Anyone use their 3.5T as only vehicle?

[Bojingles]

As title, I'm trying to reconcile my finances with owning a horse but in an area where the hacking is crap and dangerous. I've tried before and I can't afford a car and a wagon, so I'm thinking of buying a low-mileage Renault Master conversion or something like that and use it as my only vehicle. any experiences of this? Any pitfalls apart from the ovbious (parking) etc? thanks.

 

[atropa]

I have heard people say that 3.5T are much better and more reliable when in daily use so actually you may be on to something with having it as your only transport.

 

[Bojingles]

Ooh, that's a good point; thank you!

 

[poiuytrewq]

If your happy driving it I don’t see much of an issue, other than as you mention parking.
What about if your going out for dinner or away for the weekend/ on holiday etc?

 

[Cloball]

Not quite the same but I use my camper van as my everyday car. It is a bit smaller than a 3.5t though, parking I would imagine being the main issue.

 

[Michen]

I drove mine aroiund for about 3 weeks as I'd sold my car.

It was fine, but I wouldn't want to do it full time. Maybe the van type ones, mine was a renault master coachbuilt.

 

[sychnant]

I couldn't do it with my Renault Master, it wouldn't fit in most of the car parks in my local town - they all have the height bars across the entrance Mine's a coachbuilt though, I guess a van would fit!

 

[GinaGeo]

I love my 3.5t horsebox and have driven to work in it a couple of times when the car was off the road.

Parking is the issue, it’s tall and you can’t get out of it in a normal parking space, if someone parks both sides ?

But if you didn’t need to head to anywhere unknown and weren’t driving mega regularly you would probably be okay ?

 

[NLPM]

I drove mine for a while when my car was in the garage. It was a much nicer drive than my car!

The only problems I had were only being able to fit two other people in it, and parking, as you mention - the work car park had very short spaces so I worked out quickly there were only about four spaces that I could actually park in without blocking other cars from getting past. That meant getting in earlier to guarantee one being free, as if they were all taken I couldn't use the car park at all. This also meant lots of people arrived to work and saw the van in the car park, which in turn led to lots of requests to pick things up/drop things off..! Also had to always drive into the space so I could put my bags in the back, as otherwise I couldn't open the doors. Might not bother you but I hate reversing out of a space, would much rather reverse in.

Insurance was about half the price of my car, but it was significantly more expensive to run, especially when things went wrong, which they did (probably because it was cheap and with hindsight I suspect the company that sold it was dodgy).

 

[Squeak]

I think it would hugely depend on where you were driving and how often and if you would have access to another vehicle. If you're working from home and going hardly anywhere you could probably just about get away with it but I reckon you'd need to have access to a car you could use if you needed to go in to the office or a city etc.