All good points, but you forgot to mention if your
new truck was stick or manual? As in the story of the featherlite and the
Chevy, I would have never considered towing something that big (or at all for
that matter) with an automatic, for many reasons, one being the reason you
described (depending on brakes, not gears to slow down).
I WAS towing a 4000 lb Silverado with 5 horses and
hay and water on top (pushing 10,000 lbs), plus a camper that was over 3,000 lb
packed....with my Dodge 3500 one ton dually, manual transmission, tires went
40,000miles,and front brakes went 51,000 miles, and never any problems, but it
sure was a load! Now am hauling Silverlite 3h slant, with LQ (6,000)
empty, will maybe push 10,000 loaded, but NO CAMPER added on top.
Couple of other things here - the longer the wheelbase on
the tow vehicle the better. The Jeep is pretty short. Next, I couldn't find
GCVW on the Jeep web site, but it says it can tow 5000 pounds. Our 4-horse
steel stock trailer weighs 6000 pounds _empty_. The 3-horse you're talking
about probably doesn't weigh much less. You're right that the Jeep isn't going
to work. It might work with a really small, light 1-2 horse
trailer.
Get a nice, big truck. Here's a story from my school of
hard knocks - I had a Chevy 3500 - good-sized truck. Went and bought a huge
Featherlite 4 horse with living quarters. The thing weighs 10,500# empty. So
off we go down a bunch of switchbacks. The trailer puts enough downward force
on the bed that the suspension can't handle it, the wheels start shimmying
back and forth violently. Meanwhile, smoke is billowing out of the wheel wells
of both the truck and the trailer from the brakes overheating. It wouldn't be
long until I had no brakes at all, and with an automatic, we (and our horses)
were about to be toast. Through some miracle, we were near the bottom
and no one was hurt. If we'd had an emergency stop, we couldn't have done
it.
So I then decide that the problem can be cured by a new
Ford. So I'm sitting there at the dealer talking about interior options,
stereos and all sorts of things, and meanwhile my wife is studying the towing
guide. On the way home from the dealer, she announces that a F-350 isn't going
to cut it. I'm seeing dollar bills with jet engines flying out of my wallet.
She then proceeds to explain that the GCVW for a F-350 is 20,000 pounds, the
truck is 7-8000 pounds, trailer is 10,500, add horses, people, water, tack,
etc, and now we're over, and it is unsafe. She says we need at least a F-450,
and it turned out she was right. We now pull it with a F-550, and it works
very nicely downhill and uphill.
So, the moral of the story here is to really pay
attention to what something is designed to tow, and don't exceed those limits,
even on short trips. You don't know when someone is going to jump out in front
of you. It's really very unsafe to tow something heavier than the vehicle is
rated for. Other moral is don't buy a bigger trailer than the tow vehicle can
handle, unless you want to end up with truck and trailer payments at the same
time.
From: Ibiteraaarr@xxxxxxx
[mailto:Ibiteraaarr@xxxxxxx] Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2003
4:39 PM To: dleblanc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx;
ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: [RC] Got my facts
straight?
What's my tow vehicle? Heh, that's a good question.
Originally, we were looking at a vehicle that had the power to tow but was
also a practical and safe vehicle for a new family. Adam's brother is
selling his '97 loaded Grand Cherokee, 5.9L engine, full time 4-wheel
drive V8. As we've looked at more and more trailers, we've both agreed
that we need to really start looking at trucks. We have an older truck that
can do the hauling locally no problem. Also, the ONLY time we'll be carting
around all 3 horses at once, with tack is to go to local trails to ride on
the weekends. I very much doubt I'll be able to do any competing for a
while, my sister has been preparing her horse for CTR, so traveling to rides
will actually be transporting 1 horse, 2 horses
tops. Since we're going to be
looking at trucks now, we'll probably look to see if we can find one that
has a gooseneck hitch installed. The reason for the bumper pull previously
is that Kristin's truck isn't fitted with a gooseneck hitch, and if we buy
the Grand Cherokee to do some towing with, that would be a bumper pull as
well. It's sort of up in the air right now, which sounds unusual, but we
can't really select what kind of towing vehicle we need until we decide what
trailer to go with. For everyone
who's offered some help and suggestions, I've kept all of it as notes to
help me out. I will be taking a friend of mine who's family has a ranch so
he can help me out in evaluating the trailer as well. Many thanks to
everyone!
