towing capacity question
 

my tahoe is working great and I'd like to take my horse in trailer to different places to ride. anywhere from 5 minute drive to 4 hours if possible,
how can I know if my trailer is too much, with the horse in it, for the tahoe?

i read on the door sticker the GV...is 6800
trailer weighs 2800
horse weighs 1400
might be nice to bring neighbor and her horse, another 1100.

i don't think my tahoe has towing package. trailer is old old old, no brakes or other add ons.

i have no idea what tonuge weight tahoe can take, or that trailer has.

can someone tell me if i'd be safe? and that I wouldn't be tearing up my vehicle??

Without trailer brakes your illegal. I believe any trailer over 1500# must have trailer brakes.

Try this link.
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/auto-p...ity-chart6.htm

Just a ball park estimate without knowing details on your Tahoe, it should safely tow 5,000 lbs, usually 10% on the tongue, so that's 500 which you subtract from your 6800 GVWR. Now take 6300 and minus your Tahoe's curb weight (5500?, 4500?) and that tells you how much you can pack in the passenger compartment (payload).



*Trailer brakes.....over 3,000 lbs (trailer wt.) in the Dakotas.

http://towingworld.com/towinglaws.cfm

I think U-haul has a site the lets you enter the specifics of your vehicle and find out how much you can tow. I wouldn't have put my horse in a trailer without brakes though.

AT 1400 lb horse that is a mighty heavy one. It takes one heck of a horse to weigh 1400 lbs especially a riding horse. Is this a tape measure estimate? or a scale? I can see the one at 1100 but 1400?
I agree with trailer brakes though. That is a lot of weight to be towing and no brakes~.
And with that much total weight no way would I be pulling that trailer.
What type of Hitch do you have? A class III receiver hitch is for towing 5,000 lbs. And that is at the top of the limit of what you are pulling with two heavy horses like that.

Here is a nice site to see what GVW compares to towing capacity and tongue weight means. A tandem axil trailer will be around 300 to 500 Lbs weight on the tongue. And that then should be no less then a Class III receiver hitch on the towing vehicle. One that is attached to the frame in several places.

http://www.onlinetowingguide.com/glossary.html

Is this a 2 axle 2 horse trailer?

....James

Also make sure your tires on the trailer and the truck are air-up to the max psi. It helps with stability and is necessary to give the load rating of the tire.

For the short trips, not so important, but for the longer trips, I would recommend installing a transmission cooler and transmission temp gauge. The transmission is usually the weak link. My transmission rebuilder highly recommends using Schaeffer's transmission oil and I have had great luck with it. It surpasses the requirement of nearly all vehicle manufactures requirements.

If the loaded trailer squats your truck to much or has a high tongue weight, use a weight distributing hitch.

I have towed extensively (well over 75K miles) with two Tahoes, a '99 and an '06. In both cases they pulled travel trailers that weighed a bit less than 5K empty and no more than 6K loaded. In all my travels, the Tahoe was a more than adequate tow vehicle, but it was never done without a decent load leveling hitch with sway control (Reese dual-Cam), a double axle trailer with four properly adjusted drum brakes, tires replaced with "LT" rated truck tires, load leveling air bags in the rear, and a high quality brake controller (Prodigy). Both trucks left the factory with tow packages.

Based on my experience, there is simply no way I would hook up to your trailer. That kind of load, and no brakes is an invitation to disaster. In a 60MPH panic stop an un-braked load exerts 3X the force of the dead weight of the trailer. IOW, if it all goes wrong, you have a 15K force pushing a soft riding, short wheelbase rig with light duty brakes and (typically) passenger car tires. It might be controllable in a four door, one ton dually, but chance are it won't end well with a Tahoe, and it's pretty much illegal in most states.

+ one.

You were probably ok until you said no brakes on the trailer.

That is a deal breaker.

Paul

Most tandem axel trailers have electric brakes on one axel.

Also was posted that it was an old one.~~
I had a old tandem axle 2 horse trailer, in very good shape too, that had no brakes on it, but back then I was hauling one small riding horse and was pulling it with a 3/4 ton PU.

it's not so much the pulling,it's safely stopping,planned or not.

