Land Rover Freelander and towing

OskyWoskyPonio

OskyWoskyPonio

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Just wondering if anyone on here has used a land rover freelander td4 for towing a horsetrailer?
i have seen one or two at local shows pulling ifor williams HB505's. We have a freelander td4, 2 litre, 5-door and i would love to tow a trailer with it (probably a HB505 with 1 horse approx 560kg) would this be ok?
my horse's safety is very improtant to me when towing!
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and also what is the 85% weight for?
sorry this is quite long!
Free cookies for people who get this far!
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It can legally tow 2000KG. I have one and use it for short journeys, one Horse with a 510, no partition. The 85% rule is a caravan club recommendation. 100% is a good one to go buy, but even a big heavy 4X4 with 2 large Horses can easily be over 100%.

It's not so much the pulling power that you need to worry about, it's the braking and the influence of the trailer weight over the vehicle. Experiences in towing with mine - no problem with power or brakes, and that includes on steep hills. I only ever go max 15 miles with it purely because it's fairly new. I use by big mercedes sprinter the rest of the time (fabulous towing vehicle, bigger than the trailer!). The freely is good for a couple of local places I go to which are down single track lanes. The van/trailer combo isn't very good at fitting into passing places!

Freelanders generally get slated on here though so be warned! Bottom line is the manufacturer states a max tow of 2000KG. You will be under this by about 400KG. One thing I wouldn't do is use one on a motorway or dual carriageway. This is where you are most likely to get slipstream from passing lorries which can trigger a snake (hence you often see caravans overturned on motorways). I'd want something heavier for this. The Freelander weighs 1555KG, a Defender 110 weighs 1885KG to give you an idea.

This website is quite good
http://www.cuddles.abelgratis.net/landrover.htm

IMHO It's not an ideal towing vehicle because it's quite light. I've had a huge amount of towing experience and I believe it's perfectly fine for shorter journeys with one Horse (or say 2 small ponies). So long as you drive sensibly of course.....but that goes for any vehicle.
 
thank you so much SuzySparkle!
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we would just be using it for short local journeys so no porb there. thanks for the link as well!
we just want another option to hitching a lift with friends and it was something to look into as a possible option
especially as you can hire trailers for a day around here for a reasonable price.
i agree with you that i wouldn't take it on the motorway!
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i would only ever tow one horse with it anyway so that shouldn't be problem unless of course my horse was to
suddenly balloon in weight!
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luckily my dad would be the driver and he is quite experienced being involved with vehicles at his work.
just need to save up some money for a towbar now...
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you'll kill it towing anything more than up the road (and hopefully that road wont be hilly) they've not got the engine and it ruins them prety quickly.

personally i'd never tow more than what the car weighs regardless of what it says it can tow - when they talk about maximum tow weights they're not thinking of a live weight like a horse with a high centre of gravity and the ability to move around all over the place. a solid, stable, still weight is a lot easier to tow than a horse. not willing to risk my horse by towing with anything other than a monster 4x4 i'm afraid.
 

A Freelander weighs 1555KG. A 505 (going by the plate of one at my yard) is 910KG. That plus a 560KG Horse is 1470KG thus it is towing less than its weight.

Compare this to a 'monster 4X4' like a Discovery TD5. They weigh 2150KG. Let's put in 2X560KG Horses = combined weight 1120KG into a 510 which weighs 1000KG unladen (according to the plate on mine). It's now towing 2120KG.

Disco is towing 98.6% of its weight, Freelander is towing 94.5% of its weight. So really, when you look at it like that, a Freelander towing 1 Horse is no different to a Disco towing 2 Horses. A Shogun and Defender are lighter than a Discovery. If you look at the landrover website you'll see that actually there is not that much difference in the torque between the Freelander and the Disco. You would expect the Disco to have more as it can tow 3500KG.

Unfortunately, we can't all afford a 'monster 4X4' and actually, even they aren't the best towing vehicles. Practicality means that those of us who need to use a 4X4 for commuting to work can't afford a big one as they are greedy on fuel. We have a 4X4 simply because of where we live and during the winter there are many days I can't get my (company) car out. We have a van for our siberain huskies and it is my preferred vehicle for towing. It just so happens that 2 of my local places are down single tracks and this combination won't fit in a passing place. The Freely is a decent substitute. Travelling Horses in trailers full stop will never be the safest method. I haved towed with a Discovery, Defender and Shogun. None of them even compare to towing with my big van. It's bigger than a trailer and a lot heavier, plus designed to pull a lot of weight. 4X4's are designed to use off road....but happen to be usefull for towing as well.

