Would you buy a car with a welded shut bonnet?

WRONG.=20

When I've called out the fitters when my PROPER lorry has broken down,=20 they've been able to get the part to fix it and either bring it with=20 them if I've told them what's gone or pop off, fetch one and return.

In 14 years of being a HGV driver, I've never been towed once.

--=20 Conor

I'm really a nice guy. If I had friends, they would tell you.

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LloydJ ( snipped-for-privacy@aol.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Agree - and disagree.

An underweight wagon is still unroadworthy if it can't be serviced properly.

True, but an awful lot of general issues CAN be fixed at the roadside - especially if they're just minor things arising from poor maintenance - although, of course, if the wagon COULD be serviced properly, it probably wouldn't have broken down in the first place...

Firstly Conor i have to address this WRONG patter. that is just misleading to the people reading this if you think my statement is WRONG as you put it, for starters the chance of the average horsebox owner being able to diagnose the problem even if they can tilt the cab that has caused there breakdown is laughable. That they can then advise the breakdown guy on what to bring is just plain optimism mate lol. Unlike yourself with 14 years experience as a professional hgv driver im sure you reconise thet not everyone is as knowledgeable as your self :) If there is horses in the vehicle the best thing to do is tow the vehicle to a safe area away which if required , the horses can be brought out of the lorry for what ever reason. If the breakdown dude then requires to get a part it he can then do it and remember most cases a horsebox will be getting used outside working hours too. You would have to agree prolonging the period that it is sitting on a moterway hard shoulder isnt advisable.

For starters your lorry is more PROPER than mine if mine is a non tilting HGV? Yeah mate thats makes sense to imply my vehicle is isnt PROPER as you put it. A coach we once owned with a mid mounted engine which was under 40 odd seats mustn't have been PROPER as you put it.

Secondly you have been most fortunate in your 14 years. I in the other hand, disregarding my horseboxes, havent been so fortunate with my curtainsiders which as you would put it are PROPER lorrys lol. Perhaps my vehicles just havent been as well maintaned as yours perhaps ?

On your first point mate, I think there has been perhaps some mistake as to the maintance schedule of horseboxes. Filters , Oil and all other serviceable units can still be maintained on as regular a basis as you like. It just costs more to get it done. To change a Clutch on a new Lambo is an engine out job costing thousands lol. Its just wasnt designed with a focus on ease of maintance but its hardly as you would put it unroadworthy. I wouldnt fancy changing a set of plugs on a Imprezza wrx either....

You second point leans a lot on generalisation which to be honest is unfounded In my experience mate.

Proper serviced wagons do break down. Something to do with 2000+ miles=20 a week pulling up to 44 tonnes.

You'd be surprised at what is done as a roadside repair. Wheelbearing=20 changes aren't uncommon for example.

--=20 Conor

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They don't need to. Most lorry drivers can't.

Again, they don't need to.

To tow a lorry, you need to remove the propshaft otherwise you f*ck the=20 gearbox. You can only tow a lorry around 1km at 5MPH. Towing a lorry is=20 a last resort measure.

As are most HGV breakdowns. They tend to be around 4-6am. If you had a=20 clue, you'd know that HGV garages have a skeleton staff during normal=20 office hours and employ most of their fitters from 6pm onwards.

Would I? I've sat there for over 2 hours waiting for a tyre fitter=20 before.

The fact it doesn't tilt has nothing to do with it.

Muppet.

Yup. Must be right sheds. At my spot we've got X reg Volvo FM12s, all=20 with around 900,000km on which manage to do in excess of 3000 miles per=20 week without breaking down. One W reg was sold with 1,1 million km on=20 the clock and ran like it was new. Decent maintenance you see.=20

--=20 Conor

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That is a totally different problem, and I agree it is one that needs sorting out. Its not that difficult to get a HGV licence, if fact these days many younger drivers will need to pass a HGV to drive a 7.5, so bigger boxes seem to be the way to go forward. To some extent that may resolve the tilt cab problem, because with a bigger truck there may be no need for a luton.

In the vast majority of cases, a fix can be made to enable the truck to be driven to a place of safety or home.

And the market will only provide what people will buy. If horsebox owners demand a tilt cab, that is what the market will provide.

So why do people buy these things? A clutch will need to be changed more than once in a trucks lifetime, so why not put the thousands of pounds that you would have spent on the clutch change to better use by having the body built so that the cab will tilt?

