Horse box advice

[Samantha Marlow]

Hi,

I am looking for my first horse box and have seen a 6.4 Iveco for sale. MOT passed but the advisories are flagging the condition of the chassis. the box is 21 years old, 160,000 miles on the clock and sounds like its been well looked after with new ramps, floors etc.
Has anyone got older boxes with similar advisories and would you say they are reliable or should I stay clear.

Thanks

 

[Darkly_Dreaming_Dex]

6.4 goes under an HGV mot so more costs & higher standards than normal car/class 7 ones. Chassis condition is seriously important as it will cost a fortune to fix ! You need a proper pre purchase inspection to see if it’s just scabby surfaces that could be rubbed down and painted or if it’s a rot box (if it’s gold & green pm me)

 

[milliepops]

yeah age and mileage wouldn't concern me but a rotten chassis is a bit of a time bomb, my OH does all my welding so we can get stuff sorted but it can be really fiddly and faffy. Good advice from DDD above.
When we bought our new box we opted for one that we can easily swap to a new chassis rather than spend £ and time fixing the old one up, hoping this is fairly future proof.

 

[Ossy2]

As others have said, advisories on the condition of the chassis is a big red flag for me, especially in an iveco as they don’t get the best of reputations for rotting. My hubby is a tractor mechanic so I’m lucky in that he does the maintenance on mine himself, but even then when I started getting advisories on the cab of my old DAF (1996 chassis) he didn’t fancy all the welding that was required. We ended up buying a newer chassis and moved the box part over to this and scraped the old chassis.

TO be perfectly honest it isn’t a vehicle I’d be looking to purchase from your description.

 

[Samantha Marlow]

Thanks everyone super helpful. I have contacted a local expert for the pre inspection. They said they will have a good look at the chassis to see whether its surface or a rust bucket.
I was looking at the option of buying a newer chassis and having cab fitted but it all looked abit complicated....and expensive ?‍