If you had a big horse, Audi, no transport...

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Moving horse near me from home... soooo excited!!!

He's 16.3 ISH (and big with it), what to do to get places..

1 - new yard has trailer we can borrow and we have 2lt Diesel 407 Estate.. but have a feeling that won't be safe??

2 - sell Audi (9/10k) buy 4x4 and trailer

3 - sell Audi get **** car and little wagon

4 - hope to get lifts to do stuff

Help?
 
Option 2

Wouldnt rely on lifts, yard trailer may get booked before you can use it and if you have a sh*t car it will cost you more in the long run.

Plus, plating can be expensive.
 
Option 2 or 3 dependent upon the mileage you do. If you do loads of miles each week then get a car with decent (50mpg+) consumption and a little wagon. If you're doing only a few miles then a 4X4 + trailer would probably be cheaper to run.
 
We have a mercedes saloon which tows my cheval liberte and welsh cob with absolutely no problems at all.I am well within its manufacturers towing limit and had a refresher towing lesson.Instructor said the only problem I will have is remembering its on the hook.People used to tow without four wheeled drives perfectly well for years and four wheeled drives are very expensive to run.We know.We have run one!
 
Depending on what Audi you have, you might find that a 4x4 wouldn't be that much dearer to run.... we have a lovely LPG automatic Range Rover for sale which does the equivalent of around 30mpg. Only for sale as my commute is around 60 miles per day so we are going down the small car/ use husbands work Defender to tow route.
 
Why dont you look on ebay for a bargain horsebox? My fiend got one for £1200, paid another £1000 to get it sorted, and now has a brill lorry for £2200
 
At the moment you have no idea how often you will want to take your horse out. You might actually find it cheaper to rent a small lorry, that way there is no initial outlay of capital, no insurance/MOT/Plating or repair bills. Laws change all the time regards towing capabilities. I used to tow a trailer with a saloon car 20 years ago. The law now says that your tow vehicle has to be able to tow the trailer when it is full, so it's no good saying, oh I only have one horse in it, so I am OK. In actual fact you are towing illegally. It's just no-one gets nicked for it.

I have an IFW 510 trailer - their big one. I also have an Isuzu Trooper to pull it. I tow every weekend, mostly twice a weekend. I can't afford a decent lorry, so I stick with a newish trailer and an old but reliable 4x4.
 
My trailer is plated to 1400 kgs.My cars braked towing limit is 1130 kgs and I am within that limit by over 100 kgs.Its a light trailer.I checked with the legal departments of both the caravan club and the BHS.They both said perfectly legal.The only thing they said was that in the event of an accident (God forbid) I might have to prove the weights, which I can do.
 
R2R said:
Why dont you look on ebay for a bargain horsebox? My fiend got one for £1200, paid another £1000 to get it sorted, and now has a brill lorry for £2200
Click to expand...

That was what I did. None of the cars was worth selling and I bought a 7.5 tonner for £1K with 12 months ticket on it just to see if we'd cope with / use a lorry. We ran her for three and a half years with relatively low costs even though she was approaching 30 years old.
 
Personally I'd go for option 2:

You can get a good IW trailer for £3K
This one is brand new at £3.5
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/IFOR-WILLIAMS...t=UK_Horse_Wear_Equipment&hash=item414fa0646c

or used 10yr old(poss a little expensive)at £2.7
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Ifor-Williams...t=UK_Horse_Wear_Equipment&hash=item3f0000ee01

4x4

Look at a 8-10 yr old 4x4 you can get a SWB 8yr old Shogun for £6K-
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2002-MITSUBIS...iewItem&pt=Automobiles_UK&hash=item3a5aa999bb

or Shogun Sport for £5.5
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2003-MITSUBIS...iewItem&pt=Automobiles_UK&hash=item19bcb614be


Depending upon your mileage you could look at going for a slightly older 4x4/trailer, save a£1K and look at having it LPG converted... less mpg...but half the price..would pay for itself in a year.

I rather liked the Shoguns, theyre a bit workmanlike, really a commercial pickup chassis with a normal body added to them, but very reliable.

Just been looking for myself..settled for a 2000 Range Rover with 70 000 for £6K, having it LPG converted for another £2K, like the look of the HB510's new at £3.5, but working on a different budget to yourself.

Hano
 
Wow, thanks, that's really interesting... I've been looking at all the places I can go show jumping and it's a miles better area than up in Sheffield!!! I really like the blue Shogun!

I do about 50 miles a day nearly all motorway.. not sure if that makes a difference!

What's LPG converted?
 
LPG = Liquid Gas.
Avaialable at a lot of Shell stations, not sure where else sells it. May mean it may only have small regualr fuel tank, because of the fact it has the 2 tanks.
 
BP sells it to. its half the price of petrol.
or another option you could have is sell the audi and get a small car for a couple of grand and spend the rest on a tidy 3.5tonne lorry.
 
LPG is basically propane gas in a liquid form, the vehicle is modified to burn the Propane which is stored in a seperate tank on the vehicle, they often use the space for the spare wheel which will allow you to carry 80l approx without losing storage space (other than for the wheel, which you get around by having one of the gas/sealant tyre inflation aerosol cans), or you can fit them underneath or in a larger tank in the boot.

