Would you tow up to your vehicle limit

tacr2man said:

"Oh and speeding up if you have a snake instead of slowing down is correct."


Untill you have LOTS of experience , do not try anything other than removing foot from accelerator , holding steering straight and gentle braking if you start to feel instability , anything else will more likely increase the problem unless you happen to be extremely lucky.

Ive been to enough accidents over the years to confirm it !

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Thats interesting, you see so much conflicting information about what you should do. I have only had it happen once, years ago, a 110 with a large cattle trailer which someone else loaded with Guide Camp (daugher & friends) equipment. Was OK up to 40mph and then the snaking started.

Scared me to death, I have to admit I didn't do anything, just took my foot off the accelerator and prayed. It stopped once it dropped back below 40. Have always loaded them myself since.

Just had to stop myself commenting on the horse forum again. Someone is advising that its legal (probably is) and safe to tow a 920 KG trailer and two horses weightING 1,000 Kg with a FREELANDER. hope there are no hills

tacr2man said:

"Oh and speeding up if you have a snake instead of slowing down is correct."


Untill you have LOTS of experience , do not try anything other than removing foot from accelerator , holding steering straight and gentle braking if you start to feel instability , anything else will more likely increase the problem unless you happen to be extremely lucky.

Ive been to enough accidents over the years to confirm it !

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Do you think you have been to lots of accidents because they keep slowing down

If you speed up it pulls the trailer straight so it cancels the snake.

Slowing down causes it to put more pressure pushing against the back of the tow vehicle making it more likely to push the back to one side. Also if the brakes arnt perfectly balanced it can apply the brakes on the trailer causing the trailer to want to head off in one direction apart from straight.

This is coming from someone with no accidents over the the past years to confirm in :rofl:

scrappyloz said:

Do you think you have been to lots of accidents because they keep slowing down

If you speed up it pulls the trailer straight so it cancels the snake.

Slowing down causes it to put more pressure pushing against the back of the tow vehicle making it more likely to push the back to one side. Also if the brakes arnt perfectly balanced it can apply the brakes on the trailer causing the trailer to want to head off in one direction apart from straight.

This is coming from someone with no accidents over the the past years to confirm in :rofl:

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As I already said, I dont have a clue. However the only time it happened to me it was caused by speed and a badly (probably overloaded) trailer. Wouldn't going faster make the problem worse.

I wouldnt advise speeding up thats for sure

I had a brake ram fail on a towing dolly when I had a car on it a few years back. Slowing down without touching the brakes was the only way to bring it back under control. Sometimes accelerating will work other times it won't. sometimes it's just luck that you choose the right action.

suew said:

Thats interesting, you see so much conflicting information about what you should do. I have only had it happen once, years ago, a 110 with a large cattle trailer which someone else loaded with Guide Camp (daugher & friends) equipment. Was OK up to 40mph and then the snaking started.

Scared me to death, I have to admit I didn't do anything, just took my foot off the accelerator and prayed. It stopped once it dropped back below 40. Have always loaded them myself since.

Just had to stop myself commenting on the horse forum again. Someone is advising that its legal (probably is) and safe to tow a 920 KG trailer and two horses weightING 1,000 Kg with a FREELANDER. hope there are no hills

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That's pushing it to the limit with a freelander...hope there is no hay, tack, etc on top of that. When I bought my first Disco it was from a 4x4 specialist and I was looking at a freelander, after all much cheaper, or in my case could buy a lot newer for my budget, his response was if I'm serious about towing horses gotta be a disco/fender.

I don't think he really liked Freelanders

ratty said:

I had a brake ram fail on a towing dolly when I had a car on it a few years back. Slowing down without touching the brakes was the only way to bring it back under control. Sometimes accelerating will work other times it won't. sometimes it's just luck that you choose the right action.

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Im going to agree with Ratty. Everybody has there own way of dealing with it. I prefer to speedup as it works for me. Other prefer to slow down as it works for them

The advice I was giving is based on years of towing , and investigating accidents , and then going to accidents for other reasons , talking to those involved , it becomes apparent that the "snatching it straight" needs much more power, and driver ability in knowing what to do subsequently and the right point to do it , than the remove the power, try and maintain the path of the vehicle, and if braking do so gently, method.
I have had experience of the phenomenon myself , the worst being on a autobahn in Germany delivering a rae merc to a collector/restorer . it was on a hired trailer that had stability issues above about 60mph , I was towing with a stage 1 V8 CSW , I let a mate (police advanced driver) do a bit of driving to spell me , we were travelling at 50 mph , my instruction was not to exceed 55mph . I had a kip on the second row seats. I was woken by being thrown around and a shout of what do i do. The back tyres of the landy were just beginning to chirp by then . I grabbed the wheel and shouted instructions , it took the whole 3 lanes of the autobahn to get it under control , plus a bit of luck i suspect , not something I would want to go thru again !! The forces involved even with quite a small trailer are huge , and can quickly destabilise the tow vehicle. You are all probably aware of the tactics used to stop a vehicle being pursued, that is a quite a small force in comparison . HTSH !

