Modern Vespa

I got rid of my Sprinter van a few months back and got the new Mercedes Benz Metris cargo van. It's new to the U.S.; Europeans will know it as the Vito. It's like a big mini van. I use it for work, but I've built it out in such a way that I can sleep and camp in it and this summer I'm planning a trip that will include camping, backpacking, visiting friends in big cities and going to a festival in Oregon to witness the total eclipse of the sun (a nice destination for a group ride, if anyone is looking for an excuse for one...). I hatched a plan to bring the scooter, which involved putting a hitch on the van and buying a rack and having a scooter wherever I went.

The van has a payload of 2500 lbs, a towing capacity of 5000 lbs. and a tongue weight limit of 500 lbs. I ain't got much booklearnin', but I thought that would work, and in the weight department, I think it does. But I put it all together today and the problem is there's about 4.5 inches of clearance between the rack and the road! I clearly should have thought of that, but now that a scrape-infested trip around the neighborhood has proven that that is way too low, has anybody had experiece with this kind of thing? How much clearance do I need? I've learned that there is such a thing as a "hitch riser", but that also puts things farther back, and adds weight, and these calculations are hard to make, at least for me they are.

It's actually lower than it looks in this picture. What a letdown, no pun intended.

Hmmm... We can't see from this picture. Is the van sitting lower, i.e. are the rear springs compressed? Or is the clearance just the result of the hitch height and rack design?

The van isn't sitting much lower. As I was bolting the hitch to the frame, it was dawning on me how low the van actually is, especially as my knuckles scraped the ground under there.

A big selling point of the van is that it isn't too tall and can fit in garages and parking structures that taller vans can't. I think some of that low overall height is gained in ground clearance. They advertise that it can hold a stack of 60 sheets of drywall, so as a cargo van I think it can handle that part of the deal.

As I research this, I'm wondering if you all think something like this riser would work. I've also noticed that the particular rack I have, the Tilt-A-Rack, sits lower on the left side than racks that don't have the built-in tilty ramp function. A different rack could add a little height on that one end at least.

How about the hitch riser thing? Though I'd be skeptical of that, too. I think it would add leverage, as you said; it would make the scooter that much harder to load, and you couldn't get the van doors open.

How about a trailer?

A trailer would make sense, but they are just so...trailer-y. In California the speed limit is 55 when pulling a trailer and parking goes to another level. There's something I like about the simplicity of the rack, but I may not be able to get what I want.

That riser looks good. I would certainly give it a try. Get the clearance you need and we can figure out how to get the bike on and off. The receiver on my 4X4 Ram pickup sits a lot higher than that and I have no problem getting the bike on and off with a Versa-Haul similar to yours. A curb can be your friend.

Ok, now I see what you mean by the hitch riser. I'm not an expert with hitches and such -- I may be wrong about this. I would recalculate the tongue weight this way:

Measure the distance from the rear axle to the end of the hitch, call this L1. To that measurement, add the length that the riser adds (look like about 8 inches to me) and call this L2. Then your maximum tongue weight would be reduced to L1/L2 * 500 lb. which is probably still safe for a scooter. The scooter loading and door clearance problems remain, but they may not be a big deal. Good luck!

Thanks guys, that helps. My problem is really that my van is just a lowrider, but the whole "tongue weight" concept comes into play as well and is hard for me to wrap my head around. It obviously refers to the downward pressure on the hitch, but just how that changes and the weight on a hitch carrier is moved back (versus the clearly measurable weight of the the tougue of a trailer) is interesting to consider.

Those hitch risers usually cut your tongue weight capacity in half. Proceed with caution.

Of course, if you have any payload in the back of the van it would be good to take out. Rear seats, too, if you don't need them.

Is there any way to get a different rack that has the riser built into it? I think my Joehauler rises up a bit.

And not trying to rain on your existing setup but I'd be really leery of adding a riser to an aluminum racks. You're really gonna be torquing that tongue by placing the weight up and away. It'll work, but I'd inspect it frequently for fatigue or upgrade to a steel rack.

Reason why I mentioned the above was I sadly picked up a dirt bike of the 5 north in San Diego a few years ago. The weight of the bike bouncing on the 2" tongue bar caused it to snap catastrophically and it dumped this woman's sons bike on the freeway. It was an aluminum rack and wasn't cheap either.

I know someone that took their hitch rack to a welding shop and had them cut the square tube that goes in the hitch and reweld it angling up. It was just a few degrees and the clearance was far better. The slight angle on the rack made no difference when you tied the scooter down.

Would this work for you?

