Is there a market for 4.3 ton transport?
Discussion
Basically the title sums it up, I found this on ebay when looking for a trailer to move a 3 ton machine.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fifth-Wheel-Mini-Artic-...
We currently have a 3.5 ton car transporter trailer, 3.5ton tipper trailer and a 3.5 ton flatbed and still have to pay to get some stuff moved due to weight. Local hire place sometimes says cant deliver for 4 days and are not cheap at £80 for a 15 mile delivery each direction with a arctic coming out just to drop off what looks like a tiny machine compared to the size of the truck.
Is there enough of a market for a 4.3 ton up to 7m long transport business? I could see things like a 4 ton digger/dumper/roller/forklift where you dont really want to pay for a full blown hgv to move them.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fifth-Wheel-Mini-Artic-...
We currently have a 3.5 ton car transporter trailer, 3.5ton tipper trailer and a 3.5 ton flatbed and still have to pay to get some stuff moved due to weight. Local hire place sometimes says cant deliver for 4 days and are not cheap at £80 for a 15 mile delivery each direction with a arctic coming out just to drop off what looks like a tiny machine compared to the size of the truck.
Is there enough of a market for a 4.3 ton up to 7m long transport business? I could see things like a 4 ton digger/dumper/roller/forklift where you dont really want to pay for a full blown hgv to move them.
For what you're describing I'd say a 7.5-10 ton beavertail plant lorry would be more suitable. Any pickup you want to pull that with is going to need extensive modification (the 5th wheel and coupled brakes) and to stay the right side of the law you'd need a vehicle rated to tow 3.5t in the first place which would be a Defender or a newer pickup, most older Jap pickups are sub 3 ton.
Defenders can legally tow 4t with a suitable 4 bolt hitch and coupled air brakes (in the States they use electronic trailer brakes but the legality of those trailers here seems to be a grey area)
Also not sure about that ads claim that the trailers are B+E legal, yes the theory is 3500kg of trailer weight is on the wheels and the remainder is on the rear axle of the vehicle, but I wouldn't like to argue with DVSA at a weighbridge that I didn't need C+E for the combination.
Taking a class 2 and purchasing a small plant lorry would be cheaper than buying the trailer and modified pickup I'd wager.
Defenders can legally tow 4t with a suitable 4 bolt hitch and coupled air brakes (in the States they use electronic trailer brakes but the legality of those trailers here seems to be a grey area)
Also not sure about that ads claim that the trailers are B+E legal, yes the theory is 3500kg of trailer weight is on the wheels and the remainder is on the rear axle of the vehicle, but I wouldn't like to argue with DVSA at a weighbridge that I didn't need C+E for the combination.
Taking a class 2 and purchasing a small plant lorry would be cheaper than buying the trailer and modified pickup I'd wager.
Surely you’ll be limited by the plated gross of the tow vehicle, and/or the date of test pass of the driver.
The costs to equip the tow vehicles will have to be factored in.
Lastly, how does two axles rated at 1800kg work out for the 5300kg gross? That’s a lot of weight to have sat over the fifth wheel.....
The costs to equip the tow vehicles will have to be factored in.
Lastly, how does two axles rated at 1800kg work out for the 5300kg gross? That’s a lot of weight to have sat over the fifth wheel.....
Ive been looking into the trailer a bit to figure it out myself. Basically the trailer carries 3.5 ton as per usual trailer rules. The pickup then carries 1.7 ton as its payload.
Always been interested in this style of trailers in the uk after breaking down while and one of these turned up behind an american pickup to take both me home on its back.
As you would imagine most pickups have a 1.2 ton at best payload, there are however companies which uprate this along with helper air bags along with uprating the total weight from 6 ton to 7 ton. Giving you roughly 3.5 towed and 1.7 ton as payload when loaded to the max.
Cant find a pickup which weighs so little as to give the 5300kg quoted but its not a long way off, even closer if you remove the rear pickup bed to go all chassis cab style with just mudflaps and lights to reduce weight of tow vehicle.
The cost to get a pickup modified for this use is around £1500 if doing all the work yourself other than the uprating.
From their website: "SvTech can uprate most makes and models of pickups; we have carried out dynamic brake testing on all of these models in order to create precedent reports with the DVSA, against which we offer uprates to give the user as much as 500kg extra payload."
Something like this bolted to the chassis, rear helper airbags and an electric brake controller is all that would be required from what I can see.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/ECOTRIC-Fifth-Wheel-Insta...
