Thread: A framing a vehicle

Originally Posted by veitnamcam

The unbraked towing rating of your vehicle (usually 500-750kg for decent size/weight vehicles) is only a manufacturers recommended maximum to protect themselves from Muppet owners who might hook up 2 tonne unbraked then drive down the crown range quickly with the auto in D and run out of brakes before the last corner.
The LAW in NZ is that a trailer over 2 tonnes in weight must be braked.
You must be able to stop in 7 meters or less from 30kph speed.
If your brakes,tires,suspension are all up to scratch you should have no problem at all doing that if your trailer is half the weight of your vehicle....Up to 3/4 the weight of the vehicle and some older vehicles will start to struggle to achieve this.
Pays to remember also that a trailer will or should have between 5 and 10% of its total weight as download on the towball....this weight assists vehicle traction during braking as well as combination stability.
An aframe has no ball download and this should be considered.
Also an aframe needs to have its pivot point at close to the same height off of the ground as the tow vehicles ball....usually 400-450mm high...If not then when brakeing download or more commonly UPLOAD can be applied to the towing vehicle and this can be dangerous.
I have attached many a Suzuki to a Grey nomad vehicle.

Pretty much all correct - apart from the unbraked rating. This isn't a manufacturer's thing, its ADR requirements from Aussie. We ratified the ADR requirements as a as/NZS joint standards type thing, so it came in here as well by default. So while the trailer brake weight levels say one thing, now the towing vehicle requirements say something different and the two obviously say two different things which is rather less than ideal. At this stage I'm not aware of anyone getting pulled up while towing and being tapped for exceeding the unbraked weighting, but going over the max combined weight and getting told to unload or park up is something that happens fairly regularly.