Trailer on license

duckcfc

Anyone know what the costs are for lessons and to do test for double axle trailer for the car/van. And is there any trailers I can drive with without having it on my license

CiniO

duckcfc wrote: »

Anyone know what the costs are for lessons and to do test for double axle trailer for the car/van. And is there any trailers I can drive with without having it on my license

There's no obligatory lessons.
You can just apply for a test and pass it.
I'm not sure how much a lesson would be.

And yes - there are plenty of trailers you can tow with your car, on your B category licence (normal car licence). It depends on trailer D.G.V.W (design gross vehicle weight) which is maximum trailer weight together with possible load - this is parameter specified by trailer manufacturer. It's on trailer plate.

So you can tow all trailers with D.G.V.W of up to 750kg with any car or van.
Also you can tow trailer with higher D.G.V.W but only provided sum of trailer D.G.V.W and towing vehicle D.G.V.W does not exceed 3500kg.
I.e. your car D.G.V.W=2000kg, trailer D.G.V.W=1500kg. That's maximum you can tow.

There's another possible issue is vehicle towing capacity.
F.e. you might be entitled by law to tow a trailer of 1500kg like in example above. But your car might be only rated to tow trailers up to 1200kg, so you must make sure that you won't load this trailer fully, as if it weights more than 1200kg it would be illegal to tow.
Most vehicles specify maximum trailer weight for both braked trailer and unbraked trailers with unbraked trailers having usually much lower allowed weight.

F.e. my car can tow unbraked trailer of up to 550kg, and braked trailer of up to 1500kg.

9935452

duckcfc wrote: »

Anyone know what the costs are for lessons and to do test for double axle trailer for the car/van. And is there any trailers I can drive with without having it on my license

I di the test a few years back and got a few lessons for 20 euro an hour . i supplied the jeep and box. The test as about 80 as far as i remember.
It gets expensive if you have to do the theory test, to get the provisional license and do 12 lessons

CiniO

9935452 wrote: »

I di the test a few years back and got a few lessons for 20 euro an hour . i supplied the jeep and box. The test as about 80 as far as i remember.
It gets expensive if you have to do the theory test, to get the provisional license and do 12 lessons

For BE licence, you don't need to do theory test, because you already did that for B (unless someone passed a driving test before theory tests were introduced).

And there are no obligaoty lessons for BE category neight is there 6 months waiting time before you can sign on for a driving test

9935452

CiniO wrote: »

For BE licence, you don't need to do theory test, because you already did that for B (unless someone passed a driving test before theory tests were introduced).

And there are no obligaoty lessons for BE category neight is there 6 months waiting time before you can sign on for a driving test

i passed the B test before the theory test was introduced and got thr BE provisional before the theory test as well so have never done a theory test

alan partridge aha

You can pull a trailer on a B licence if the weight of trailer + load does not exceed 750kg and your car is designed to pull such a load (check car handbook).

Cops are cracking down on this, I guy I know says a woman was pulled over in a 4*4 and horsebox and had to wait for her husband to come to drive it away. Cop approached him and he was in the same situation but because he knew him he didn't ask for the licence.

CiniO

alan partridge aha wrote: »

You can pull a trailer on a B licence if the weight of trailer + load does not exceed 750kg and your car is designed to pull such a load (check car handbook).

So you're saying that if I drive my Honda Civic with trailer weighting 500kg, gross weight 1300kg (so load 800kg), then I'm doing something illegal?
I have only B licence.

mgbgt1978

alan partridge aha wrote: »

You can pull a trailer on a B licence if the weight of trailer + load does not exceed 750kg and your car is designed to pull such a load (check car handbook).

Total nonsense.
It's a lot more complex than that.
http://www.rsa.ie/en/RSA/Your-Vehicle/About-your-Vehicle/Example-of-non-Dup/Trailers-/Advice-and-Checks-for-Trailers-/

You can tow many Trailers on a B as long as the combined weight of Trailer (DGVW) and Car does not exceed 3,500kg.
If you have a car that can tow 2,000kg and weighs 1,650kg then you can tow a Trailer with a DGVW of 1,850kg.
For example a 2005 Mondeo 2l0 TDcI is rated to tow 1,800kg and weighs 1,429kg, so you could use this car to tow a 10 year old Brian James Transporter (14' x 6') which is rated at 1,800kg DGVW.
(DGVW is now known as Maximum Mass)

CiniO

mgbgt1978 wrote: »

Total nonsense.
It's a lot more complex than that.
http://www.rsa.ie/en/RSA/Your-Vehicle/About-your-Vehicle/Example-of-non-Dup/Trailers-/Advice-and-Checks-for-Trailers-/

You can tow many Trailers on a B as long as the combined weight of Trailer (DGVW) and Car does not exceed 3,500kg.
If you have a car that can tow 2,000kg and weighs 1,650kg then you can tow a Trailer with a DGVW of 1,850kg.
For example a 2005 Mondeo 2l0 TDcI is rated to tow 1,800kg and weighs 1,429kg, so you could use this car to tow a 10 year old Brian James Transporter (14' x 6') which is rated at 1,800kg DGVW.
(DGVW is now known as Maximum Mass)

You mixed up a bit.