A steel riser won't fatigue an aluminum rack any more than putting the rack into the current receiver.

You may want to use a receiver hitch clamp:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0068D9L6W/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Or two, if you go with a riser.

Yes, that would help by reducing the wobble. How about straps from the carrier to the van door hinges to add stability?

My Versa-Haul has those tighteners built in. They take all the wobble out of the receiver/draw-bar connection.

A strut beam clamp will do the same thing for a fraction of the cost:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/3-3-16-in-U-Bolt-Beam-Clamp-Gold-Galvanized-ZU501-10/100207165?MERCH=REC-_-SearchPLPHorizontal1_rr-_-NA-_-100207165-_-N

The smarter guys seem to have the hitch covered, so...at some point show us more pics of your van -- I've spent as many years fantasizing about those as I did about getting a PTW.

Funny: two weeks ago I was drooling over all the Sprinters the gear-heads had, down in Moab, and I kept thinking "so, would I put my Vespa in the van or on the back...?"

Also, if your eclipse festival is in Central or Eastern Oregon, there are a bunch of great roads out there I'd love to ride! 8)

I had the same situation awhile ago with my Toyota Highlander and Versa-Haul. Given the option to replace shocks with heavy duty ones
which would make the car look weird and maybe solve the problem, I bought a Kendon trailer that rides along effortlessly. Very Happy with it.
Have a nice trip to Oregon...? ?

I've purchased a GTV and a GT60 and put them both IN my Sprinter (not at the same time). It works really well, but probably not for a big road trip as there would be too much other stuff to put in the van. I do like the piece of mind having the scoots in the van as opposed to hanging off the back.

JKJ-FZ6 has some good advice. I use a similar rear platform on my pickup because the opening w/ the canopy on is not tall enough to get a scooter inside. After lashing the scooter securely to the platform, I always rig lines from both rear corners of the platform up to the top of the tailgate & fasten inside. When these lines are both tensioned, you get three advantages:

Eliminates the scooter bouncing like it's on a diving board
Much more stable 3 point connection
Reduces the tongue weight on the hitch mount
and if you rig a safety chain, you wouldn't dump your load even if the deck mount connection did break.

I don't know what rear suspension your van has but I've fitted a rear air suspension kit to my Peugeot Boxer campervan.

The compressor allows me to adjust the suspension height

A kit might be available for your van?

This is the one that I have

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FIAT-DUCATO-PEUGEOT-BOXER-CITROEN-RELAY-1994-2017-MOTORHOME-AIR-SUSPENSION-KIT-/162445496570?hash=item25d28190fa:g:OjIAAOSwopRYgI7P

I wouldn't put any weight on the hinges for fear of damaging them. Just a little tension in the straps to stop any side-to-side rocking motion of the carrier.

One thing I have learned from being in the RV world is to pay close attention to payload and hitch weights. Typically pay load is figured on what can be carried figuring on a driver of 150lbs and nothing else. So then you have to figure out the weight of the items you have put in the vehicle, including gas, passengers, amount of driver weight over 150 lbs. What is left is what is remaining on payload capacity. Any weight on the hitch is also part of payload. So all combined you can not exceed that payload.

The issue with hitch weight is how it gets distributed. You will see many travel trailer with weight distribution hitches which move some weight towards the front of the vehicle so the front end does not get too light and gets squirrely when driving.

Another item you have to be careful of is axle weight. Axles are designed to support a rated amount of load. When distributing the payload and any hitch weight, the axle ratings cannot be exceeded.

In your case, you may be better off with a small trailer to tow your scooter.

I saw one of these in the grocery parking lot. A wheel assisted hitch carrier for a mobility scooter. I looked into them and they were over $1,500. Not really designed for the long wheel base for a scooter. I had even thought of pulling a harbor freight trailer apart and adding the leaf springs and axle onto a hitch carrier. In the end I ended up buying a $90 trailer off craigslist.

I am not familiar with your vehicle but on my Dodge Dakota pickup truck I had "helper springs" added. These appear to be extra springs (dunno if they are leaf or coil) fitted in addition to the native setup. They come into play only when extra load is put on the vehicle. I do not notice them in normal use but they stop undue compression when I have weight in the bed or my GTS on my Versa-haul rack.

I also run extra tie-downs from the rack, over the tailgate, to points inside the truck bed. I think someone above mentioned something similar.

These have the additional benefit of supporting the ends of the rack. An MV'er suggested this to me at the Amerivespa in Lake Geneva a few years ago. As the GTS is tail heavy I had felt that it put undue stress in the form of torsion on the hitch itself. The extra straps level this out and also tug the rack upward a bit.

