Horsebox - something for those bored this fine Saturday afternoon.

TheBlackMoth

TheBlackMoth

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Hi

I am looking to buy a 3 horse horse box. It will have to be 7.5 ton - and we need to have a unladen weight of about 5 ton.

We have a miniscule budget - would like to pay £4k to have some money for repairs, insurance and renovations. For a perfect (in context of the price range) one we could pay up to £6k.

So some questions.

1. Would anyone like to play detective on the Internet and suggest some to buy.

2. Are there any particular makes and models to buy or even more important to steer clear of.

3. Is there anything particularly I should be checking when looking.

4. Anyone had any dealings with these people - http://shop.ebay.co.uk/briang1956/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=

5. Am I being completely unrealistic thinking I will get anything?

6. How much is insurance likely to be (ball park figure - or between x and y because I know it will depend on a lot of things).

7. Does mileage matter - dim question I know - but some of these seem to have a mileage of 300+km.

Thanks for helping
 
I think you may find something as long as you don't want full living. I think weight would be the main issue here and I would advise you to make sure that whatever you want has a weighbridge certificate. People can be dodgy and take partitions out to weigh, also remember that if it has a water tank they may weigh it when empty.
Make sure the floor is sound.
We pay £430 for insurance with NFU, our box cost 30K and the premium would be less if the box is worth less. We have breakdown cover included this amount. We do a very high mileage and go all over the place. Some firms will charge less if you only want to go within say 100 miles of home. We had a good quote from Anthony Evans on this basis.
Best of luck!
 
Thanks for that. My biggest worry is the weight. No point in buying a horsebox if it can't carry three horses legally. I currently have a shogun and Ifor Williams 505 - but am constantly having to make two trips which is irritating to say the least and it can cause problems with having nowhere to tie up whilst we are off getting the third horse.
 
Only thing id say is ask that they have a weight cert for the lorry before you go to see ot. Lots of wasted trips if you dont and ovb make sure you see it when you do go.
As long as you dont picj a box with full living you should be ok weight wise. I like to bet there are very few 7.5 tonne lorries with full living that are legaly able to carry 3horses.
 
Weight-wise you would have to have virtually no living to come in at 5 tonnes. My lorry is a little shorter than average (2') which saves a bit of weight and we don't notice the missing length.

Things like a full tank of diesel make a huge difference as well as the water tank, so if you find a lorry you like, insist you go with them to a local weighbridge to find out for sure what it weighs. Not sure how accurate the plating centres are either - my plating certificate was 200k more than the local weighbridge certificate I had done a year ago (mind you I have put on weight recently
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)

There are plenty of old lorries about, but maybe check you can find a local mechanic that is prepared to help you keep it roadworthy and what makes he likes. The main problem I found was spare parts with the old one, and some of the new regulations meant it was quite expensive to keep it roadworthy.

My last mechanic decided my old Bedford AWD was too much like hard work and he dropped me off his client list, although he was nearing retirement age himself! But some of these old lorries keep going for decades so I would be hopeful you would find something at that price and weight. Just try to find someone knowledgeable to take with you - there are a few rogues out there prepared to sell you something that will get you home and no further. My friend bought an old lorry and it blew up within a few months.

Last thought - you can get three horse trailers - would that be too heavy for your car though?
 
Thank you everyone. We will need living I'm afraid as we are looking to do a few shows where we might stay overnight. Also there will be four people in the lorry when travelling (and I'm a big girl). This is why we are looking for something quite lightweight.

I know it's a tall order. I have found a nice one with less than 4.5 unladen weight - but it has no crawl through to living which we had as a must have. Sigh.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Hi

I am looking to buy a 3 horse horse box. It will have to be 7.5 ton - and we need to have a unladen weight of about 5 ton.

We have a miniscule budget - would like to pay £4k to have some money for repairs, insurance and renovations. For a perfect (in context of the price range) one we could pay up to £6k.

So some questions.

1. Would anyone like to play detective on the Internet and suggest some to buy.

2. Are there any particular makes and models to buy or even more important to steer clear of.

3. Is there anything particularly I should be checking when looking.

4. Anyone had any dealings with these people - http://shop.ebay.co.uk/briang1956/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=

5. Am I being completely unrealistic thinking I will get anything?

6. How much is insurance likely to be (ball park figure - or between x and y because I know it will depend on a lot of things).

7. Does mileage matter - dim question I know - but some of these seem to have a mileage of 300+km.

Thanks for helping

[/ QUOTE ] I would be carefull about anything newly painted as it could be hiding a quick bodge up repair to ether the cab or worse the box
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, the old cargos were a fantastic lorry in there day to drive and mecanicly but did rot parts are getting harder to find too, bedford same applys so unless you have a fantastic box that would be worth swapping to a later chassis at some point I would avoid... iveco eurocargo good but parts expensive and they rot, leyland daf roadrunners ok 45s better i think on a budget that is what I would look for...but
keep an open mind and take someone who knows about trucks to look at whatever your thinking of... Oh and mileage this is compleaty uninportant as most will have had a tacho change more than once retuning it to zero if its showing 300k plus at 10 years old its posibly right but most likely done alot more, depends how old it was before it was converted to a horse box
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I regulaly worked on 3 year old trucks which have done that, so i woudnt worry if its done 500 +k its only going to do a tiny mileage as a horse box so its condition and age is much more important.. buy the newest and someting basic to get the best value for money....
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Also avoid anything with a non tilting cab for two reasons firsly even simple servicing is difficult and repairs will cost a fortune and secondly if you ever want to up grade the chassis it will be very difficult to swap bodys over
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Going to be really hard to get everything you want for that amount of money and still be legal! I would have a look at old polo lorries as they will be legal for 3 horses and you can put the living in yourself and as they are not so snazzy, they will be cheaper. It will be a bit of a squeeze to get 3 horses on a 7.5T plus overnight living - my trainer just got a box like that but she had to get it custom built to make the payload legal.
 
Please be aware that many many people will quote a prospective buyer the unladen weight as it is written on the plate in the cab.

This weight will in 99% of cases be incorrect as it will have been the unladen weight of the lorry in its original use maybe as a box body etc and are never change to suit the new body when it is mot'd as a horsebox

It is very common to be quoted unladen weights of 4.5 ton to 5 ton because that is what is stated on the plate and when you go to weigh them they are closer to 5.5 ton.

For your budget I would be concerned that you will need a good reliable mechanic to not only look over it before you buy but also to maintain it to try and keep costs down every year as mot's on older lorries tend to get more expensive as they begin to need welding and parts that are no longer available need to be repaired taking more time.

Good luck
 
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