Horrible experience while towing!!!!!

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hughesy

hughesy

Well-Known Member
Posts
4,200
Location
Isle of Anglesey
Had a very nasty moment this morning. Bought an old site cabin off ebay, 16" long, 8'wide and bloody heavy, on it's own single axle braked trailer chassis. Went to pick it upwith me 110. Found the place out in the wilds down a farm track, towed it 50 odd miles homeward without incident. Just got onto the Britannia bridge, nearly home, when the thing started snaking violently, so bad that it got sideways causing me to lose control of the landy and do a massive sideways slide into the oncoming traffic on the other side of the road. Didn't hit anything but I don't know how. Came to a halt on the pavement, with the trailer having un hitched itself and only attatched by the hefty chain I'd put on "just in case". No damage except a smashed tail light and a bit of a ding on the corner of the landy where the trailer had hit it. Bloody lucky not to have killed anyone. Managed to get the rest of the way slowly and without incident and I'm very relieved to be home in one piece.
Anyone else ever had a fun day out like this?
 
phew!

sounds a close 1, but no injuries or worse thank the lord.
just another war wound for the 110.

I had a similar quite a few years ago.
Went to collect quite a few bits of animal feeding equipment, and stuffed the lot into the back of an old horse box, the long bits sticking out the back a mile and the rest rammed to the roof.
didnt bother to check the tyres for an indication of the weight on board, just incase i would consider it too much for 1 trip.

sett off home, sticking to a reasonable very lowish speed as by this time i realised we had over done it a bit. oh, did i mention the tow car.
suki heep 1.3??

Coming down a section of dual carrageway, straight for quite a way and down hill i had not noticed due to talking, that the speed had crept up a bit, i wasnt really excellerating it was sheer weight and gravity.
The whole unsightly outfit went into super snake, as i was allready eased off there was not much else i could do but steer. darent touch nothing, just steered and hoped, and lukily we stayed roughly in the right place and carried on ok once we found a flat and uphil bit.
thats the first time i have ever made skid marks without using the brakes!!

we live (luckily) and learn.

Hughesy, you say you had trailed brakes but was they workin.
any idea how heavy the cabin is?
 
I think the brakes work but it's only a single axle with pretty narrow tyres on it. I reckon the thing must weigh 2 ton or so so should have had another axle under it really.:eek: Don't think there was enough nose weight either. It doesn't matter now anyway, I've got it to where it now lives and I ain't moving it again;)
 
Might have been. We were only stopped for a couple of mins then ****ed off quick once we knew everything was ok. Didn't want the cops turning up and making a mountain out of a mole hill;)
 
Made me sweat gettin this lot home.
The timber was fresh out of the pressure treatment plant, so it was soaking wet. The guy at the timber yard reckoned I had 2 ton of timber (plus the weight of the trailer).
Took a scenic route, to avoid the A38 but that meant a mile and a half long steep uphill. All was going well till, halfway up, I came across some temporary traffic lights. They changed to amber as we approached, with me in first gear and holding the revs nicely, and the tosser in the Nissan Micra in front of me stopped! Amazingly, the handbrake held it but I wasn't looking forward to the hill-start when the lights changed. Then, an even bigger tosser in a Rover, pulled up about a foot behind me!
Well the clutch smoked a bit and was very smelly, but we made it!
Good job there were no steep-bottomed dips on the route.

Incidentally, a bloke who tows mobile homes and boats for a living told me that when yer trailer starts to "snake" it's because it wants to go faster than the towing vehicle. He said that lifting off, or even worse, braking, will only make it worse. Instead you should accelerate gently to match the speed of the towing vehicle with that which the trailer wants to do.
Dunno whether that's true or not - never had to find out. Must take some bottle though!
 

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Yeah I know. I've bin expecting a knock on the door all day:( Nowt they can do mind, landy's all legal, no other vehicles involved (flamin miracle:D ) and nobody hurt:D just thought they might want to know what all the kerfuffle was about:rolleyes:
 
The advice is correct - you should accelerate out of a snake situation. Whether this is always possible is another matter. Plus you need the nerve to do the opposite of your instinct. Tricky one.
 
It is the right thing to do I aggee, only problem is when ya going down hill 1 thing defeats the other.

Well, that and the fact that ya tow car is a pile of **** and totally inadequate for holding back something twice as heavy cos ya too stupid and lazy to do 2 trips!!
 
Yes I know the advice about snaking. I'd had a few small ones earlier so I was taking it easy anyway, but this one just happened so suddenly and violently that it was out of control before I could do anything. Not something I want to repeat in a hurry:(
 
I feel I ought to add I'm not exactly a novice at towing, having done a fair amount of miles with various trailers, mostly boats, and I've experienced some peculiar behaviour before but nothing quite as life threatening as what happened today.
 
Nightmare.....

I picked up a pub picnic table on Sunday. It obviously wouldn’t fit in the back of the 90 (although the wife assured me it wasn’t that big) so we slid it on the roof (no roof rack) and tied it down with bungy’s and a tow rope. Drove home slow but nearly lost the lot at the bottom of our road.

Bloody idiots in Land Rovers :rolleyes:
 
Borrowed a friends old Volvo estate and small trailer that he has used for years with no problems. I needed to clear some garden rubbish.rocks ect, the little trailer appeared to take the weight ok so off to the dump I went. After a couple of miles I could feel some shaking from the rear of the volvo and sure enough the trailer was appearing and disappearing from the side view mirror and juming about all over the place. I was not experienced at towing but knew better not to brake, I eased off the throttle and sure enough it sorted itself out. The main point is 'tuggers' with thier caravans ect do this almost routinely and have the experience to load the towed vehicle correctly and just as important have the experience to 'feel' when there is a problem brewing. You were seriously lucky, on the Police Stop program a couple of years ago a Land Rover was towing a caravan and the carvan snaked and turned upside in the middle of a motorway bridge, I wonder if your traler was affected by crosswinds as was the aforementioned landy driver?

Keep safe
regards
Dave
 
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