best truck for towing?

[debra wiltshire]

Oh woe is me!!
My infamous 'pink' dihatsu four trak has just failed its MOT and we have been told its not worth repairing.
Can I ask peoples opinions about what wheels they use when moving their dexters about? I appreciate costs will vary when buying a new motor but it would be nice to hear what people say about other makes of vehicles.

[Duncan MacIntyre]

For towing a trailer a land rover defender takes a lot of beating, but may be subject to all sorts of other cricitcisms - leak like seives poor fuel consumption etc, but for sheer pull and steady on the road very good.

Do be aware that if you are going more than 60 kilometres you technically need a tachograph in the towing vehicle if your maximum permissible train weight is over 3.5 tons, if you are doing it for business reasons - even going to a show might count since there is potential reward in the shape of prize money apparently.

Two of our farmers in Argyll have been prosecuted.

I have considered replacing my land rover with a 3.5ton pickup and puting my Ifor Williams demountable livestock body on the back to avoid this, but can't make up my mind.

Duncan

[domsmith]

We got an ex army ford ranger 4 years ago, 70k on the clock. it now has 125k on,alot of that with a trailer. Although i think it would like to retire its still going strong. i now do less miles and hauling, but i think it was a great buy and has performed flawlessly, even with my mistreatment. There were some weeks i think i thought we ran a haulage business, moving beasts from dumfries and ayrshire to lanarkshire to keep ourselves supplied.
it also runs off our own biodeisel.

my only complaint is fuel consumtion, but thats par for the course for these 4wd pickups.

dominic

[ann]

I have a Nissan X trail which is fine for towing a 2 beast trailer although I have towed a 4 beast one with dexters in without any problems. As I do not do a lot of traveling with the trailer this suits me fine as its a lovely vehicle to drive and very comfortable. Mine is diesel, the petrol ones are no good for towing not enough power and with the small trailer on it doesn't seem to make much difference to my fuel consumption which is around 30 miles to the gallon.

[clacko]

The first thing you really need to work out is how much weight are you going to be towing and what size trailer you have as this will narrow your options, there are not many motors that can tow 3.5 ton legally and most of the double cab jap motors are around 3 ,

[Duncan MacIntyre]

Remember the "train weght" is the towing vehicle plus the trailer, and the 3.5 ton max permissible train weight means the max weight allowed for the laden towing vehicle plus the max laden weight allowed for the trailer

Duncan

[Broomcroft]

We've got one of the new 2.2 litre short wheel base Defender 90 vans. It'll tow a trailer loaded to the max 3.5 tonnes up a hill on tickover without using low ratio! Because it's short-wheel based, that makes it easier to move around with a trailer attached. I wouldn't get a pickup though, no knee room. Modern Defenders are really with it....got dipping headlights and aircon in mine .

I've used a Discovery as well, types 2 and 3, and they were good also. Same towing capacity as the Defender. If you get a Discovery 2, watch out for the tow bar not being the one that sticks right down at the back, because they can easily catch the ground off road / over dips. You'll see what I mean if you see one.

[SteveM]

5dr 2.8 diesel shogun auto, pull an ifor williams DP120 ok, bit slow up hill but its done 180,000 so can be excused.

[debra wiltshire]

so lets see if I have this right...the train weight = weight of truck + weight of trailer + weight of beasts inside which must not go above 3.5 tonne?
What is 'the nose weight'?

[Duncan MacIntyre]

You need a tachograph in the towing vehicle if you are using it for any form of commerce or reward if you are travelling more than 65Km and the "maximum permissible train weight" is over 3.5tonnes. That means the maximum allowed loaded weight of vehicle and trailer, not the weight that they are at the time - so if you have a land rover at 2.5 tons and a trailer at 1.75 tonnes plus allowable load of another 1.75 tonnes then your train weight is 6 tonnes.

Have a look at http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/Transpor ... 1111_3.pdf

Not very exciting reading.

Duncan

[SteveM]

Have had tacho fitted now for 2 years, done 16000km, not seen anyone checking for them, but been dipped at york machinery sale twice looking for red diesel.

[clacko]

As I understand the law when we done our trailer tests through the company I work for ( does everything to the letter ) the tachometer bit is a very grey area and after seeking legal advice we do not require tachometers for agricultural based/type of work, if we followed the guidelines that Duncan mentions then we would hardly be able to carry any weight what so ever, your towing vehicle should be plated with a maximum permissable towing weight which should not be exceeded, so on our land rovers which are 3.5 tons we can pull a total load of 3.5 tons including the weight of the trailer, not put 3.5 tons of animals in it,

[Broomcroft]

I maybe out of date but I took advice from the NFU about 2 years ago, and they said we could tow up to 60 miles, i.e. 100 kilometres without a tacho. Also, the measurement was a radius drawn on a map using your base as the centre-point.100 km's drawn this way can be quite a lot further than the road distance.

If your vehicle is more than 25 years old, you don't need a tacho and you can drive as far as you like. Makes a lot of sense doesn't it .

PS. From memory, the 100k radius comes under an agricultural exemption.

http://dft.gov.uk/vosa/repository/HGV%2 ... 20Form.pdf