Towing Capacity

Leo Walker

Leo Walker

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How much would you be happy towing? My car can tow 2000kgs, its a 4x4 and designed for towing, won tow car of the year etc, etc but not a big landrover which is what I'm used to. Would you be ok towing 1800kgs? What about 1900kgs or 2000kgs? Is the maximum the car can tow really the amount you can tow? Or should it be less?

I know the 85% thing doesnt apply to horses but I cant seem to find any definitive answer as to what is and isnt going to wreck the car! I am hoping this car will last a few years so dont want to destroy it towing. It wont be towing far very often but will be used twice a month for about 35miles each way and possibly odd bits in between. There is the chance I will do a couple of hundred mile trips every now and again as well. All mainly motorway driving with a couple of miles of lanes either end.

Its only for one pony and I'd worked it out as being 1700kgs in my existing light trailer but thats off the road and I have given up ever getting it back on the road so am now looking at alternatives. One of the most feasible ones in terms of price and location is 1280kgs, probably lighter as the partitions will be out and I'll upgrade the floor to lighter aluminum etc, but I'm working on 1280 so theres some leeway, pony is 460 and the carriage is 155. So thats 1895kgs which just feels too heavy to me but if the car can tow 2000kgs then techincally its not.

The whole thing is making my head hurt and if I break the new car its going to really hurt my wallet!
 
If you were towing short distances locally on level roads then towing up to the limit is ok. I would not be happy towing that weight on the motorway, though, where you have lorry grooves and HGVs whooshing past, or in hilly areas. I have the choice of two tow vehicles, the 2t limit Skoda Octavia Scout is great at what it does, but the 3.5t Shogun completely bosses it.
 
Mine is similar to the above - towing capacity of 2200kg, tow about 15-1600kg with it regularly and tbh, I wouldn't want to put another one in it unless it was an emergency
 
I don't think any car manufacturer in their right mind would put a towing weight that the car wasn't actually capable of, they woudn't want the car damaged through towing more than capable when in warranty and they wouldn't want litigation from an accident caused by it either.

Happily towed up to max weight in my VW tiguan, towed like a dream.
 
What does your tow vehicle weigh LW? I'd also be concerned about getting in to a tail-wagging-the-dog situation with the heavier trailer. When all's going well what you're proposing might suffice but the trouble with towing is that everything doesn't always go well and in that situation you may wish you had some more grunt available to you.
 
I asked this question at my dealership. They said that the limit is 2t and it will do that up hill and down dale! I've never tested it to the 2t limit even though they said it's fine. Too chicken!!
2 friends have exactly the same car and regularly tow to the limit, up steep hills, so I should really just put my brave pants on.
 
Michen said:
I don't think any car manufacturer in their right mind would put a towing weight that the car wasn't actually capable of, they woudn't want the car damaged through towing more than capable when in warranty and they wouldn't want litigation from an accident caused by it either.
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THIS is the answer I give in the HHO TOWING CLINIC
 
Those of us who have towed in the past with vehicles which were not really up to the job will advise caution. I was very glad that we were towing with the Shogun and not the Scout recently when my mare got a strop on in the trailer because she wanted to eat from the spare hay net, which was tied up just out of reach to be used on the return journey. The trailer + horse weighs 1650kg, so is well within the Scout’s 2t limit. The mare had access to a hay net, she just wanted the other one. She’s normally a very good traveller, but she rocked the trailer from side to side for several minutes in her tantrum as she crashed about inside the trailer. You really do need a beefy vehicle when that happens.

We have a Renault Clio 1.2, it’s a gutless car which we bought for the lads to learn to drive on. It has a tow limit of 1.2t, which is crazy. It would take about a week to get up to 60mph towing my 510 with a few shavings bales in it, and then it would be thrown all over the place by the trailer. It’s quite high geared too, so any hill starts would be interesting.

Just imagine if my mare had thrown that strop on the motorway, with no hard shoulder and those utterly inadequate refuge areas. Luckily we were on a quiet road, and my OH could see on the cctv monitor what she was up to. We removed the spare hay net!
 
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The car weighs about 1760kg I think, somewhere between 1750 and just short of 1800 anyway, I'm at work and cant remember off hand.