I've found over the years that it all depends on the tow car and the speed
I use to have a small cube transit 90 and a big heavy old car trailer that the brakes didnt work on that I used to do scrap runs with once a year and on more than one occasion it weighed in at over 6 ton but if was fine for the short trip but I wouldn't think of taking over 30 mph
I've found with a good trailer you normally only get snaking on a motorway because of the ruts the hgv make as the wheel base on the trailer is wider than the car but narrower than a lorry so it rides in and out of the ruts
And what works for me is slowing down " if the trailer brakes work as they should do then as you ease of and slow down the trailer hitch compresses and applies the brakes" stopping the snaking
It's best to try and carry some weight in the car as well because if you have a 3.5 ton load on the back of a 1.7 ton car with a high centre of gravity if it gets out of shape there's nothing your going to do to stop it

suew said:

The next time I see an 18 year old trying to downrate a two horse trailer, to tow with an estate car so they dont have to take the trailer test, I will be justified to have a rant

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Down plating a two horse trailer could just work for B licence towing with an estate car but it depends where it is going to be towed
Tarmac roads etc would be fine but get onto any rough ground and oops

R0G said:

Down plating a two horse trailer could just work for B licence towing with an estate car but it depends where it is going to be towed
Tarmac roads etc would be fine but get onto any rough ground and oops

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Yes well I have already got into more than one argument with you on the other forum on the difference between legal and safe.

Really dont intend to do it on here. Perhaps if you had experience of towing large unpredictable animals for many years I might. Until then I wont bother

R0G said:

Down plating a two horse trailer could just work for B licence towing with an estate car but it depends where it is going to be towed
Tarmac roads etc would be fine but get onto any rough ground and oops

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No, no, no!!!

IMO Horse trailers should NOT be towed by cars or to the limit by lesser 4x4's including the Freelander.

You should leave plenty of weight to spare, especially with unpredictable moving cargo so tow with a vehicle that is truly up to the job. If you can't, dig deep in your pocket and buy a proper towing vehicle to tow horses safely and properly or pay someone who can to do it.

Id tow a box or flatbed with kit in it (assuming the box wasnt much higher than my freebie) but sod towing livestock. Considering that a freebie is only 1.75t, two horses and a trailer is going to be well over that anyway.

Silverlandy said:

No, no, no!!!

IMO Horse trailers should NOT be towed by cars or to the limit by lesser 4x4's including the Freelander.

You should leave plenty of weight to spare, especially with unpredictable moving cargo so tow with a vehicle that is truly up to the job. If you can't, dig deep in your pocket and buy a proper towing vehicle to tow horses safely and properly or pay someone who can to do it.

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See there is the difference, you know what you are talking about

Bit embarrassing though, person I was having a rant about on the OP, which was ages ago, ending up on here

DuncanS said:

Id tow a box or flatbed with kit in it (assuming the box wasnt much higher than my freebie) but sod towing livestock. Considering that a freebie is only 1.75t, two horses and a trailer is going to be well over that anyway.

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My 510 can go up to 2.7 tonnes. The actual trailer weighs a tonne or just over. You can downrate them and only put one horse in. This makes you legal apparently, to tow with a Freelander or even worse a car.

My ongoing argument with Rog on a horse forum is that you shouldn't. He is giving advice to teenage girls on how to get round the law. Yes its legal, but they have no experience of towing livestock and it can go horribly wrong very quickly. Even one horse at half a tonne can make the trailer hard to handle if it starts throwing itself around.

i my opp you always leave some lee whey and not go to limits. easiest way to explain fill a cup to brim with boiling water your going to get burnt leave it 90 % full you have room (power brakes) to deal with it.

3.5 ton I tow with mine when moving my machine the wife uses it as .well to tow her horse box.
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LOL how far did you get with the second one

suew said:

LOL how far did you get with the second one

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