does anyone tow with a car?

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Nina76

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Currently have 2 cars (Focus 1.8 and fiesta 1.2 )

Selling the fiesta now, planning on buying a trailer (cheapish rice beaufort prob)

Focus doesn't have capacity to tow a trailer such as the rice B with my 15.2 in it.

A friend will tow in their Range rover if they are competing with us but I would like to use some fiesta cash to upgrade the focus so I can go on my own....

The whole point of gettind rid of the 2nd car is to save costs so can't upgrade to 4*4 instead of the focus as running costs on daily 70mile commute, tires, tax etc etc.

Is there any middle ground????? Or am I destined to remain transportless and hopelessly dependant
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TBH I am lucky to have this problem as year ago she wouldn't do a pole on the ground
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Now we both have the bug!
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I towed miles with my nissan primera and the tiny Bateson Derby with one gypsy cob - but he has now grown considerably and am with 150k of the limit so now use my car only for the pony.

I now use a Merc Vito van - which is great (OH's company vehicle) can get changed in the back, fit sooo much gear, sleep overnight if necessary and it pull 2.1 tonnes. I have to remember the trailer is on the back. I also pull a Richardson Rosette with the cob and the pony in with the van no problem.

I was looking at another car, and the best average car with 1800 k tow capacity is the Ford Mondao. Then you are onto the big Mercs, Saabs, BMWs which can do 2 tonnes.

That said, will use the van for another year or so and am looking at an older Range Rover as if I want to take Chancer and Farra anywhere will need something with substantial pulling power as will have about 1300 of horse alone in weight to pull.

Check your weights and accept that the car can be fine but you will have problems on wet muddy fields. I never had a problem with the car and trailer, but I do drive slowly and carefully when towing and always made sure that the suspension and brakes were well maintained.
 
WE tow with a Volvo. It seems if you ask on here, that is tantamount to suicide.
However, when I was a kid, they had not invented the 4x4, other than Landrovers, and everybody whose daddy had a trailer (which did not include me) towed it with a car, and to the best of my knowledge, got along famously.
We had Rice trailers (actually I still do!) which were heavier than modern ones, and you seldom saw anything other than a big family estate pulling them.
I accept that laws have changed, and you must stay within them, but I do think the Elf and Safety have wormed their way in here, too. It can't possibly be necessary to drive something that looks like it belongs on the streets of Bagdhad, just to tow a 14.2 to pony club, surely?

Ducking again.
 
we looked into this, and were suprised at the amount of people who were convinced you could only tow with a 4x4! but when we deleved deeper we found we could tow a pony with a ford escort estate (GTI) no problems, and legally, so long as we got a light trailer (in the end we got a lightweight livestock trailer and modernised it). My OH is also a stickler for services etc, and towing with the pony in the back did no damage to the car. OH won't have anything BUT fords, and has just changed to a 4x4 sports, which, if it had a towbar, could still tow.

I would be inclined to go for the bigger and more powerful of the mondeo estates. We miss our Ford estate as we could fit loads in it and it was such a comfortable ride, even towing. And she pulled like a dream...

failing that, what about getting one of the smaller lorries and keeping the fiesta or focus for every day use? or getting MPV??
 
I tow with a BMW 4.4 5 series touring.

Fully loaded with passengers, tack, water, horse etc I still have 400KG leeway.

I only ever tow on roads and to car parks though. I wouldn't want to try across a rained on field for example!
 
I towed for years with a series of Mondeos (all reps cars that my husband had as a perk of his job). We towed a richardson rossette (now called the supreme) trailer weighing 820k and pony weighin 400k.

Never had a problem and towed as far as lincs; mid wales and Cotswolds. the only problem I ever had was with a peugout petrol engine that seized up. Diesals are far better to tow with. I have towed and parked on fields at a variety of endurance rides nver got stuck unlike some heavier vehilces.

I have a saab 92 and am getting a new trailer next year which I will tow with it. max plated capicity is 1600k with the saab, I plan to get a light weight trailer though as I want to be 80% below the cars physical (kerb weight) with pony on board.

Personally although a big 4x4 would be better tow wise I couldnt afford the mpg doing 100mile+ trips for work with a 4x4, where as with a saab doing 57+mpg on the motorway its much better on my pocket.

I agree that you will invariably get tonnes of posts saying you muct get a 4x4 to tow with, but it simply isnt true. There is a very good recent book on towing trailers and the writter makes the point that it is safe towing a light weight modern trailer with a big new well maintained tow car.
 
Thanks to all of you.

It is looking like a mondeo then! there are some high end 2.2 diesels that look nice, and the mpg is still pretty good, and the car tax is the same band as our current focus!