Personally, I feel that a lot of it is down to your ability as a driver (and my opinion is backed up by a friend of mine who trains traffic police drivers). Providing you keep the towing combination within the manufacturers limit (and believe it or not they have done tests thus have far more knowledge to comment on this compared to forum users) and drive safely and sensibly you will be fine. Sure a Horse isn't particularly stable but trust me when I say they aren't that unstable compared to some loads. Also, when you are on the move Horses generally don't move around that much. If they do then they shouldn't be travelling in trailers. I travel mine without a partition and I never feel him moving, other than the odd shift in weight when we are stopped for a couple of mins (I suspect to leave me a nice 'present' on the floor LOL).

I'm amazed that people say Freelanders are gutless. God only knows what speed/acceleration they are trying to achieve. Mine happily sits with the trailer at 50mph on a main road and has no trouble pulling up hills, nor braking going down them. One thing I will add is that we had an old model petrol Freely and it was pretty gutless. The newer TD4's are much much better. Maybe that's what people mean?!

Each to their own. In an ideal world we wouldn't use trailers - but we can't all afford the luxury of a horsebox. What I tow with isn't unsafe or illegal in any way. End of story.
 
thanks everyone for taking the time to reply!
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it's interesting SuzySparkle what you said about the discovery weight compared to the freelander weight!
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we use our freelander as a family car as well so it's not worth us paying the expense for us to have a
'monster' 4x4 especially with the road taxes just about to rocket up!!
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i suppose everyone has a different opinion and everyone's horses are different and
everyone has their prefered vehicles for towing
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i guess it could just be a case of trying it and seeing but as i said in my original post there is no way
i would put my horse at risk so if i really felt after say one journey that i didnt much like it then i would stop.
though i agree with SuzySparkle that for short journey's with one horse it will probably be ok.
thanks again everyone!
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Hi
Not sure if you are using a the new freelander 2 or the older one, I tow 510 with one horse in the new freelander and its fine, never had a problem. Yes I would love to be towing with a range rover but as mentioned earlier, I also use it to drive into London.
Its you drive carefully, slowly and give yourself plenty of breakig distance - as you should when towing anyway you will be fine.
 
Hi Suzysparkle - could I ask you what type of van you tow with?

We had a freelander many years ago and I was forced to use it to tow once as I had to take H to the vets in an emergency - I must say that I wouldn't use it on a regular basis to do this and I wouldn't've managed to get up a steep hill - but like you've pointed out this was an older model (as it's going back) but still the weights were ok as it would tow 2 tonne.

Re: actual pulling power, the main ones being discos/rangeys/defenders etc, we were told that they literally would tow a house but the limit on these (and other 4x4s) is set at 3500kg because of the weight limits of 7.5 tonnes needing a different licence. It was a landrover dealer that told us this
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Kate x
 
I wouldnt dare. My friend used to tow a trailer with one horse on board with a freelander, doning 50mph on the M6 the trailer started to snake and they didnt have the weight to give them the time to correct it. The trailer flipped over, the car and the trailer where write offs, the horse was badly injured although he survived probably due to the blow on the head he sustained which stunned him so he didnt panic. The people managed to get away with the odd broken limb and whiplash etc. But they are very shaken up.
This is first hand experiance as we were in the traffic jam caused by the crash and stopped to help.
Now we have towed the same horse in the same trailer up the same stretch of road in similar conditions many times and never had a problem. never even felt a wiggle from it, but we have a monster 4x4. (mercedes ML270)


This is not the first time ive seen a freelander on its side whilst towing. Ive driven past one (ambulance and police men already on site) which was towing a boat that would have been conciderably lighter and more stable a load then a horse trailer. It was on its side in bits and the local rag reported a few days later that 2 people died in that car.

the 85% rule is all the more important when towing horses then it is when towing a caravan, a caravan is a stable load a horse trailer is not. A horse scrabbling inthe back or as one of my horses decided to do and tried to turn round int he trailer can severely affect the balance of the trailer and you need a heavy car to be able to stop it affecting you.
 
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