My car is displaying warnings when I tow my caravan

My car is displaying warnings when I tow my caravan

NOTE: If you have a Swift caravan that is fitted with LED road lights, depending on your tow vehicles compatibility, warnings can be displayed in your vehicle and some lights may not function correctly.

Why does this happen?

Vehicle manufacturers have a requirement to monitor the directional indicators and a warning will be displayed to inform the driver if the directional indicators fail.

The reason the warnings are displayed when the caravan has LED road lights is, traditionally the road lights would be a 21W lamp drawing 1.75A and now the LED’s might only be 2W or 3W drawing around 0.25A. This means that when the vehicle is monitoring and looking for a load of 1.75A it doesn’t detect the 0.25A load from the LED and the warning would be displayed.

Not all towing vehicles would display an issue though because the vehicle manufacturers do not have to monitor to a set of parameters or standards, meaning some vehicle manufacturers monitoring parameters might have a range that went down to 0.25A so the vehicle would be happy that the light is there and operating so no warnings would be displayed. Other manufacturers parameters might have a range that only went down to 1A so the 0.25A load from the LED wouldn’t be detected and the warnings would be displayed.

The Solution

We have developed a range of LED road light electronic control units (VLM units) that make the LED road lights fitted on a Swift caravan compatible with most towing vehicles and can easily be integrated into the existing wiring installed in your caravan.

These units work by adding resistors into the road light circuits that then increases the load to a level that is within range of the towing vehicles monitoring parameters. They then monitor the LED road lights at their lower running current and if the LED’s fail the VLM takes the resistor out of circuit, the towing vehicle would then display a warning and still meet the requirement to monitor the directional lights.

VLM4 Unit - now no longer manufactured 

We originally produced a number of VLM4 units, which differed by vehicle manufacturer, with a choice of 7 units.  These units have now been replaced by one newer VLM6 unit, and the VLM4 units are no longer manufactured.
For reference, this is what a VLM4 looked like.
 

VLM6 Unit

The unit is directly compatible with 2019 model year caravans and 2018 model years caravans fitted with the larger format C44+ fuse box, which was introduced in October 2017.  The unit can also be fitted to 2016 and 2017 model year caravans (which originally would have used the now obsolete VLM4) with a little extra installation effort by following the guidance in the VLM6 specific information linked further below.
  

Advantages of the VLM6

The VLM6 is designed to be one size fits all, so unlike the older VLM4 with 7 different versions the VLM6 only has one version, and although we can’t guarantee it will work with every towing vehicle it should work with most.

The benefit of this is if you have more than one towing vehicle both will be compatible and if you sell and replace your towing vehicle with something new that should be compatible as well.
Please click the link to our web site if you would like to purchase: Sargent Web Shop - VLM6 (LED road light electronic control unit - Caravan)
Further information on the VLM6 can be found here VLM6 (LED road light electronic control unit - Caravan)

    • Related Articles

    • My caravan water pump turns off after about 10 minutes

      Introduction When the EC400 was introduced in 2010 there were two versions of PSU (The EC440 low spec and EC445 High spec) and two matching versions of control panel (The EC441 low spec and EC446 High spec).  The EC445 PSU and EC446 control panel ...

    • SWIFT - What to do in the event of a theft

      Theft Event Procedure In an emergency theft situation please contact the tracking monitoring station on 0345 6027302. The station operates 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Before contacting them please ensure you know your caravan or motorhome serial ...

    • My electrics turn off when I start the engine...Can I disable this?

      This is quite normal and to be expected. For safety reasons and to meet EMC (Electro Magnetic Compatibility) directive 89/336/EEC, all Sargent systems shut down the habitation 12V system when you start the engine.  In caravans it is a complete ...

    • I would like to fit a different AGM battery

      For systems using the PX300 charger (EC400/EC400+, EC500, EC600, EC700, EC800, & EC328): Whilst we do not recommend any specific make or model of battery, the PX300 charger used in these systems is compatible with the majority of good quality AGM ...

    • Replacing your AS210 or AS310 Alarm

      Overview The AS210 and AS310 are no longer manufactured and have been replaced with the AS350 Alarm System. An adapter has been made for the AS350 to make the legacy alarm system harness compatible with the new alarm system. Where to purchase a new ...