Advice on Vehicles for Towing - Suburban??

[smithfamily]

Hi all! I’ve browsed the site but this is my first official post. We are not new to horses but don’t currently have any. My daughter is taking lessons and I am keeping an eye out for the perfect pony for her. In the meantime, I’m preparing our property (and pocket book) to bring a new horse home.

We have a 2002 Suburban. It’s the 1500 model (equivalent to a 1/2 ton). According to the specs, the max towing capacity is 8,700. We’ve used it in the past for hauling both 2 and 3 horse trailers, with 1 horse. The hauling was around town, some highway miles, and it did ok.

My dilemma is that we live on top of a hill with a gravel driveway that’s steep and has tight corners in some areas. This is my childhood home and my dad used to haul our horses up with his Dodge Ram. I’m not sure the Suburban has enough power to get a trailer up the hill.

For those of you who are expert haulers or experienced with different towing vehicles, what would you recommend? Our choices are either to keep the Suburban and use it for hauling or we can sell it and purchase an older truck for hauling. (Our budget would be around $5000 or a bit more, so it would be much older.) Please help! (Oh and we don’t currently have a horse trailer but I would imagine we will get an older 2 horse when we do purchase one.)

[tangledweb]

Allow me to summarize CotH towing tow vehicle advice in two pictures, saving you 2000 words
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/76/ad/fa/76adfa40e04e97b29f37c4035d972594.jpg
http://www.whinny4me.com/Trailer/Mini%20Trailer%20and%20Truck%20--%2001272006%20--%20002.jpg

If you like your Suburban and otherwise want to keep it, I’m sure a vehicle with an 8700 lb capacity is fine for a small horse trailer and one horse. They will probably not weigh over 5000 lb.

You don’t need power to get up a gravel driveway at driveway speed. You need traction. If you have 4WD and good tires it will be fine. In any case your 2000s Suburban almost certainly has more power than your Dad’s 1970s or 1980s Ram had.

[TrotTrotPumpkn]

Thank you for the laugh.

I agree, a Suburban with 4x4 and good tires should haul a pony up a driveway in a smaller trailer. I haul a big horse in a 3,000lb trailer with an Expedition up hills. Just go slow. Unless your driveway is SUPER steep?

[GoForAGallop]

You’ll be fine.

[smithfamily]

Ha! Good pics!

Thanks for the advice. The driveway is tricky and we may need to look into ways of improving the driveway itself. There’s one pretty steep incline but it’s managable. The difficult part is towards the top there’s a tight corner that’s also fairly steep. If it were pavement, it’d be no problem. But with gravel, you spin out if you aren’t careful (in a normal vehicle).

[GotMyPony]

@tangledweb;7766016

Allow me to summarize CotH towing tow vehicle advice in two pictures, saving you 2000 words
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/76/ad/fa/76adfa40e04e97b29f37c4035d972594.jpg
http://www.whinny4me.com/Trailer/Mini%20Trailer%20and%20Truck%20--%2001272006%20--%20002.jpg

Can the mods make the above portion of tangledweb’s post into a sticky for the “Around the Farm” forum? :lol:

[sabinomare]

[QUOTE=tangledweb;7766016]
Allow me to summarize CotH towing tow vehicle advice in two pictures, saving you 2000 words
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/76/ad/fa/76adfa40e04e97b29f37c4035d972594.jpg
http://www.whinny4me.com/Trailer/Mini%20Trailer%20and%20Truck%20--%2001272006%20--%20002.jpg[/QUOTE]

:lol: I love this post. So true.

You should be fine honestly. A fellow boarder at my barn hauls her 3 y/o who’s pony-sized with a GMC Tahoe and they have been for almost a year, I believe. It’s a relatively large 2 horse trailer as well.

[eponacelt]

The only time I didn’t like my Chevy 1500 (which was essentially the same as your Suburban) was driving over the blue Ridge and trying to maintain full highway speed. We’d lose som power near the top of the mountain.

As others have said, as long as you have 4WD, you should be OK with your vehicle and set up.

[TrotTrotPumpkn]

So it is spinning out when it isn’t even towing anything? Does it have 4x4? Sounds like a tire tread issue perhaps…

[cnvh]

My most terrifying towing experience was with my 2WD Chevy 2500, pulling my little 2H BP (no DR) with only my 16.2hh OTTB inside. We turned down a gravel road to go to a new parking area in a state park where I ride a lot, and as soon as I turned down the gravel road, I got a bit of a sick feeling in my stomach… It was steep, it was gravel, and there was no flat “landing” at the top before it joined up with a busy public road.

And you guessed it… I had ALL kinds of a hard time getting back up that hill after our ride. I ended up having to back down to the bottom, get a running start, and gun it all the way to the top into the road, praying nothing was coming. (Needless to say, there were many lessons learned that day, and many mistakes which I will never repeat!)

Moral of the story: of there’s any way you can try out that driveway while towing something with said Suburban (that isn’t a live animal), see how it goes. If it’s iffy in a car, I can only imagine it will be much worse towing… Personally, I would avoid those situations at all costs.

[2tempe]

OP - you could always park the Suburban and trailer at the bottom, you take a golf cart up and let daughter ride her pony! Problem solved.

[Pennywell_Bay]

My 2003 Suburban has hauled my 2 horse featherlite back and for 600+ miles one way from IN to PA more times than I care to count.

My driveway in PA is stone, steep and quite a b*$ch. Place it in 4x4 and no issue.

My Expedition did it better, but the Suburban is fine, even in the steep hills of WV on Rt 70 and 76. (It is not my primary vehicle).

[Thoroughbred_in_Colo]

You should be fine, especially if you are only going to get a 2H trailer. I have a steel 2H with tack room that is 5000 lbs empty. I usually only haul 1 horse (1200lb TB), but when I haul 2 and load up the tack room to go to a show or camping the heaviest I’ve ever gotten it was 8500 +/- lbs. Usually I’m at around 7500, which would be well within the towing capacity for what you’ve got. I tow with a 2500 Silverado, but would have no problem towing that load with a 1500 Suburban.

I’ve never towed a horse trailer with a Suburban, but I’ve towed 12,000+ lbs loads with the old 2500 Suburbans at work. The 2500 Suburban is much better towing a heavy load on a bumper pull than a 2500 Silverado because the weight is distributed more evenly.