We bought a trailer tent a few months ago. First off I must say it's great we love it, but that's not what this post is about. There is one thing that's a bit annoying about it, it creaks. Not while it's pitched I don't mean it goes creak in the night. It creaks when we tow it. The problem it seems is the clever tow hitch on the trailer.

Our old trailer had a standard greased tow hitch. This was simple and easy to use. Out trailer tent has an AL-KO 1300 stabilising tow hitch, usually found on caravans. The hitch has a pair of brake pads inside which clamp onto the towball and stop the trailer from swaying from side to side. To work the towball needs to be spotlessly clean something we didn't realise when we picked it up after buying it. If it's not clean the pads get contaminated with grease. 

So having read up on the tow hitch we cleaned the towball and went off on our first proper trip, about an hour and a half each way. All was fine, no problems. On our second trip, about an our and a quarter, all was fine on the way there. However on the way home about 20 mins from home it started to creak, loudly and rather scarily. We didn't know what the issue was and were a bit concerned it might be the trailers brakes. However when we reached home the brakes seem fine. I read up and found out it was probably the hitch.

So I replaced the pads in the tow hitch and thoroughly cleaned the towball again. We set off on our next trip but we still got the creaking. I released the AL-KO stabliser a little and the creaking stopped.

The last resort has been to have the towball on the car replaced with an AL-KO one, this has the same sized ball but has a longer and taller neck. this give more clearance for the bulkier AL-KO tow hitch. The AL-KO towball comes painted black. You have to remove the paint before using it. This just seems crazy but I wire wooled the towball and it's pretty well clear of all the paint. The new towball also has a go faster cover.

We've just returned from a longer trip, about three and a half hours each way. no creaking. It seems that either the slight knock and dents in the old towball were the issue or that it really needed the longer neck of the AL-KO towball. Either way the problem (for now) seems to be fixed.