Its towing about 1550 now, big old 511 thats ancient and like a tank, and 480 pony anyway, with no issues. When we got sucked up between 2 lorries behaving very badly a couple of weeks back the trailer wagged about and the car brought it back straight with no issues. Thats the last time I pull over to let a lorry out though! You can tell its pulling something up hill, but its not labouring and still accelerates. We don't have many hills though to be fair.

The options :
1460kgs for a super light weight trailer, carriage extension, pony and carriage
1785kgs for an Ifor 505, carriage extension, pony and carriage
1895kgs for a triple trailer, pony and carriage

The triple has the benefit of no carriage extension and I can strip it out, replace the floor and probably get it to roughly the same weight as the ifor, but that's not a given so I'm using the heavier figures. They are very stable trailers but this is the lightest one. It was never an option when I bought the car or I might have gone for the landy I really wanted! There will be times theres no carriage but that only drops the weight by 155kgs and that will be few and far between anyway.

I need to speak to the engineer/mechanic person to see if the lightweight trailer will be ok with the carriage extension. I'm inclined to think not, or if it is, it might well need a new frame bumping the weight up anyway. The Ifors offset the nose weight so its ok, I'm not sure the lightweight Rice would, but I'm not an engineer so am just guessing.

I was always working on towing 1800kgs with the original set up.

But I absolutely do not want my pony being at risk under any circumstances and I definitely do not want to knacker the car. I think that might be the final straw for my long suffering partner with the continually expanding horse expense, especially as this is technically his car that I made him buy so I could tow.

I really hate not knowing enough about cars and I really hate that theres no straight forward reliable information anywhere. This must be how people feel when they first buy a horse and don't know what they are doing!
 
I would imagine that manufacturers are quite conservative about their cars' towing abilities when they set their capacities. They don't want to get sued for an accident caused by a trailer that was too heavy or to be replacing parts under warranty that have worn out too quickly because of towing a heavy trailer.

It's probably slightly different because I think the 3.5T limit is more to do with licensing but I know that Defenders can physically tow a hell of a lot more than the 3.5T limit on them (ever see the video of and old Land Rover towing an artic that was stuck in the snow?) and my OH has towed several 7.5T lorries out of mud with his Range Rover so they can tow much more than their capacities suggest - and yes I know they have their own engines too but they were going nowhere until they were towed.
 
Tiddlypom said:
Those of us who have towed in the past with vehicles which were not really up to the job will advise caution. I was very glad that we were towing with the Shogun and not the Scout recently when my mare got a strop on in the trailer because she wanted to eat from the spare hay net, which was tied up just out of reach to be used on the return journey. The trailer + horse weighs 1650kg, so is well within the Scout’s 2t limit. The mare had access to a hay net, she just wanted the other one. She’s normally a very good traveller, but she rocked the trailer from side to side for several minutes in her tantrum as she crashed about inside the trailer. You really do need a beefy vehicle when that happens.

We have a Renault Clio 1.2, it’s a gutless car which we bought for the lads to learn to drive on. It has a tow limit of 1.2t, which is crazy. It would take about a week to get up to 60mph towing my 510 with a few shavings bales in it, and then it would be thrown all over the place by the trailer. It’s quite high geared too, so any hill starts would be interesting.

Just imagine if my mare had thrown that strop on the motorway, with no hard shoulder and those utterly inadequate refuge areas. Luckily we were on a quiet road, and my OH could see on the cctv monitor what she was up to. We removed the spare hay net!
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This exactly, in the late 90's early 00's we used to tow with a renault espace, we were just under the max towing weight for it but it essentially killed the car, to the point that the frame stretched, the aircon blew up in my face (I was sat in the passenger seat and a cloud of green gas came through the vents and green liquid flowed into the footwell) and it had endless problems with the engine overheating etc.

We had a very scary experience with a huge welsh cob throwing itself against the sides of the trailer and trying thier best to turn the trailer over. We had an ML270 at the time, it outweighed the trailer and horse and could tow a heck of a lot more than we were towing at the time, we managed to keep the trailer upright and not let the trailer dictate where the car was going but had it been a smaller car it would have been a whole different ball game. The trailer needed £500 worth of repairs from that incident.

