A pair of the best caravan towing mirrors are a real touring essential, playing a crucial part in ensuring you stay safe and legal on the road. However, to get them to work as efficiently as they should, you will likely find they need their position altered, which is why knowing how to adjust towing mirrors is an important skill.
After choosing the right towing mirrors, having them properly adjusted will ensure you have adequate vision when you’re towing your tourer. After all, our vans will lead to quite a blind spot, with overtaking cars and motorbikes not visible until they’re already alongside your van.
However, properly adjusted towing mirrors will ensure you have the required time to make the appropriate decisions to keep everyone safe on the road.
Here, we explain the simple steps involved so you know how to adjust your towing mirrors, as well as running through some of the common mistakes that can occur when you’re doing so.
How to adjust towing mirrors
Your towing mirrors will need to be adjusted individually – this is one of those jobs that will be much simpler to tackle if someone else can move them as required, allowing you to sit in your usual driving position and judge the image. Make sure the tourer sits in as straight a line as possible behind your towing car too.
To begin, you should ensure your tow car’s wing mirrors are adjusted appropriately. You’ll know when you’ve achieved this because you will be able to see the car’s front door handle in the near bottom corner of the mirror.
Now that you’ve done this, get your towing mirrors and attach them. Swivel the head horizontally until the caravan can only be seen in the nearest 6mm of the mirror – by the time you achieve this, you will most likely not be able to see the car at all. However, doing this will ensure you can see along the side of your tourer and behind it.
Your tourer’s grab handles should be in the middle of the near edge of each mirror, while the wheel arch should just be visible at the bottom of the mirror. To achieve this, you may need the mirror head tilted up or down as required, but once you’ve done so, you will have a good balance between what is coming up behind you when you’re towing and also allowing you to see your wheel arch when you’re reversing a caravan.
Common mistakes when adjusting mirrors
Caravanning mistakes can happen to anyone, but as always, a bit of preparation is the best way to avoid them.
A common mistake can be to adjust your mirrors to ensure you can see your van. However, you should actually be using them to allow you to see the road behind your tourer.
Another error that is commonly seen is adjusting the mirrors to see your tourer’s wheels when reversing. However, so long as you have adjusted the mirrors correctly, you should still be able to reverse without having to alter them specifically for that purpose.
Don’t use unmatched mirrors either. This is because different mirrors will create a distorted idea of the distance, and as a result, objects will end up looking either closer to or further away than they actually are. If you’ve lost a mirror or broken one, you may find you’re able to buy a single towing mirror, which will resolve the issue if you need a replacement. However, if you’re unable to buy a single replacement, we’d strongly recommend purchasing a new pair instead.
Another touring essential you will want to ensure you buy correctly is a leisure battery – if you’re looking for one, knowing the answer to “what size leisure battery do I need for a caravan?” will help you find the right option for you.
Future Publishing Limited, the publisher of practicalcaravan.com, provides the information in this article in good faith and makes no representation as to its completeness or accuracy. Individuals carrying out the instructions do so at their own risk and must exercise their independent judgement in determining the appropriateness of the advice to their circumstances. Individuals should take appropriate safety precautions and be aware of the risk of electrocution when dealing with electrical products. To the fullest extent permitted by law, neither Future nor its employees or agents shall have any liability in connection with the use of this information. You should check that any van warranty will not be affected before proceeding with DIY projects.
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