Thread: Weight balancing hire car trailers.

When I was young and in a hurry I had to pick up a bobcat from a job I was doing in an F100 & trailer. Parked on the road facing upwards on a hill I began to reverse the bobcat onto the ramps. Suddenly after blinking twice I realized the ground was moving whilst looking at the ramps and it was full steam ahead to get off. The hand brake was on and the F100 was in gear. The weight on the rear of the trailer lifted the rear wheels up which had the whole show going down hill a couple of metres. Experience is a good teacher but the fees are high! Since then I've seen a few towing incidences, one was a bobcat on a trailer behind a Holden ute. The ute was stuck on a 45 deg angle up a traffic light pole, the driver unable to get out being a metre or two off the ground. Too much speed cornering up an incline with too lighter towing vehicle.
Careful consideration before even turning the key and conservative driving have kept me incident free. As we all know, towing can be dangerous and who wants lessons learnt from the unexpected?

4 point tie down via wheel straps on a trailer or tray back. Especially if you have a vehicle with self leveling suspension. You tie it down via chassis points and then when ignition is turned on the car will try a pump back level. i,ve seen tow points ripped out by this happening.

yep, but ALL vehicles tied down by chains will (suspension)compress over bumps and the chains will go loose and either come undone, or the car ( and trailer!!! so you get twice the uplift) will recover and go bang against the chains.
Repeat over and over on our great roads.

Tying the car down by the tyres negates ALL of that...

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

Tying the car down by the tyres negates ALL of that...

What if the vehicle on the trailer gets a flat?

Originally Posted by bee utey

What if the vehicle on the trailer gets a flat?

Tighten the straps! It doesn't matter whether the tyres are flat or not, if the wheels can't move, the car isn't going anywhere.

A few notes from my experience towing with my 90, 110 and Disco2 all over the UK:

Keep the trailer level or at worst slightly nose up
Car trailers rarely have load sharing suspension meaning that for the weight to be distributed evenly between all four trailer wheels the trailer must be level, if it cant be level then have it slightly nose up so the weight is more on the rear axle than the front, making the trailer behave like a longer more stable trailer.

Run a decent amount of noseweight
Land Rover weights are normally designed with 150kg trailer nose weight in mind (Gross Vehicle Weight is normally 150kg lower than the max axle weights added together).
That 150kg nose weight helps the back of the car grip and stabilises the trailer (the cigar and cocktail stick scene in the film "The Fastest Indian").

Dont run too much noseweight
With the large rear overhang of a 110 or a Discovery large noseweight starts taking weight off the front axle... making the steering vague and handling unpredictable at least.
90s dont suffer this problem anywhere near as badly.

Strap down the wheels of the vehicle being towed
If you hold the wheels to the trailer the vehicle on the trailer will not be going anywhere (unless its a half finished project with lots of bolts missing).
Strapping to the chassis or body will only lead to lose straps as the vehicles suspension cycles over bumps.
Though if you have a vehicle with a large body like a Marshall bodied 109 ambulance then extra straps to help control the body movement can be a blessing.

Hope these observations help!

Well said Nick.

Originally Posted by bee utey

What if the vehicle on the trailer gets a flat?

Stop immediately and call the RAA.