Overloaded

[Justme]

9 hours ago, Baldbloke said:

so my nose weight probably would have exceeded the allowable 500 kg.

 

That is a very high nose weight limit for a vehicle. Not sure any Landrovers have one that high.

 

It is well in excess of what the trailer would be allowed to have.

[Baldbloke]

A heavy nose weight can make a Defender look awful with its soft rear coils. The other problem is when the back is squat down low and the lack of weight on the front wheels the steering is very light and the front wheels can lock up very, very easily. You can "get away with it" more so with air suspension
 
We try to get is as well balanced as possible. Not always easy. Vehicles can be tricky as they are obviously nose heavy and long. Something like that E Class estate would want a 16ft trailer to get the car back far enough.
 
We used to have a 200TDI Defender, we had the fuel pump wound up, front mount intercooler, boost pin, silicone boost pipes etc. The injection pump was the limiting factor being on its max. Towing something like a 3T tracked chipper/plant trailer you'd be going up an average hill and go from 4th - 3rd - 2nd and be sat on the limit in 2nd. But it wouldn't pull 3rd.
Even before the remap on our Puma it'll accelerate up the hills with a full load. The 200/300 maybe an engine you can repair yourself on the side of the road and for that its great but for actual proper work its crap. 

Putting the E Class over the trailer wheels and leaving little weight over the hitch meant the Defender once got a serious death weave, the wife screaming, and the three lanes pulling back. It really needed some weight over the hitch to be stable. It was the longer Ifor Williams trailer so probably around a 16’ bed plus A frame leading to the hitch.
It would pull 60 mph on the motorway, but on an uphill start it didn’t have much go. I wouldn’t do it again!

[Big J]

47 minutes ago, Baldbloke said:

Putting the E Class over the trailer wheels and leaving little weight over the hitch meant the Defender once got a serious death weave, the wife screaming, and the three lanes pulling back. It really needed some weight over the hitch to be stable. It was the longer Ifor Williams trailer so probably around a 16’ bed plus A frame leading to the hitch.
It would pull 60 mph on the motorway, but on an uphill start it didn’t have much go. I wouldn’t do it again!

I had an Ifor quite a few years back. I've not had one since. It wouldn't take much to get it fish tailing. I presently have a tri axle Meredith and Eyre trailer, which is pretty good, but the best I had for heavy towing manners was an Unsinn 14ft trailer from Germany. Twin axle with secondary gas struts on the suspension. It did nearly 30k miles with me, and never, ever fish tailed. Lovely aluminium sides, very smart and ludicrously cheap. Went to the factory in Bavaria in early 2016 with a view to importing them, but Brexit and the slide in the currency buggered that plan.

[spuddog0507]

47 minutes ago, Big J said:

I had an Ifor quite a few years back. I've not had one since. It wouldn't take much to get it fish tailing. I presently have a tri axle Meredith and Eyre trailer, which is pretty good, but the best I had for heavy towing manners was an Unsinn 14ft trailer from Germany. Twin axle with secondary gas struts on the suspension. It did nearly 30k miles with me, and never, ever fish tailed. Lovely aluminium sides, very smart and ludicrously cheap. Went to the factory in Bavaria in early 2016 with a view to importing them, but Brexit and the slide in the currency buggered that plan.

you could of had at least 3 years coining it in off them trailers ??? if only we had known that the people with in parliment where all going to act like a load of 5 yr old school kids and could,nt make a decision to save lives, parliment at the moment all ways reminds me of the haribo TV add,

[Big J]

32 minutes ago, spuddog0507 said:

you could of had at least 3 years coining it in off them trailers ??? if only we had known that the people with in parliment where all going to act like a load of 5 yr old school kids and could,nt make a decision to save lives, parliment at the moment all ways reminds me of the haribo TV add,

Quite probably, but the exchange rate drop (from 1.32 to 1.13) basically consumed the projected profit. Simple economics, combined with total uncertainty about the future. Did you envisage 3.5 years ago that we'd be where we are now? I don't own a crystal ball unfortunately!

[GA Groundcare]

Probably towed in excess of 100,000 miles towing all with IWT trailers and never really had any issues fish tailing. 
 

Lorry ruts on the other hand....

[spuddog0507]

28 minutes ago, Big J said:

Quite probably, but the exchange rate drop (from 1.32 to 1.13) basically consumed the projected profit. Simple economics, combined with total uncertainty about the future. Did you envisage 3.5 years ago that we'd be where we are now? I don't own a crystal ball unfortunately!

No i did,nt and i dont think many people would of thought it would take this long ! and you never know it may be another 3.5 years yet or more like not at all, they started some road works on the M6 just after the referendum and you will never guess, the road works are now finished !!!

[Peasgood]

I had a warning from my IWT triaxle 14’ recently. 

I was going too fast with a too heavy load of too long electric poles on it. 

No drama whatsoever but it showed me to be a bit more respectful. 

[monkeybusiness]

Only had one real issue with an IWT - 12 foot tipper with cage sides (approx 8m3) full of wet split logs. Down a long bendy hill on the A55 (dual carriageway) it got all out of shape, eventually flipped on its side (lifting the pickup’s back wheels off the floor) and stuffed me into the central reservation.

The whole thing lasted for nearly a mile, and my trousers, the entire seat cushion and half of the carpet got chewed up by my bum-hole (it was absofarkinlutely terrifying!). Fortunately it started snaking far enough before disaster to allow everyone following enough time to hang back and watch the show... 

I’m 100% certain this incident was caused by low tyre pressure in one of the rear tyres (it ended up popped off the rim), possible overloading and too much speed which became impossible to shed.

Other than that one incident (which in no way can be blamed on the trailer, it was entirely driver error) my experiences of the towing behaviour of Ifors is entirely positive, and I have towed a lot of their trailers carrying a lot of weight a lot of miles.

If you load them wrong (basically zero or negative nose weight) then they can snake, but so will any trailer. 

I’ve yet to find another manufacturer who can offer anything comparable that will take abuse and still sell very second hand for strong money either!

[woody paul]

Had s trailer snake on me many years ago, it was loaded with straw the person I was working for used a loader which would put 40 small bales a time on a trailer so 40 on from side at front then 40 from the back.

Front ones were a lot heavier going down the road it didn't feel right then it happen down a slight hill hitting banks on both sides of the road missed 2 cars coming the other way and then stopped on it's wheels and all bales on the trailer.