All that being said I do scrape the rack occasionally on kerbs or curbs or whenever there is an abrupt gradient change. I just wince and carry on.

You guys are all just the best ever, I'll say. I really appreciate the thought you've all put into this and it's really helped me come to the conclusion that...it's just not going to work out.

The reason I have the van is for work, which for me means installing artwork: pictures, sculptures, neon, video, all of it. There's aesthetics involved and sometimes the values get up into the millions and even the hundreds of millions, but it's really a nuts-and-bolts wrenching kind of a thing at it's core and the most fun aspect of it for me is when we do a big rigging job, hoisting two-thousand pound bronzes and such with cranes and bolting them to concrete slabs and so forth. We don't actually know what we are doing, we just ask each other, "Does that look good? Is that going to work? Wait! Stop...okay, I guess..." The point being, it's a gut feeling for the way things just sort of work in the world and this idea that I somehow could somehow stick a scooter on the back of this not-very-big van and wander around the countryside sleeping in the back and scooting at will...too good to be true. I, of all people, should have known better.

The van is just too small, the load limits too close, the clearance too low, and the whole thing is just...off. It all looked good on the computer at midnight; it looked a little different when the stuff started showing up and things got bolted together.

Anyway, thanks again and maybe someone with a truly studly vehicle will someday buy a scooter near me and need to haul it back home. I can sell them a hitch-mounted rack for cheap.

If it were me, I'd invest $30 in the hitch riser and give it one more shot. I haven't yet seen any insurmountable problems with the weight distribution.

Have you gone in to an RV dealer and asked if they had any suggestions?

Best option in my opinion.
That riser block does reduce the tongue weight...and the 350 lb vespa and rack are only supported by the receiver, not a trailer. And bumps amplify the exerted weight.

I have a Versa Hauler and I still flinch when I hit a bump.

Helper springs are also an option, they only engage when extra weight is loaded.

I would go with the air assist, smoother ride, adjustable (some systems are for all for corners of the van to level for camping)

George,
Sounds like a prudent decision (still doing Dana Carvey as G HW Bush whenever I use that word) to look for a trailer. You're kind of dancing on the borderline of what's allowable under the circumstances.

A solid utility trailer might be a good business purchase (hint hint), and will be flexible to haul lots of things.

I think another item to consider if you go with helper springs or air bags is to review the van's warranty as the addition of these items may invalidate the warranty.

Also, the addition of helper springs and air bags do not increase the payload capacity.

Yup -- I bought my lil trailer to haul my Vespa, and although I haven't yet used it for that purpose I can't believe I lived this long without one.

Downside is that, yeah, hauling a trailer can be a pain and the whole speed limit thing -- we don't have that speed limit law up here but I'm still hesitant to rap its little wheels out at full speed.

The art installation job sounds very cool!

Be careful of speed with a trailer. Check the speed rating of the tires. I know on campers, the stock tire has a speed rating of 65 mph. Exceeding that can cause blowouts due to excessive heating.

One problem with this approach is that if the rear suspension is not up to the task, the vehicle will drive with the front end tipped up. So the headlights will blind oncoming traffic. Not a nice thing to do.

I had this when adding a rack to the back of our VW Westfalia camper to carry the LX. I made some[1] 3/8" thick spacers out of Dollar Store cutting board and added them on top of the rear springs. It levelled the van very nicely, for just $1 and a bit of time.

[1] As it happened, I needed three on the driver's side and two on the passenger side. This was because the Westy has an inherent lean on the driver's side due to the internal weight of all the camping stuff - propane and water tank, and most of the storage cupboards.

I seen a hitch mount (ridgid) trailer it did pivot up/down only-looked similar to the one abner posted - except it had (1) 8" caster type wheel. This caster/wheel would swivel and backing up was easy. Looked to add about 28-30" to the back, overall length of your vechicle. Just a thought.

I'm with GBaby... I would go the route of a hitch riser. But don't cheap out go for a very solid one.

I'm not good at math, and it's been over 30 years since I learned about levers in high school physics, but the term "lateral torsion" comes to mind.

I'm also not a lawyer, but the term "a two hundred pound scooter falling off behind you on a busy highway at 60 mph" comes to mind, which, I believe, in the insurance industry is called "really f---ing a bunch of s--t up."

But I could be wrong.

If you had to do that, I would say that you definitely exceeded the payload capacity which is not a safe thing to do. Could cause the axle or frame to break. Not something you want to happen at highway speeds.

It would be interesting to look up the specific capacities of your vehicle.