You start the vehicle on petrol, it warms up, when it gets warm enough it switches over to LPG automatically, if you run out of LPG it swaps back to petrol, or you can decide to just run it on petrol. Normally you don't lose any petrol tank capacity, but some people elect to have a smaller petrol tank and use the space for the LPG tank. LPG is safe and cleaner than petrol, but can only be fitted on petrol engines, the important thing is to have a conversion (takes 3 days roughly) done by a reputable company, it can cost between £1-2K, budget on around £1.8K depending upon the vehicle, but get it done properly!

http://www.uklpg.org/
http://www.lpgforum.co.uk/

LPG is available at a lot of motorway services and also "Countrywide" stores - the feed merchants, you may notice a very negligeable difference in performance, but very slight, the MPG on LPG is less than with petrol, but the saving is in the fact that it cots about 50p a litre, some of the sites have a calculator to show you what you would save over a year, with whichever make of vehicle converted and the amount of annual miles you do.
 
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I towed my IW505 with a saloon Mercedes, like eahotson, initially with a 2.2 litre diesel. I had my trailer downrated so that it was legal - I only ever carried one horse anyway. This was very successful but just for the sake of buying new things my OH got me a Jeep Grand Cherokee so I towed with that for a while. It was good but it was way more powerful than I needed and also got about 19mpg when towing, compared to nearer 27mpg as before. So I then sold the Jeep, which I never really took to and towed with a Mercedes S class, with a 3.2 litre engine, again diesel. Barely felt like it was taxing the engine. This was with a 17.1 as well. However I wanted to stay overnight at shows and the 17.1 did have to bend his ears to fit in the 505 so I got a 3.5 tonne box, which is best of all. But I think you will tow perfectly adequately with the Audi, particularly if you get a lightweight trailer or get it downrated.
 
Hanno Verian said:
LPG is basically propane gas in a liquid form, the vehicle is modified to burn the Propane which is stored in a seperate tank on the vehicle, they often use the space for the spare wheel which will allow you to carry 80l approx without losing storage space (other than for the wheel, which you get around by having one of the gas/sealant tyre inflation aerosol cans), or you can fit them underneath or in a larger tank in the boot.

You start the vehicle on petrol, it warms up, when it gets warm enough it switches over to LPG automatically, if you run out of LPG it swaps back to petrol, or you can decide to just run it on petrol. Normally you don't lose any petrol tank capacity, but some people elect to have a smaller petrol tank and use the space for the LPG tank. LPG is safe and cleaner than petrol, but can only be fitted on petrol engines, the important thing is to have a conversion (takes 3 days roughly) done by a reputable company, it can cost between £1-2K, budget on around £1.8K depending upon the vehicle, but get it done properly!

http://www.uklpg.org/
http://www.lpgforum.co.uk/

LPG is available at a lot of motorway services and also "Countrywide" stores - the feed merchants, you may notice a very negligeable difference in performance, but very slight, the MPG on LPG is less than with petrol, but the saving is in the fact that it cots about 50p a litre, some of the sites have a calculator to show you what you would save over a year, with whichever make of vehicle converted and the amount of annual miles you do.
Click to expand...
I think lpg is ok if you buy something already coverted I dont think you would ever get the money back on converting unless it was nearly new or you do a huge annual
Mileage....remember there is more energy in petrol than gas and even more in diesel so your liter of gas will only take you just over half as far as a liter of diesel, and some gas conversions are dire and make the thing run like a dog on three legs...
 
Just a thought - when did you pass your driving test because if you passed 1997 + you need to take you trailer test which is an extra cost on top
 
perfect11s said:
I think lpg is ok if you buy something already coverted I dont think you would ever get the money back on converting unless it was nearly new or you do a huge annual
Mileage....remember there is more energy in petrol than gas and even more in diesel so your liter of gas will only take you just over half as far as a liter of diesel, and some gas conversions are dire and make the thing run like a dog on three legs...
Click to expand...

I beg to differ..on some of it...yes there are some really dire conversions out there..you generally get what you pay for, if you can go with recommendations or referrals. Remember you wouldn't just buy a horse straight over the phone unseen, you'd want to see it, ride it and have it vetted. But do your research and cost it out, there's little point converting a vehicle on its last legs, I believe that it is well considering it if the vehicle is in good condition...

You are correct there is more energy in petrol than LPG, but this is offset by fact that LPG is at least 50% of the cost, and delivers more than 50% of the energy. LPG is not worth it if you're going to use the vehicle to just pop to the shops, but if you do a significant mileage then its worth considering.

Have a look on some of the forums...ask the questions see what experience people have had, if you get similar advice from a number of people then its worth looking at. Look at the websites of some of the conversion companies, obviously their data is going to portray the benefits very favourably, but if you can substantiate it from another source then its useful

I'm sorry that I can't give you mileage and performance figures, I've not had an LPG converted vehicle before and my previous 4x4's were company vehicles, so mpg wasn't something I really took notice of. This is a posting from one of the forums:

"Just got my ML500 converted to LPG and so far it seems to be working very well.

I was very nervous at having it converted as it is only 3 years old with just under 40K miles on the clock. Now it's done I am happily suprised at just how well it performs. I cannot seem to notice any difference in performance, then again I don't drive it fast anyway.
The fuel consumtion so far is around 16mpg on LPG with just under 1000 miles of use compared to 19mpg on unleaded, that's using the tank filling method and noting it down over 4 months and not relying on the trip computer although this was only out by about 1.5mpg.

So far according to my road trip app it's costing me 16.8 pence per mile on LPG and was 25.4 pence per mile on unleaded, so for the first 1000 miles a saving of £86.00. Result "
http://www.lpgforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=7755&sid=1a6e617589a538503bdc5ae05b9fc466

Although bare in mind that with towing LPG will not be as efficient as petrol, so the mpg will be lower than without a trailer, but I doubt it would be hugely different.
 
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