Which caravan towing mirrors should I buy?

Caravan towing mirrors – are they really necessary?

It seems obvious – yes – but why?

Well, it starts with their legality. In all Australian States and Territories you must have them if your caravan or camper is wider that your tow vehicle. The standard mirrors on your car are designed to give visibility for the length of your vehicle but do not account for long objects like a caravan. Towing mirrors will provide that extra viewing capability for safety and ease.

Let’s start with going forward. Caravans, like most towed trailers, tend to cut corners when you turn, so if you want to see where your wheels are going, you either need eyes in the back of your head, or some towing mirrors to help you.

Left hand corners can easily catch you out and roundabouts are always a worry. You need to transcribe a wider arc than you imagine to avoid your caravan wheels cutting the corner and grazing a telegraph pole or a parked car.

That is why external mirrors need to focus on the rear of your rig, while holding the mirror glass steady in side winds and at speed. This is essential when overtaking to avoid chopping the nose off the vehicle you're overtaking.

Of course this means having your tow car’s mirrors securely mounted and properly adjusted and many caravan mirrors, or to be more accurate their owners, just don’t cut it. A rear view camera on the rear of your van is a valuable further asset.

From experience, the some of the best towing mirrors have a triangular mount on your front door, with one leg sometimes being a tensioning rubber to hold the mirror glass steady in side winds and at speed.

The towing mirrors that attach to your existing wing mirrors are also good as long as the profile of the car’s mirror allows the extension mirror to be tensioned securely without slipping off in the wind-stream or by vibration.

Perhaps the best of them all are replacement mirrors, like those from Clearview that are a direct replacement for the standard mirrors on most of the popular vehicle makes. They replace your existing external mirrors and can be extended and adjusted either manually or electronically.

I’ve used these on a trip and my only issue was that they had to be adjusted from inside the vehicle using its original electric mirror controls.

Unfortunately, the full replacement mirrors are not cheap and the upper fixed portion of the mirrors I tried was flat, which contrasted with the convex lower smaller section and gave me a confusing picture of what was behind me at night. I would have preferred the main glass to be slightly convex.

Personally I prefer the convex single mirror image option that uses a large convex mirror to give a wider rear view field, and slides back into the vehicle like an OEM mirror when not towing, as well as reducing blind spots.

In other words, it gives a similar but wider rear view to the standard mirror it replaces.  If you can’t replace the original mirror, then a sturdy door mount is next best although some of the premium clamp-on type towing mirrors also work well, and once you've set them up they're very quick to take off and on which can be an advantage when touring.

A rear-view camera on the back of your van connected to a dashboard monitor is another handy aid to have, as you can get a more accurate idea of how much space you’ve given the vehicle you’ve just overtaken. A few millimetres is just not enough and might scare the latter driver to take sudden, evasive steering, triggering further panic reactions from drivers further behind.

This camera can also be extremely useful when parking in a lunchtime town you’re passing through, or when reversing onto your site at a caravan park and dazzling the assembled onlookers with your skill. Great for watching kids and wandering pets in your driveway too.

Of course the bottom line is cost, with prices ranging stretching from as little as sub-$40 to well north of $1000. If you're planning to use them regularly, it’s best to buy quality units that will withstand being removed and refitted and can be repaired or replaced under a local warranty if need be.

The only other thing to consider is that exterior mirrors can easily be vibrated or knocked out of focus if care is not taken. The easiest way to align them is to have someone stand at the rear of you van or camper and focus on them.

Also remember that once you load up, the rear of the tow vehicle is likely to sag and so you my have to re-set them to travelling height, which is always a job most safely done when stationary.

But once you have them right you’ll wonder how you ever managed without them.