The DVLA have a section on it so accept that these american style things are legal to have and use as long as the brakes are made to apply automatically and have a mechanical parking brake along with little things like uk style indicators.
https://www.gov.uk/towing-with-car/american-carava...
This is the message I got off the company when I asked about how legal it is as I was also fairly confused!
"The government website is very vague at the best of times.
3.5t is the maximum load imposed by the axles of the trailer,
You will need a gross train increase on the pickup, we recommend fitted airbag helper springs too which increases the gross weight of the pickup to 3.5t and the gross train to 7t.
Each trailer we build or import goes through a VOSA IVA test so they meet the requirements for UK use.
All our 5thwheels are classed as 02 trailers (3.5t axle load)"
The reason for not wanting a proper truck is in Scotland we are limited to 40mph on single carriageways in anything which can weigh over 7.5ton laden. There isnt a dual carriageway for like 100 miles from my house so it would be mostly single carriageway driving. From a quick google a 7.5 ton truck would only carry 3.5ton or so which is less anyway!
It can also be used to tow the other 3 trailers as well so sort of a 1 vehicle to do everything. Would be looking to do a bit of work using the trailer to recoup the cost as I dont need to move that sort of weight often enough to buy the trailer just for personal use or I would of already done it
Always been interested in this style of trailers in the uk after breaking down while and one of these turned up behind an american pickup to take both me home on its back.
As you would imagine most pickups have a 1.2 ton at best payload, there are however companies which uprate this along with helper air bags along with uprating the total weight from 6 ton to 7 ton. Giving you roughly 3.5 towed and 1.7 ton as payload when loaded to the max.
Cant find a pickup which weighs so little as to give the 5300kg quoted but its not a long way off, even closer if you remove the rear pickup bed to go all chassis cab style with just mudflaps and lights to reduce weight of tow vehicle.
The cost to get a pickup modified for this use is around £1500 if doing all the work yourself other than the uprating.
From their website: "SvTech can uprate most makes and models of pickups; we have carried out dynamic brake testing on all of these models in order to create precedent reports with the DVSA, against which we offer uprates to give the user as much as 500kg extra payload."
Something like this bolted to the chassis, rear helper airbags and an electric brake controller is all that would be required from what I can see.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/ECOTRIC-Fifth-Wheel-Insta...
The DVLA have a section on it so accept that these american style things are legal to have and use as long as the brakes are made to apply automatically and have a mechanical parking brake along with little things like uk style indicators.
https://www.gov.uk/towing-with-car/american-carava...
This is the message I got off the company when I asked about how legal it is as I was also fairly confused!
"The government website is very vague at the best of times.
3.5t is the maximum load imposed by the axles of the trailer,
You will need a gross train increase on the pickup, we recommend fitted airbag helper springs too which increases the gross weight of the pickup to 3.5t and the gross train to 7t.
Each trailer we build or import goes through a VOSA IVA test so they meet the requirements for UK use.
All our 5thwheels are classed as 02 trailers (3.5t axle load)"
The reason for not wanting a proper truck is in Scotland we are limited to 40mph on single carriageways in anything which can weigh over 7.5ton laden. There isnt a dual carriageway for like 100 miles from my house so it would be mostly single carriageway driving. From a quick google a 7.5 ton truck would only carry 3.5ton or so which is less anyway!
It can also be used to tow the other 3 trailers as well so sort of a 1 vehicle to do everything. Would be looking to do a bit of work using the trailer to recoup the cost as I dont need to move that sort of weight often enough to buy the trailer just for personal use or I would of already done it
Slow said:
It can also be used to tow the other 3 trailers as well so sort of a 1 vehicle to do everything. Would be looking to do a bit of work using the trailer to recoup the cost as I dont need to move that sort of weight often enough to buy the trailer just for personal use or I would of already done it
You would need a tachograph and an operators license if you were using that combination for business.Slow said:
A 7.5ton truck only carries 3.5ton payload at best from what I have found quickly on google which is a fair amount less. Meaning you would be looking at a full C licence while also being limited to lower speeds in Scotland in a 10T truck.
If you take something like a Isuzu it's chassis weighs 2600kgs and couple it with a lightweight beavertail type of body you would have the best chance of reaching the weights you wish to carry.If you couple up the trailer you linked to to a modern 4x4 you are looking at 4000kgs or over which only gives you 3.5ton of payload anyway before you hit the 7.5t and most large 4x4 are only rated to tow 3500kgs
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