In your Mondeo example, I believe 1800kg towing capacity is right, but it's the total D.G.V.W of trailer and towing vehicle that counts.

So even though your Mondeo weights 1429kg, that is just the vehicle weight (without load).
D.G.V.W of this Mondeo is probably about 2000kg, so you can't tow a trailer of 1800kg on B licence as total D.G.V.W of Mondeo and Trailer would be 3800kg which is over the limit for B licence.

Del2005

mgbgt1978 wrote: »

Total nonsense.
It's a lot more complex than that.
http://www.rsa.ie/en/RSA/Your-Vehicle/About-your-Vehicle/Example-of-non-Dup/Trailers-/Advice-and-Checks-for-Trailers-/

You can tow many Trailers on a B as long as the combined weight of Trailer (DGVW) and Car does not exceed 3,500kg.
If you have a car that can tow 2,000kg and weighs 1,650kg then you can tow a Trailer with a DGVW of 1,850kg.
For example a 2005 Mondeo 2l0 TDcI is rated to tow 1,800kg and weighs 1,429kg, so you could use this car to tow a 10 year old Brian James Transporter (14' x 6') which is rated at 1,800kg DGVW.
(DGVW is now known as Maximum Mass)

You can't tow more than the vehicle weight on a B licence, so your max trailer above would be 1.4t.

mgbgt1978

You can.

CiniO

Worth mentioning as well, that if someone has code 96 attached to B licence, then he can tow a car + trailer of total D.G.V.W of up to 4250kg instead of 3500kg.

alan partridge aha

mgbgt1978 wrote: »

Total nonsense.
It's a lot more complex than that.
http://www.rsa.ie/en/RSA/Your-Vehicle/About-your-Vehicle/Example-of-non-Dup/Trailers-/Advice-and-Checks-for-Trailers-/

You can tow many Trailers on a B as long as the combined weight of Trailer (DGVW) and Car does not exceed 3,500kg.
If you have a car that can tow 2,000kg and weighs 1,650kg then you can tow a Trailer with a DGVW of 1,850kg.
For example a 2005 Mondeo 2l0 TDcI is rated to tow 1,800kg and weighs 1,429kg, so you could use this car to tow a 10 year old Brian James Transporter (14' x 6') which is rated at 1,800kg DGVW.
(DGVW is now known as Maximum Mass)

Not saying you are wrong but I rang the RSA and that is what they told me.

mgbgt1978

....and did you bother to have a look at their website which explains what you can tow with a B.
The information on their site is the legislation. Somebody on the end of the phone could be anybody expressing their personal opinion.

CiniO

alan partridge aha wrote: »

Not saying you are wrong but I rang the RSA and that is what they told me.

They just have no clue.

I think until today, many of their publications say that buses are not allowed to overtake on 2 lane motorways, which is not the case since 2009.
I've personally seen some publications issued by them in 2014, which still kept saying the same misleading info.
ROTR also used to say that until recently. They needed 5 years to correct that.

alan partridge aha

mgbgt1978 wrote: »

....and did you bother to have a look at their website which explains what you can tow with a B.
The information on their site is the legislation. Somebody on the end of the phone could be anybody expressing their personal opinion.

No I didn't sir, but I will in future.

Odelay

CiniO wrote: »

Worth mentioning as well, that if someone has code 96 attached to B licence, then he can tow a car + trailer of total D.G.V.W of up to 4250kg instead of 3500kg.

My licence number starts with 96, what does this mean for me? I haven't done the trailer test yet.

Edit, it is the "Stock Number" starts with B 96 and then 5 more numbers.

mullingar

There are two confusing issues to what you can tow. These are the actual car/trailer weights and your licence weights

The car should have a weight plate under the bonnet somewhere with x4 different weights. Subtract the top two numbers from each other, this gives you the max the manufacturer approves for towing. This is the weight of the trailer plus load.

Your licence is different. These specify the DGVW - designed gross vehicle weight, the word "designed" is critical here. If your car has a DGVW of 2500Kg and the trailer is plated to a DGVW of anything over 1001kg, you cannot tow it on a B licence even empty, as this exceeds the designed combined max load on your licence, not the actual load.