I just bought a new stock trailer, and I have a 2011 4 door Jeep Wrangler unlimited. Would the jeep be okay pulling the trailer? I’m not sure how much the trailer weighs. I only need to get it 3 miles down the road a few times a week, but I take my horses safety very seriously and I don’t want to do anything unless it’s 110% safe for her. We are installing new brakes as soon as we get it back to the house. Would it be safe for my horse to take her about 5 minutes down the road?
I would not do it. Your tow vehicle needs to be rated to tow. Read this:
http://www.trailerlife.com/towguides/choosing-the-right-tow-vehicle/
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The First Rule of Towing Anything is that “starting is optional; stopping is not.”
Get out your Owners Manual and read about the specifics of your vehicle. Then decide if you want to do it.
G.
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you probably have the wrong trailer… With a European horse trailer you could…
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No. Depending on the exact model and specifications, a Wrangler can tow between 2,000, and 3,500 based on what I’m seeing online. Your trailer empty probably weighs more than the minimum there.
Also, keep in mind that everything in the vehicle counts against the tow capacity as well - i.e. if you have a passenger and a saddle in the Jeep, you need to subtract that weight from your tow capacity.
I tow a Brenderup Baron LSL (European style trailer) with a Jeep Grand Cherokee. The way I configured my Jeep (engine, axle ratio, tow package, etc.) has resulted in a 7,000 lb tow capacity. You could look in to a trade in on your Wrangler?
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It would be foolish to tow a stock trailer with your Wrangler. Sure you could probably get it down the road but stopping is another matter all together. Don’t do it.
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DH has a boat, it weighs about 3200#.
We were hauling it on the Hwy to the Hudson river to go boating. At the time we had a Dodge 1500, newish.
Suddenly the traffic had stopped, and DH had to do some seriously impressive maneuvering to stop us without hitting anyone, and thankfully at the last minute someone left us space to shoot through… Thank goodness for other drivers who pay attention to the vehicles around them.
What was horrifying about it was when DH let off the brakes [you can’t just stand on them to stop] that boat pushed us, and pushed us HARD, forward.
I would never, ever be under-trucked when hauling, particularly live cargo.
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In addition to everything said above, there’s another safety risk – in the words of the Car Talk brothers, Wrangler’s are voted the official car of the NBA for being most likely to bounce down the highway like a basketball. This is due to their short wheel base (distance between the axles), a high center of gravity, and 4WD. With enough momentum and a sharp turn they’re easy to roll over. If you read your manual it’ll have advice about how to avoid rollover accidents, and the back of the visor might have warnings about this, too. Only bouncy cars have these warnings.
I have a Honda Element which has similar issues and a 1500 lb tow rating. I drove it across the US & back through Canada towing a 900 lb fiberglass camper and it was not a fun experience. The difference between towing a live load and a camper/boat is enormous – the shifting weight can create or worsen sway and I would NOT want to experience that from the driver’s seat of a Wrangler.
If it’s just a few minutes and you CRAWL down the road – like sub-15mph - maybe. But not regularly.
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Absolutely not. The wheel base is short, and horses are a live load that can and will shift at any moment. I can only imagine how easy it would be to have an accident towing a horse trailer with a Wrangler.
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You can get away with doing a lot of unsafe things, especially around horses, right up until the mornent the unexpected happens and you have a disaster. Often that disaster happens when the unsafe practice becomes habit and you forget how unsafe it is and relax and take it as normal.
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You can’t ride the horse 3 miles down the road?
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This X 1000! Excellent post Scribbler! Complacency has been the cause of death for more than one person!
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I’ve never towed a boat (or anything other than a horse trailer) - do those type of trailers have their own set of brakes?
The short wheelbase thing is the most scary of many scary things about this combination. Don’t do it, please.
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@babecakes the arena I need to get to is on 3 miles of asphalt, and across a main road. I live in Florida and the summers are hot, and I would not want to put my horse through that to get to the arena.
I used to have a 2008 Jeep Liberty and borrowed a friends Bockmann trailer, it towed two horses without issues but not likely the best thing i could have done. I also purchased a small aluminum trailer and towed that a few times but it didn’t tow as well so we bought a full size truck
I have no idea, I don’t think so, but I only say that 'cause we have rewired it a couple times and the only thing DH focused on when doing so was the lights, so I ASSume that there aren’t any. I may be wrong.
All I know is that in that event, when DH let off the brakes, after getting a decent response from applying the brakes well while judiciously, that boat shoved us forward, hard.
So DH is out of town, but I just asked him via text about the trailer brakes… he says no brakes, only surge brakes.
Whatever that means. 
Thanks. I was wondering about that because that’s critical for a horse trailer, which must have its own set of brakes that should be set so it’s braking a little harder than the vehicle is, or at least as much as. It’s nice to have the trailer helping slow you a little bit
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Yes, that would be preferable. I have no idea why boat trailers don’t, maybe some do? His boat was bought from a dealer that turned out to be a bit shady after the fact. IIRC the trailer was ‘thrown in’… does that mean it’s not a nicer trailer, ie one that has brakes? No idea.
We had my son, my niece and my BIL in the truck with us. It was one of the longest, most horrifying few seconds of my life.
I prefer that we never have others in the truck when DH is towing the boat since. He just texted and asked if we were getting a horse trailer [based on my query about comparing boat trailer and horse trailer brakes]… LOL You would think he would know me better, I HATE trailering horses, and doing it myself would *never happen
*dire straits would have to be VERY dire to get me to do it.
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