I can't wait, I'm going to put the fiesta and the focus on autotrader tonight!

Shame it wont all be magic'd through by sunday so we could try indoor XC!
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In Germany, everybody has trailers (as opposed to horseboxes) and everybody tows with normal cars. And two horses too, at times. I don't have personal experience of this but surely if it was so suicidal then they wouldn't do it here so frequently. I actually noticed this at this year's Bundeschampionat (so pretty valuable horses!!), the car park was overflowing with trailers and hardly any 4x4 in view
 
It's not a case of a car can't tow a horsebox its more the case that they are not heavy enough, if the brakes on your box were to fail a car would not have the weight to stop the on its own! I no there are lots of ppl that do use a car but personally I wouldnt as I don't think they are safe enough!
 
I personally wouldn't feel safe in a car that was towing a trailer, having been in a horiffic accident with a 4x4 towing a trailer. Must admit that seeing tailers towed by 'normal' cars makes me feel physically sick, but I accept my view of it will be different to others because of what happened.
 
Most cars that are heavy enough to tow a trailer are no cheaper to run than a smallish 4x4. As an example the Honda CRV 2.2 diesel is one of the more economical ones and is cheaper to run in terms of mpg, and I think tax (although not certain of that) than a diesel mondeo which has higher emissions as well. I doubt the towing weights would vary much though as the CRV doesn't have a huge capacity (2 tonnes I think?) I don't have either, just remember reading something about the "myth of gas guzzlers" They don't all cost a fortune to run.
 
"You'll only be legal to tow a single trailer"

I tow my double trailer with a car. It's an aluminium Sinclair and weighs 650kg empty, so with my 550 kg horse it stiil only 1200kg which is well within my cars towing capacity.
I never take two horses in it.
 
I sold a Golf 1.9TDi to buy an old land rover discovery.....

TBH....yes the tax is slightly more expensive.....the insurance was 1/3 cheaper and theres not a great deal of difference in running costs.....I was surprised actually.....

Theres no way I would tow with a car......thats why I bought the landy...I have a double trailer now (having a new floor put in) so I can quite happily tow any combination of our 3 horses without stressing over weights.
 
I tow (a single/mare & foal IW trailer) with a Mondeo. It's the 2.0tdci, 130bhp (6-speed gearbox) engine version and have never had a problem with going up/down hills, along motorways or getting in/out of fields. (in fact, we were one of the few combinations to get in and out of a wet showfield (on a hill!) this summer under our own steam, the heavier 4x4s and lorries were getting towed in and out!)

My Mondeo weighs 1505 unladen (so heavier than that with fuel/driver/tack in it) and has a towing capacity of 1800kg. It tows my single trailer (770kg) plus 15.2hh mare (550kg) with a haynet happily and this tow load is well within the car's weight, never mind it's rated tow capacity.
 
annagain - I did look briefly at the Honda CR-V - same tax band as mondeo and my current focus, but it was much much more to buy - ie i could add a focus and a fiesta togther and buy a mondeo with change. Not so for the CR-V would prob have to add 2-3K minimum so it is well out budget!

With the weight limit of 1800 the mondeo is only 200kg less than the CR-V and my lady plus trailer would be around 1400 if the trailer I bought was the rice beaufort, so I should come in well under.

It will be a 2 horse trailer as I mentioned I have a friend who can tow with their RR, and if we were both going out in it, then the RR would always come into use. However if they can't afford to come with me or are busy I would like to still go out.

Buying a box is out of the question, we will already have to maintain the single car that we end up with and our motorbike, (our other obesssional hobby) so we are trying to cut back our motorised commitments!
 
If you go along to a ford dealer they will look at your car and tell you what you can and can't tow legally. They're great like that, even with cars they no longer make their advice is free and impartial. My dad loved his mondeo and had mondeos for years, only changing to a 4x4 because of a bad back.. but even he was suprised to find his freelander won't tow what his huge modeo would have done.
The law needs to be clearer as some people think that any 4x4 will tow easily, and that car's can't tow, and it simply isnt true.
 
While our Landrover's been off the road for a few months (while we've been saving up the pennies to get it fixed) we've been towing with our old banger - an old, K Reg 2 litre diesel Citroen BX estate. You know, the really brick-shaped, ultra-UN trendy things that go up an down on hydraulics.

Yep, I prefer towing with the Landrover, but my old, unfashionable banger that no-one else wanted (and which I got really cheap and in excellent condition - probably because of its "undesirability") has actually been a damn good car and tows really well. It's done us proud!
 
We've towed a single IW trailer with a Peugeot 406 and a VW Passat and they both tow really well, wouldn't tow two horses though!
 
