What 4X4 for towing a horse box.....
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Turboman
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Could be as simple as individual preference and what you are used to.
Myself I have always found Jap stuff horrible to work on, loads of gadgets and gizmos, wiring for them everywhere, very small fasteners, and they are always changing things. But maybe some prefer them. Everything has gone a bit the same way now,though.
muddynick
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Isuzu Trooper gets my vote. Old man has been towing horse boxes and other trailers with it for years, tows with ease and nice weight up to 3.5t iirc. Downside I guess is the interior is a bit dated.
Datatek
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Up until recently, they were not stuffed full of ECU's for a start and they go wrong so rarely if looked after that repairs do not really come into it unklike a disco or P38.
cooltide
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Correct
When you press the throttle it doesn't respond.
But Subarus are more road cars, the cam belts are not THAT bad, a lot of work but doable.
I would love an old WRX
Murtle
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For towing don't buy anything short i.e. Defender 90's etc, highly unstable tow vehicles, on the other hand Defender 110, disco, rangie all great for towing.
Most reliable car I ever owned.... Peugeot 306 1.9 d turbo, Bought for £2000, driven for 100K miles over 7 years, never broke down, just serviced. Sold for £500, now that's cheep motoring.
Most Unreliable car I ever owned.... BMW 320D Touring E46 model, most badly designed and poorly built car I've ever had the misfortune to own.
Not everything written in the press is true, including statistics.
Most reliable car I ever owned.... Peugeot 306 1.9 d turbo, Bought for £2000, driven for 100K miles over 7 years, never broke down, just serviced. Sold for £500, now that's cheep motoring.
Most Unreliable car I ever owned.... BMW 320D Touring E46 model, most badly designed and poorly built car I've ever had the misfortune to own.
Not everything written in the press is true, including statistics.
Datatek
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Must have ahd a duff one, mine certainly shifts.
Turboman
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I haven't found that to be the case, I have towed a cattle trailer to Carlisle, Cambridge, and Guildford from here, among other places. All with a 90 and it has handled fine. Half the people on the county show circuit tow with Defender 90, and their vehicles aren't unstable, although some of the drivers may be!
Longer vehicles tow nice on the open road, but an extra couple of feet can be a pain to turn in a tiny old-fashioned farmyard, or to reverse into field gates in a narrow lane.
Datatek
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+1 to most of that, my BMW 325i was unreliable and drank oil, the only car I've had that was worse was a Porsche
cooltide
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I could get a brat pickup anywhere a standard landrover gets and they win hands down on snow. Clearance of a freelander and excellent traction control in muddy fields, the forester is all the car he needs. He's not going trailing. I used to tow plenty of lambs away in mine, over a ton of logs out of fields and muddy tracks and it pulled 4 round bales of hay at a push. (That was a y reg 2.0 n/a no tc)
Murtle
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I haven't found that to be the case, I have towed a cattle trailer to Carlisle, Cambridge, and Guildford from here, among other places. All with a 90 and it has handled fine. Half the people on the county show circuit tow with Defender 90, and their vehicles aren't unstable, although some of the drivers may be!
Longer vehicles tow nice on the open road, but an extra couple of feet can be a pain to turn in a tiny old-fashioned farmyard, or to reverse into field gates in a narrow lane.
The amount of times I've seen roads shut because of a SWB Defender on it's side with a long car transporter or cattle box attached. Plus my experiences with these tells me a 90 or 88 is very bad for long trailers, they snake far to easily (pendulum effect). You have to completely overload the nose weight of the trailer to try and counteract it, not a relaxed pleasant drive.
Please be careful.
Murtle
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+1 to most of that, my BMW 325i was unreliable and drank oil, the only car I've had that was worse was a Porsche
I forgot about the monumental oil consumption as well was about 1L every 3K miles, took it to the dealer only to be told that's normal for a turbo diesel engine
My old Pug would got the 7K miles between services with out using a drop, that was also a turbo diesel. It was still capable of this when sold with 162K on the clock.Was yours an E46 model? I've come to the conclusion that was a very bad car BMW built there.
I now have an BMW 330D E91, and what a transformation, this car is exactly how I was expecting a BMW to be, a much better designed, and biult car all round
cooltide
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Why the hell did I get rid of it and buy another land rover. Good news for swarfega but
Datatek
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Mine was petrol and used 3 litres of oil to go from Worthing to Birmingham when new, BMW claimed it was normal and would "bed in". It did bed in alright, went to 5 litres for the same journey at 20K miles, had more rattles and squeeks than my Transit, got shot PDQ.I forgot about the monumental oil consumption as well was about 1L every 3K miles, took it to the dealer only to be told that's normal for a turbo diesel engine
Was yours an E46 model? I've come to the conclusion that was a very bad car BMW built there.
I now have an BMW 330D E91, and what a transformation, this car is exactly how I was expecting a BMW to be, a much better designed, and biult car all round
Turboman
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I have seen trailer overturns too, always due to excessive speed or poor loading of the trailer. I always keep the noseweight within guidelines, tyre pressures up in the rears for towing, my trailers tow lovely.
Datatek
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One of the key issues in respect of stability when towing is the distance from the axle to the tow ball, the shorter the better. The 90 has the axle well to the rear which will aid stability even though it's a SWB vehicle.
Turboman
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You are absolutely right, I was just thinking of mentioning that.
Purpose built tow vehicles, like agricultural tractors and Scammell recovery trucks have the tow point almost on the line of the back axle.
Many Jap 4wd, on the other hand, have the tow ball three or four feet behind the axle, one of the reasons I would not use them.
Murtle
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On paper that sounds perfectly reasonable, but why does an empty transit van tow a car transporter trailer in a far more stable manner than the same loaded trailer on a SWB landy. This is exactly the thing I have experienced, the transit was lighter too?
Datatek
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Tow hitch on my Transit is also pretty close to the rear axle, but a longer wheel base will also help and maybe your Transit is FWD.
I can tell you from experience that my RWD Transit 330 is quite a handfull with a P38 on a trailer
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