I believe that the towing limits set for manufacturers are set for stable loads, so yes the car probably can tow 2 ton of bricks with no issue, but 2 ton of horse trailer with a horse in the back throwing itself around, panicing or even just being a tit? I don't think the limits are set with that in mind.
 
I'm 100% with ROG on this. I now tow with Freelanders, max tow weight 2000kg and I tow just a tad under that at 1960KG. I'm on my third one and none of them have struggled or have had any issues. My usual trips are 2 hours ish each way, although I do admit no proper hills as its East Anglia and surrounding areas.
 
I tow my giant who is 650kg in an Ascot which is around 950kg I think, plus water loaded in the trailer. So 1.7-1.8T, using my Mitzi Outlander with a 2T capacity.
3h trips, motorway, welsh hills etc .... hasn’t missed a beat.

I can feel the trailer on the back more than I could with a beefier vehicle, but I’ve never felt unsafe, just more aware
 
Alibear said:
I'm 100% with ROG on this. I now tow with Freelanders, max tow weight 2000kg and I tow just a tad under that at 1960KG. I'm on my third one and none of them have struggled or have had any issues. My usual trips are 2 hours ish each way, although I do admit no proper hills as its East Anglia and surrounding areas.
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That's interesting as its a bit more than I'm looking at with a similar sort of car. I think I'll buy the bigger trailer. If I'm not happy with how it feels I will easily double my money selling it on once I've done a bit of work on it, and I really would prefer one larger trailer rather than faffing about with carriage extensions and nose weight issues.
 
Tiddlypom said:
If you were towing short distances locally on level roads then towing up to the limit is ok. I would not be happy towing that weight on the motorway, though, where you have lorry grooves and HGVs whooshing past, or in hilly areas. I have the choice of two tow vehicles, the 2t limit Skoda Octavia Scout is great at what it does, but the 3.5t Shogun completely bosses it.
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My Scout is amazing at towing, I tow either one pony (1300kg) or two ponies (approx. 17-1800kg) and it behaves as if there is nothing on board, even on quite steep hills....

I do a maximum of 55mph on dual carriageways/motorways, and it feels very safe, and not snaky at all, though obviously I don't go out when its really windy.

I hope this helps, maybe not...

FIona
 
Fiona, I fully agree that the Scout is a great tower, and I have recommended on here it many times. However, if you have 650kg of tantruming IDx hurling itself around inside the trailer it was reassuring to have something a bit beefier o_O.

LW, what is your current tow vehicle? How well balanced will the trailer be with the horse and the carriage up? Just as not all tow cars are equal, neither are all trailers. Maybe I sound unduly pessimistic, but I have done a lot of towing over the years of both horse and boat trailers, sometimes (a long while ago) with unsuitable vehicles.
 
Its a Ssanyong Korando. 4x4 and won tow car of the year for this model. Its designed and built to be a tow car. The treble trailer is long. About 16 feet I think. But they are supposed to be stable to tow. I can configure it anyway I want as I'm going to rip the insides out and re do it all. But basically pony will go in one bit, I can put partitions in or cross tie her centrally, and carriage in the other rachted in place so its not moving. I can put them in any order as its got front and rear unload. So I can see how best to balance it. She travels fine and doesn't tend to fidget, but that doesn't mean she never will though!

I'm still not convinced to be honest, but its cheap enough and not a million miles away so its worth the gamble, and if I don't like it or the way it feels I can sell it on. I've still got the use of the 511 whenever I want, but its a massive pain in the backside as I have to take the carriage, come back, take the pony, bring the pony back, go back for the carriage etc and having done it twice never again!

I've also got a lovely old Bahill that's about to be reduced to a pile of parts if anyone needs anything but the less said about that the better!
 
Tiddlypom said:
Fiona, I fully agree that the Scout is a great tower, and I have recommended on here it many times. However, if you have 650kg of tantruming IDx hurling itself around inside the trailer it was reassuring to have something a bit beefier o_O.
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Sorry TP, I see where you are coming from, I was trying to reassure OP, not suggest that you should tow your big horse with the Scout x

FIona
 
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