QR - After having a tyre blow out on a trailer a 40mph last week, I can categorically state that I wouldn't tow with a car. I had 2 MW horses in a Wessex trailer, and was towing with a Mitsubishi L200 and the whole lot went into a massive snake across both lanes of a wide A road. I managed to get it under control and stop, and you could the skid marks where the trailer had tried to "wag" the truck. IMO the only thing that saved us was the weight of the truck. We were well within the towing capacity too. Thankfully both horses were fine, and remarkably not bothered by the whole thing, but I wouldnt consider towing any decent sized horse behind a car.
 
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QR - After having a tyre blow out on a trailer a 40mph last week, I can categorically state that I wouldn't tow with a car. I had 2 MW horses in a Wessex trailer, and was towing with a Mitsubishi L200 and the whole lot went into a massive snake across both lanes of a wide A road. I managed to get it under control and stop, and you could the skid marks where the trailer had tried to "wag" the truck. IMO the only thing that saved us was the weight of the truck. We were well within the towing capacity too. Thankfully both horses were fine, and remarkably not bothered by the whole thing, but I wouldnt consider towing any decent sized horse behind a car.

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But it's all relative surely when you're talking weights? What percentage of your car's weight were you towing? Surely 2 MW horses + trailer + stuff in trailer was getting near to the weight of your tow car, even though it was a big 4x4?

On here- Kerb weights - it's showing the heaviest L200 as having a kerb weight of 1875kg (that's only 370kg more than my Mondeo!). Add together what you're towing, and you're probably close to, if not above the car's kerb weight.

With my set up, I tow less than 90% of my car's kerb weight, and this is the unladen weight, so add in fuel/driver/tack and it will be heavier still.

Yes, the bigger and heavier the better, but it does not always = safer, there will always be a risk no matter what the tow vehicle or how safely you try to drive it.
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I sometimes tow with a Volvo Estate. Frankly I think it is a better towing vehicle than my Landrover 90 which is the official tow vehicle these days. I feel safer in the Volvo if I'm honest, its more powerful and goes faster. I've done some 3 hour plus towing trips in it and have never felt I've asked too much of it or frightened myself. It's absolutely effortless to tow with, you wouldn't even know the trailer was there, unlike my Landrover.
 
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QR - After having a tyre blow out on a trailer a 40mph last week, I can categorically state that I wouldn't tow with a car. I had 2 MW horses in a Wessex trailer, and was towing with a Mitsubishi L200 and the whole lot went into a massive snake across both lanes of a wide A road. I managed to get it under control and stop, and you could the skid marks where the trailer had tried to "wag" the truck. IMO the only thing that saved us was the weight of the truck. We were well within the towing capacity too. Thankfully both horses were fine, and remarkably not bothered by the whole thing, but I wouldnt consider towing any decent sized horse behind a car.

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But it's all relative surely when you're talking weights? What percentage of your car's weight were you towing? Surely 2 MW horses + trailer + stuff in trailer was getting near to the weight of your tow car, even though it was a big 4x4?

On here- Kerb weights - it's showing the heaviest L200 as having a kerb weight of 1875kg (that's only 370kg more than my Mondeo!). Add together what you're towing, and you're probably close to, if not above the car's kerb weight.

With my set up, I tow less than 90% of my car's kerb weight, and this is the unladen weight, so add in fuel/driver/tack and it will be heavier still.

Yes, the bigger and heavier the better, but it does not always = safer, there will always be a risk no matter what the tow vehicle or how safely you try to drive it.
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I totally agree with regard to the relative weights. Embarrassingly
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I must also confess to misidentifying the truck I was using (it belongs to my boss!)who tells me it is an 08 Nissan Navaro, and assures me that it has a kerb weight of over 2 tonnes.
However, I was only posting my opinion - it's only MY choice not to tow with a car, and I'm not trying to impose that choice on others!
 
Sorry, didn't mean to come across harsh, just everyone seems to see non-4x4 and think "rubbish" and 4x4 think "fine", when really it depends on the relationship between tow vehicle and tow load. There are plenty cars capable of safely towing a lighter, well considered load and plenty 4x4s towing overweight, unsafe loads. (of course, there's the opposite for both and plenty unsafe cars towing and safe 4x4s!)
 
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Sorry, didn't mean to come across harsh, just everyone seems to see non-4x4 and think "rubbish" and 4x4 think "fine", when really it depends on the relationship between tow vehicle and tow load. There are plenty cars capable of safely towing a lighter, well considered load and plenty 4x4s towing overweight, unsafe loads. (of course, there's the opposite for both and plenty unsafe cars towing and safe 4x4s!)

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I agree with you on that point too, a friend bought a Suzuki Vitara with the intention of towing 2 decent sized horses - how frightening would that be?!
 
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