Yes I will go lane with that.
A loaded trailer like that is weighing more then the towing vehicle. So the trailer is now Pushing the tow vehicle instead of the other way around, when trying to stop. And without any brakes on that trailer it really is going to push hard and heavy into the Tahoe.

well, then that idea is out. hubs is saying now that it needs work as well, so i'm just going to toss the whole plan.

and yes, the horse weighs 1400, we used a scale. he's 16.2, and built wide. he's a quarter horse, just super sized.

thanks for teaching me this stuff, i'm glad i didn't try it, i could've had a disaster. if the trailer is safe, i may hobble it a couple miles down the road to ride in a pasture, to avoid riding on the gravel, and time spent on the road is less time in pasture, but not going to go down the highway.

shoot, it was such a good plan too! we have a better trailer, and a bigger pickup that i will use instead. i just kinda wanted a little outfit for myself when hubs takes the better one. i guess we better learn to share!

I couldn't ever get the horses to press the brake pedal,,,,:cowboy:hehe

I use a single horse, single axle trailer, no brakes,, all the time,,no problems yet,,

I do prefer a longer wheelbase tow vehicle,,....

a single horse, as in only one little stall on wheels? just asking, but why not a 2horse, for the extra room for feed,etc.? and if mine were that small, I would, but its a 40yo 4 horse, and I just don't wish to chance a disaster like many have posted. believe me, if I could, I would use it! I really wanted this to work out, but I cannot endanger my ponies or myself/passengers.

as I considered more, I realized as hubs has a different job, he's not used the towing outfit much at all, so that will be easier anyhow for us to share that one--usually we are going together anyhow, but sometimes not.

as I mentioned, my horse is tall, the better trailer is 7ft where the small oldie is only 6. newer one also has a great tack room, old one has nothing. so the newer one is a far better deal all around, just was hoping to have that small back up, but not if it means bad things!

thanks again, I feel I got great answers and help.

I have driven my 1939 Ford 1/2 ton pickup every day for 17 years, often pulling a car hauling trailer with no trailer brakes, loaded with old cars thru 4 states. No problems. People worry too much.

I guess if you define "worry" as having enough common sense to not do something stupid, illegal and dangerous, well you are correct. I "worry" too much. But then, I have seen five or six horrific truck/ travel trailer accidents in my time, and got to watch the coroner and medi-vac crews unload a family in one of those wrecks. Hope you never meet the same fate.

Back over 20 years ago, a business partner and myself routinely used one-ton Dodge maxivans delivering dense merchandise on Gypsy-peddler sales delivery routes all over the US. We had heavy brakes, extra leaf-springs with air shocks, 10-ply Michelin tires... but were living hand to mouth sometimes so needed to move weight efficiently, meaning packing a lot of cargo into a van. My buddy would pump his tires up to some 70 lbs and carry 5000 lbs, sometimes over the Sierras into California. I may have started out at 3500 lbs a few times but tried to hold it to 3000 or so. As many have said, getting the weight moving isn't so much the problem, the danger would come in any sort of emergency stop (or during a tire failure). With those kinds of weights at the upper range, even at maybe 60 mph, you're aiming the vehicle, not driving it. The experience of braking hard on totally dry pavement and feeling yourself go through the friction point so everything just keeps going straight ahead without slowing down is not one you want to have. Extreme defensive driving, good road conditions, slow speeds with white-knuckle anticipation can get you through some risks like those upper weights; we never had a real accident but were very glad to back away from pushing those envelopes. Adding up the weights involved in the OP and seeing "no trailer brakes" made ME gasp at the inherent risks being described.

Usually that's how life is...you don't have any problems until you do have problems. You can get away with a lot for a long time. That doesn't make it safe.

Here we call some things an accident looking for a place to happen :runforhills:

Don't forget with all that weight it is easy to overheat your transmission.

On most vehicles one of the parts of a towing package is and additional transmission cooler. Other parts of the tow package have to do with the computer. Faster shifting and other things.

With that amount of weight and a slight hill you would be surprised how fast the transmission can heat up.

I have a little unit called a scan gauge. It plugs into the trucks computer. I have it set up to tell me the transmission pan temperature and transmission torque converter temperature and the engine coolant temperature. Plus I do have the tow package on my truck. But by watching those temperatures I know when to go a little easier on the throttle and let it cool down.

But yeah the brakes. You would be surprised how scary an emergency stop can be when you have a trailer that is as heavy as the truck towing it. It just does not happen very fast.