Add a trailer or caravan

The day something feels wrong on the road, you want loadmate to already know your trailer: how heavy it is empty, how much weight presses down on the tow ball, and where the gear sits. None of that can be worked out from a name alone. So adding the trailer is only the first step. The real value comes from the two numbers behind it — the plate limits and the empty baseline weight — and you enter those from the paperwork you already own. This page walks you through the whole thing, gently, in the order the app does. You start with a quick identity, so the trailer shows up in your garage. Then loadmate hands you a short checklist and you fill in the rest when the documents are in front of you.

​

Open the Add Trailer flow

Open the Garage tab and tap Add, then choose Trailer. Your garage holds every vehicle and trailer you tow, and this is where you create a new one. If you have already added a tow vehicle, you can pair it with the trailer afterwards, so it does not matter which one you add first. Browsing the add form is free. Saving a real trailer onto your own rig needs Pro, and loadmate only asks for the upgrade at the moment you save, never before. If you are still exploring the demo rig, the app steps you out of the demo cleanly first so your own trailer is saved to your own garage. To add the tow vehicle as well, see Add a tow vehicle.

​

Add the trailer identity

Give the trailer something you will recognise in your garage. You can enter a nickname, or the make and model, or both — you need a nickname on its own, or a make and a model together. You do not have to track down a model code or a year before you can save, so a friendly name like “the van” is enough to get started, and the rest can wait. Just below the nickname, the form asks you to choose the trailer type before you reach the make and model fields, so look for the type dropdown there rather than further down the page. Choose the trailer type that best matches what you tow. The list runs: caravan, camper trailer, boat trailer, box trailer, fifth wheel, horse float, and other. The type gives the trailer the right identity in your garage, and a fifth wheel uses different towing hardware from an ordinary tow-ball trailer, so the app treats it differently from the start. If none of the options fits cleanly, choose Other and lean on a clear nickname. Further down, after the make, model, year, and registration fields, choose the axle type: single, tandem, or triple. This tells loadmate what sort of axle group the trailer rides on, before you start entering limits, baseline weights, storage zones, and loads. Tap Continue when the identity reads the way you want. This creates the trailer in your garage and takes you to a short success screen.

​

Choose your next step

After the trailer is created, loadmate shows a tick and a recommended-steps card: Add specifications, Set baseline weight, and Set up storage zones. There is no wrong order, so tap whichever you have the documents for right now. If you have already added a tow vehicle and it is your active rig, you will also see Activate this trailer, which hitches the new trailer to your vehicle and opens your Rig screen so you can see the combined picture straight away. If you would rather fill in the details first, choose Go to trailer to open the profile, or skip back to the garage and come back later. Nothing is lost either way.

​

Add specifications

Specifications are the rated limits printed on the trailer’s compliance plate, certification label, manufacturer sheet, or manual. These are the numbers every trailer compliance check is measured against, so enter them straight from the document in front of you. A help banner at the top of the screen reminds you these usually live near the drawbar or A-frame. loadmate labels these with the terms used in your region, so they match your paperwork:

• Trailer laden weight limit — the most the trailer may weigh fully loaded. This is the one required value. It appears as aggregate trailer mass (ATM) in Australia, maximum technically permissible laden mass (MTPLM) in the UK, Trailer GVWR in the US, and GTWR in Europe/international.
• Maximum coupling load — the most weight the coupling may carry. It appears as maximum tow ball mass (AU), maximum nose weight (UK), or maximum tongue weight (US). This one is optional, but worth adding: a trailer can be under its total limit and still over its coupling limit.

Below those, an Optional section folds away a couple of extra plate values you can add if your trailer lists them: an axle group limit, and, in Australia, the gross trailer mass (GTM). Tap Optional to open it. These are the load carried by the trailer’s own axles when it is hitched, and they let loadmate check more of the picture. To revisit any rating later, see Edit ratings.

​

Set the baseline weight

The baseline weight is the empty starting weight loadmate uses before it adds water, gas bottles, tools, food, clothes, bikes, and everything else you pack. For a trailer it needs two parts:

• the total empty trailer weight
• the empty weight pressing down on the coupling — the tow ball, nose, or tongue

From those two figures, loadmate works out the weight sitting on the trailer’s axle group, and shows you that split in a small Calculated baseline card as you type. If the coupling figure is wrong, the axle-group figure and every stability check after it will be wrong too, so this is worth getting right. The screen has two tabs at the top — Factory and Weighed — and you pick the one that matches what you actually know.

​

Factory baseline

Choose Factory when you are working from the manufacturer’s tare, dry, MiRO, or unladen weight. This is the right starting point when you have not yet taken the trailer to a weighbridge. Enter the tare weight in the first field. Under Tow ball mass, you have a choice. If your source gives an empty tow-ball, nose, or tongue weight, leave it on Enter weight and type that figure into the tow ball mass at tare field. loadmate previews the empty coupling weight and the remaining axle-group weight for you. If you only know the total empty weight, switch to Estimate % and use the slider instead. The slider starts around 10% and lets you settle on a sensible share of the coupling. The range itself shifts with your region — it runs 3% to 17% in metric regions and 5% to 20% in imperial ones — so the suggested band matches how trailers are usually loaded where you tow. An estimate is far better than leaving the split unknown, but it is still an estimate. Replace it with a measured coupling weight the first chance you get.

​

Weighed baseline

Choose Weighed when you have a result from a weighbridge, truck scale, or professional mobile weighing service. Enter the total measured weight and the date measured so loadmate knows how recent the figure is. If the weighing included a separate tow-ball, nose, or tongue reading, leave Tow ball mass on Enter weight and type it in. This gives loadmate the cleanest possible empty trailer split: total, coupling, and axle group, all measured. If the ticket only gives the total trailer weight, switch to Estimate % until you can measure the coupling. As you slide, loadmate tells you the weight in kilograms or pounds the percentage works out to, so the number stays real to you.

​

Why the empty coupling weight matters so much

Where weight sits over the axles decides how the trailer tows. Weight kept low and close to the axles helps the trailer track steadily. Too much weight behind the axles lightens the coupling and makes the trailer far more likely to sway — and sway is what turns a routine drive into a frightening one. loadmate can only spot that pattern if it knows the true empty split to start from. That is the whole reason the baseline asks for the coupling weight, not just the total.

​

Finish the rest of the setup

Back on the trailer profile, a setup checklist names the steps still to do. There are three required ones — the specifications, the baseline weight, and the storage zones — and the checklist always points to the next one so your compliance and score numbers stay trustworthy. Set up the storage zones before you start placing loads precisely. Storage zones are the named spots on the trailer — a tunnel boot, a water-tank position, a drawer — and each one’s distance is measured from the centre of the trailer’s axles, so loadmate knows whether a load sits ahead of, over, or behind them. Without zones, the app cannot work out how weight spreads across the axles and coupling. See Set up storage zones. Tyres are not a checklist step either. You add them from the Tyres section of the profile, where they feed the Health grade rather than gate the checklist.

​

Where to go next