Towing with Estates

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Morrigan_Lady

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www.teamterrellshowjumping.co.uk

Sorta a follow on from my post yesterday about Eco 4x4's

I was thinking last night (ouch!) that the best way for me to save some money would be to sell my current 4x4 and buy a normal little car, maybe a focus of summut like that and get a tow bar put on my Dads car. He's got a peugout 407 estate, its huge and its a 2l desiel. Would that be ok to tow one 16hh?

Soz for all the questions on this folks, but I want to get it right this time!
 
Peugeot 407 SW Estate (04 onwards) only has a towing capacity of 1300kg, but i think its different for different models. Have a look on Parkers website. With that you would only be able to tow a lightweight trailer with maybe a small pony - and you'd probably still be pushing it once you'd put people, tack etc in.
 
Back in the old days when I could be bothered to go to shows people towed horse trailers with just about any car!! I've seen astra's and escorts pulling trailers with 2 ponies in them!
I think a decent estate car like the 407 would have no problem towing one horse.
 
Get a Volvo 960/940 if you want to tow on the cheap.

IMO what you really need to consider is the devaluation of a car as well as the fuel costs.

If you spent £12k on a 4x4, in 12 months time, it would be worth about £9k which equates to £60 per week. If you got an older and cheaper 4x4, for say a couple of grand, then the devaluation would be about £500 over the same period or £10 per week.

Its swings and roundabouts and fuel costs would not be the deciding factor for me. We have a very frugal corsa diesel to run around in and the 4x4 spends most of its time on the drive unless towing.

The difference between towing a 100 mile round trip with a car which does 20mpg and one which does 35 mpg is about £9 giving a total monthly saving over a month of about £36 if yo uare out every week doing this.

Devaluation is much harder to live with if the car is financed even if you feel the pain far more immediately at the pump
 
This is really useful as I am having the same problem, I currently have a Volvo V40 but wondered if a Volvo V70 would pull a trailer? My horse is 17hh so would need a full size trailer though!

What do you think?

I know they give recommendations but surely as long as you are legal and drive carefully then there shouldn't be a problem.
 
The advice is generally not to exceed 85% of the tow vehicles kerb weight. 505 type trailers normally weight about 900kg, and average 16h horse about 550-600kg. So if you were carrying one horse your total trailer weight would be about 1450kg. That means your tow car would need to weigh at least 1700kg. I think you'll find that only the big estates (volvos, saabs, mercedes etc) weigh that much, so bare this in mind. Its all down to the trailer/horse combination not being heavier than the vehicle towing it therefore unstablising it.
 
Think you will have a weight problem.

I use a Bateson Derby trailer - about the lightest you can get at 675K and tow one 15 hand cob who is about 480 k. My car is a Nissan Primera 2 litre TD. I have enough power, and the trailer is very easy to tow, but if Chancer gets much heavier then I am going to have to consider a heavier car.
 
I tow with a Vauxhall Omega which has enough capacity for my horse (16h) and trailer. I think the big mondeos can tow too.
 
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