Tested: Towsafe ball weight scale

Knowing the exact mount of weight applied by your caravan or camper trailer on your tow vehicle’s towball is an important consideration when towing.

Not only is it vital to ensure you’re legally within the specified limits set by the tow bar and tow vehicle manufacturers, but having too light or too heavy towball mass can adversely affect handling, and lead to caravan sway, loss of traction or loss of steering control.

As well as the obvious safety issues, there are also insurance and legal implications of having an irregular tow ball weight.

One way to check your ball weight is to follow the truckies to a public weighbridge, but that’s not always convenient or even sensible, especially considering you really need to know before you hit the road.

Those on tight budgets could follow a Youtube video and use some spare steel, timber and ordinary bathroom scales to get a reading, although that can be a bit hit and miss, particularly if your scales don’t record beyond a certain weight.

The most convenient alternative then is a portable ball weight scale, with at least a couple of decent options available. European brand Reich offers a digital scale that also measures axle weights (hence overall loaded weight), but it retails for more than $400.

A much cheaper option is the Towsafe scale, which only measures ball weight ‘manually’ but should be just as convenient and accurate.

We recently had the chance to use the Towsafe when trying to obtain a decent ball weight while loading up for an Outback caravanning trip, and it worked a treat.

While there are detailed instructions on the box, the Towsafe is relatively simple to use. After ensuring the caravan is on a level surface, the Towsafe simply sits under the coupling and provides a reading after you wind up the jockey wheel.

The gauge is pretty easy to read and calibrated from 100kg to 350Kg, in 10kg increments. The only issue we had was trying to estimate a reading at one stage just below 100kg.

And due to the off-road caravan's raised chassis, we had to place a few timber pieces under the base of the Towsafe to get it to a sufficient height under the towball, and ensure the van remained level.

But it’s so easy to use that playing around with loads to see the effect on ball weight proved almost a fun exercise.

In our case it varied from 90kg to 200kg, after moving loads to different locations. The only hassle was winding down the jockey wheel between measurements, as the Towsafe is not sturdy enough to safely hold the drawbar while moving around the van.

Other Towsafe features are a soft head that won’t damage your RV’s coupling, and for those with couplings other than the traditional 50mm ball, there’s an adaptor that costs around $20.

Being relatively light and compact, the Towsafe is easily stowed on your travels, no matter your rig, for on-the-road weighing.

It also looks well-made, with a heavy-duty steel construction and paint finish, laser etched guage, and all-important testing to the AS/NZS ISO10012:2004 standard.

The Japanese-made compression spring should also provide hundreds of compressions without losing accuracy.

The Towsafe is available for around $80 at Repco stores, but we’ve seen it as low as $60 on some online websites. That’s not a lot when it comes to added safety and peace and mind when towing.