The Lambo I was referring to was a Lamborghini Murcielago mate.

whatis it about engines thatbrings all the lurking males out of the woodwork? lol

okay forgetting the rest, one point you ALL have missed.....fixing by the road side CAN (not always) increase the time spent there...not good when you have a horse(s) in the back. better to be towed to a safe place where horse can be unloaded, then the problem fixed or alternative horse box found.

Matzi

Matzi ( snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

I strongly suspect it's the fact that this thread's posted in uk.rec.cars.maintenance...

I was thinking about this and looking at cab-over horseboxes..

On most of the ones I saw the box over the cab was noticeably wider than the cab itself, and stretched slightly forward of it.

I haven't worked out the geometry thoroughly (even I'm not *that* sad) but it looked very much like if just the floor panel could be removed from the box then the cab could swing through that space and still tilt.

Just removing the floor would be much easier to keep weatherproof, as the gap between the cab and the box shouldn't get *that* much weather straight onto it.

Just a thought.

A mate of mine actually builds the things (expensive boxes on new chassiseseses) so next time I see him I'll figure out why I'm wrong.

Thought you were referring to a Lambourne!

That's the way its done on furniture wagons etc.

But when you breakdown, you will get a service van coming out first, to diagnose/fix before a recovery truck is dispatched, you will probably be waiting an hour or so after the service van arrives for the recovery truck to arrive. The vast majority of problems will be fixable in that time.

Also, recovery with a horse on board is not that simple, the truck will either have to be suspend towed, which means that it will be travelling at an angle, which the horse will not be keen on, or towed on a rigid bar, which means the driver will have to steer the horsebox without aid of power steering etc, something which I personally am reluctant to do for a non-professional driver.

Basically because of the nature of a horseboxes cargo, it is the last type of vehicle you want to be recovering, so emergency repair if anything should be made easier, not virtually impossible.

SimonJ ( snipped-for-privacy@mine.net) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

And, when it comes down to it, what IS a horsebox - if not a furniture wagon with drain holes...

that is how my last two horseboxes achieved access to the engine. Simple flap mechanism at the front of the luton, and a way to lift the floor.

Just because most of them dont do that doesnt mean that it hasnt been done - oh, and the first one was old L reg (as in xxx 999L) and the second one was old T reg - so its more that the skills have been lost rather than not discovered.

Si

ROFL yeah mate it costs a few pounds as well. Horsebox design isnt as straight forward as we would all like it. Recently a Massive player in the Horsebox manufactoring industry (Whittiker) went into liquidation as they couldnt make it pay and there 7.5ton horsebox started at 50k plus the vat !! Infact we know of a 300k box up here in Scotland built apon a brand new stretched Scania cab that got nothing but problems with sealing the cab from leaving the factory so its not so straight forward to make one do everything right all the time even when budget isnt so much of an issue.

Again though its a pain in the arse but its only part of a overall problem with horsebox design. The biggest one at the moment IMO is the weight issue with storys of people getting fined all of the time for running overweight(And in some cases the manufactors lie about there weights). People getting fined 2 grand and having to leave there horses at shows because in some cases there lorry was 2 tonnes over weight with them in is just not on.

TBH someone pointed out earlier that 7.5ton isnt the best platform to build apon as it doesnt leave a lot of scope for Payload. I Agree that circa 11ton plus better suited a hell of a lot of peps running Lorrys have got a old style licence which allows them to drive 7.5tons without sitting a test. The idea of having to sit a HGV test puts a lot of people off doing it unfortunatly.

Because of the new style licence restrictions the big boom market for horseboxes is using Van chassis and building apon that as you can drive one without sitting any other test than just your car one. You need to sit a test to tow a trailor now if your under 28yrs old so thats why there are so many people producing Van horseboxes. But this is going to produce even more fines because of over weight.....

The message from "LloydJ" contains these words:

The problem seems to be coming from people trying to get a quart into a pint pot.

If you're just carrying one horse with no living accomodation, then presumeably that can be done in something like a Luton van. It's when you try to get the second horse and the kitchen sink in that the trouble starts. Those of us who co camping recognise that there are limits to what we can take with us and tailor our activities to suit - that seems to be what the horsey world doesn't seem too willing to do.