Following on from Peter Smiths report for practical caravan

Mr Shifta
PRACTICAL CARAVANS
BEST VALUE MOVER

Mr Shifta is the biggest and heaviest of the powered movers. It is endowed with enough muscle to move up to two tons of caravan, including twin-axle models, with ease.

It is not really fair to compare Mr Shifta to a powered jockey wheel, because although it does the same job, it approaches it from a completely different angle. This is the model that fits into the tow hitch, using a clever arrangement that ensures it stays firmly attached and generates maximum traction.

Mr Shifta is also completely free standing and carries its own traction battery, which guarantees that you have enough power to manoeuvre the caravan as often as you need without draining the battery.

The twin traction tyres are standard and on the test they really demonstrated their worth by starting the van from rest and pulling it up the hill, despite a binding brake on the nearside front axle. Having freed off the brake, Mr Shifta then moved the caravan through a 180 degree turn in just over its own length.

What really makes Mr Shifta the best value of these three is all round convenience. It will propel itself to the caravan and there is no fiddling with the jockey wheel or corner steadies.

Many people buy a motor mover because of health problems or a back injury; in simple terms, Mr Shifta is the only unit here that is totally labour saving.

Powrwheel Model 2

The fact that Powrwheel is made to a very high standard can be seen from the minute its removed from the box. Normally Powrwheel discourages customers from buying without a demonstration, but they trusted us enough to mail it direct and leave us to do our worst. In the event, we found Powrwheel worked extremely well. It was fixed to the test van in place of the jockey wheel, connected to the battery and switched on. Despite the gravel surface, it dug in and pulled the van forward, starting easily on the uphill gradient.

The handle can be moved into various positions and apart from a small problem of fouling the case with the jockey wheel adjusting handle, which is cured by having the caravan nose slightly higher, we found it worked very well.

Bearing in mind the comments from chassis manufacturers, we deliberately kept the test van level but found that this presented the powrwheel with no problems. The disadvantage of jockey wheel movers is that for security reasons they cannot be left on the caravan. Also, they are fairly hefty items to carry out of the garage and fit to a caravan each time you want to manoeuvre it. Powrwheel has made a move towards easing this problem by fitting a pair of castors at the back of the unit so it can be wheeled along the ground.

We were very impressed with Powrwheel's performance, indeed, the only reason it failed to make best value award was the greater convenience afforded by the winner.

Motor Mover

The high regard in which caravanners hold this model is reflected by sales in excess of 8000 units over the last five years. However, when Motor Mover was first attached to the test caravan, it would not move, but skidded on the gravel. On the demonstrators suggestion, we jacked up the caravan so that the front wheels were almost clear of the ground and Motor Movers performance improved noticeably.

However, only when the demonstrator sat on the front of the A-frame was it really able to dig into the gravel and get the caravan rolling.

Motor Movers solid tyre is intended to provide better traction as more of it is kept in contact with the ground, but it does not grip like a pneumatic tyre would on difficult surfaces such as the gravel drive.

Once relocated on to a flat tarmac surface, Motor Mover had no problem handling the caravan, but the entire test was conducted with the front of the caravan jacked up. We were not given the chance to experiment with Motor Mover in our own time and in our own way.

Motor Mover was produced by Eurotech International until it collapsed early last year, following which it was distributed by SBM Motor Mover Sales on behalf of new owner Mastermover. Mastermover has since sold the production rights to a new affiliated company, aptly named Motor Mover. The company plans to launch a solid wheel model, the Supermover.