Mileage on horse boxes.

[skye01]

Hi everyone!

The stud I used to work for are selling their 3.5 tonne horse box and the owner mentioned it to me before they put it up for sale online as they know I've always wanted one.
It's been well looked after and a 2011 plate, but has 220k miles on it. What would your thoughts be on this ? Would it put you off buying it ? I don't have a massive budget which is why I feel I need to accept that most will be old , have high mileage etc, but I also have a perfectly working trailer so is it worth the switch? TIA

 

[Lady Jane]

The mileage is fine but you must get the box properly inspected despite the fact you know the seller and it has been well maintained. The higher mileage should help keep the price down. Whether its worth the switch is up to you, it will cost more t o run a little lorry than your trailer and you may not have the payload in the lorry you have in the trailer (depends what you tow with etc).
Do you know who built the lorry?

 

[Green Bean]

It will depend on its service history and MOT record. You can check MOT record on the DVLA website. If there are consistently things wrong or only failures are fixed and advisories left, then there may be an issue. If is has been regularly serviced and the cambelt / timing chain have been replaced at least twice in its life so far then that is a good sign. I would still want a body check (floor, ramp), you could probably do that yourself if you are practically minded. You could ask questions like, is the floor aluminium, is it sealed, has the underside of the box and engine been sealed against the affects of salt etc. Agree with Lady Jane regarding the costs. I moved from a trailer to a 3.5t box and it is more expensive, insurance, MOT, road tax, servicing, inevitable things that break etc. I still prefer my box, but am lucky I have a handy hubby.
Prices on boxes seem to have plummeted recently so now is a good time to buy. I would ask the questions like payload and what they are looking for it. Personally, I wouldn't pay more than £12k for it, and that is with it being in a good condition.

 

[Midlifecrisis]

I was once told it’s not the mileage but the “stand age” that counts…as in if it’s regularly used and maintained the mileage isn’t so important but if not moved often recently then look at it carefully.

 

[Squeak]

If I knew the horsebox and that it had been well maintained and was reliable I would be less worried about the mileage. As others have suggested, looking at the MOT history is well worth it.

Whether it is worth swapping to a horsebox over a trailer is based on so many factors of how you use your tow car and trailer and what you plan to do in the future.

 

[skye01]

I've had a look at the past mot history and it has failed quite a few. This is the latest one- I feel the advisories are probably quite serious and will need sorting at some point but I could be wrong ? I'm unsure on Lorrie's etc. I'm also going to speak to someone I know who's a lorry mechanic who can hopefully answer some questions! Thank you for all the replies !

 

[Squeak]

My interpretation from what you've said about it failing quite a few times and is shown on that screenshot I would interpret it as a horsebox that's not serviced before it's MOT'd (that's what gives clean passes) I wouldn't be too worried about that if you could then see on the next test that it had the work done. From that screenshot it looks like it potentially only had the critical things done but if on all the previous tests it had them all done then it's possible that they didn't want to do that work this year as they knew they were going to sell it.

There are some advisories that I would leave until the next year based on the mechanics feedback but I wouldn't want to see a history of things being left undone until they caused a fail. I also wouldn't want to see the same things failing once they'd been fixed.

Someone with more mechanical knowledge would be able to tell you more about the advisories on there and how serious they could be although I imagine that without seeing them in person it might not be possible to know how bad they are but they might be able to give you a ball park of how much it costs to fix and what would cause those issues.

 

[IrishMilo]

To be fair none of that is a big deal - but having just had to fix most of the same on my stable car be prepared to pay the best part on a grand to sort it all out.

 

[gallopingby]

You need to ask a mechanic who is used to working with this type of box. Also it would be helpful to know what work was carried out between it failing and passing. The advisories are things that will probably need to be corrected before its next test so you’d need to find out how much they’ll cost to fix. It might be possible to use this info to negotiate on price. Also looking to the future when you might want to upgrade a well made older box from a reputable builder is likely to hold its price.