Caravan Jockey Wheel

Author:

CaravanVlogger

Published:

11 April 2019

Updated:

3 December 2020

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Table Of Contents

What is a Caravan Jockey Wheel?

If you own a caravan you’ll know what a jockey wheel is, it’s the 3rd wheel on a caravan. But hang on, if you’ve got a twin axle it’ll be the 5th wheel ? It’s used to move your caravan when it’s not attached to the towing vehicle, it also allows you to move the front of the caravan up and down to attach and detach from your towing vehicle. But you knew that anyway, didn’t you?

There are a few different types of Caravan Jockey Wheel. Most caravan jockey wheels are 48mm in diameter. You’ll find Premium Caravan Jockey Wheels , Compact Caravan Jockey Wheels, Heavy Duty Jockey Wheels, and even Ultimate Caravan Jockey Wheel. The choice seems endless. As with a lot of things in life you do generally get what you pay for.
As far as different types go, mostly the difference is with the type of wheel.

Pneumatic Jockey Wheel

These have inflatable tires and are tubeless. If you read enough of online forums people do complain that they deflate. This could be a problem, as you’ll at some point, need to move your caravan to hook it up to the car. For this you need a functioning jockey wheel and a flat jockey wheel is about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike.

Premium Jockey Wheel

Alko sell these and they are pricey. What you get for your £127 is an integrated nose gauge, which allows you to measure the nose weight, which is he downforce on the front of he caravan onto the towcar. Towcars have limits on the weight that they can handle safely, so it sounds like a good idea to check this. It also has an extra wide grooved tyre. They also look low profile, I think they look great, I don’t know how they perform on gravel. In theory the wider tyre should make it a bit better on soft ground.

Standard Jockey Wheel

Sounds a bit boring and might be one I’ve made up just to make the list longer? Generally supplied with the caravan from new, these are “jack of all trades” jockey wheels and in most instances probably work perfectly ok.

Surely you don’t need a different jockey wheel for different surfaces? Some wheels do perform better than others on certain surfaces, the trick is to get the one that best suits the surface you most often use it on. i.e. on your drive or in your storage yard.