unl unless there's uh new technology comes up. But you know, certainly there's there's no doubt when we look at the the evidence we're getting from our Google and our meta meta programs um is that the people of uh uh in Australia absolutely know who Tucson is. I think we had nearly 2.2 million uh hits on one of the Google songs. I mean that's that's that that's is a reflection of um I think a lot of the work that you do that you do care about safety in the way your salespeople enforce the point to their customers and their clients that we care about you.

SPEAKER_01 38:57

Absolutely. And look, it's a nice little segue too. There in terms of towing as a as a broader picture, there are a lot of resources out there for people that are looking. Um I know Chrissy Murphy, who we've had Murph's in a pod, um she's been on the podcast and talked about her book, which is Tow Like a Girl. So it's about towing practice for people.

SPEAKER_05 39:16

To read that on Twitter, that's really good.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

Yeah, so she actually sells that, it's a book, uh it's an ebook on Amazon. Um but tow like a girl is really interesting. We'll link that to the in the description down below. You can go and watch that, but she's a good advocate for that. And you've got a towing guide in your hand there, Banks.

SPEAKER_05 39:30

Yeah, so um I like always doing my little bit of research. So this is the National Recreational Vehicles towing guide. This is uh version 10. Um and when I went through I looked up braking. Okay. So in braking, there it goes on about the driver and then the vehicle, and then it does have a big section there on stability controls, caravan sway, towing your caravan, and it talks about all those things that are very important to you. Yeah, cool. So if you want to get hold of one of those, just look it up. Where are they from? It's just a national link, like you just Google it and come.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

Download it or not download that, but obviously order one, can you?

SPEAKER_06 40:07

I think that comes through the um Caravan Industry Association of Australia. Yep. And you'll might f you'll find them at uh major caravanning shows on their stands.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

Perfect, great. And I think I'd also like to uh say, if I may, is that uh for all of your um um viewers and and uh and um clients to have a look at the at the Tucson Australia website. We've got lots of information there on on safety because we like you, we care about it, and we want as many people as possible to see this great country and uh and spend the money in in the caravan industry.

SPEAKER_01 40:40

Yeah, and keep and keep doing it. We want to stick around for a while. Absolutely. But no, look, we'll link that off too. That's a good suggestion. We'll link off to the website and people can get out there and check out the resources that you guys have available. We we're all about education here and give people all the information they could possibly want and get them prepared to go wherever and whenever they want to go.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

I couldn't agree more, just try and stick to the science and and uh yeah, judge what you want on on YouTube. But the most important thing is try and stick stick to the people who I regard as credible, do your own research, um, and that way I think you'll you're gonna have a very happy time caravaning.

SPEAKER_01 41:17

Awesome. Well, Kevin, thank you very much for joining us. It's been a pleasure having you up here and very inf very insightful. Thanks, Banksy. No problem. Thanks, Vaughan again. Thanks, Sam. And uh thanks to all the viewers for watching, and we hope you enjoyed what you've heard about today, the two on stability controls. But um, if you do like it, please like, please subscribe, and we'll look forward to seeing you on the next episode of Off Grid Down Under.