Buying Advice Little advice on which vehicle to buy

[Dmace]

Gators are rated to tow about 1400 lbs. - probably conservative - but you have to figure Gators and other side by sides weigh about that much themselves. An ATV will be less than that. Don't know about anyone else, but if I needed to safely take a 3600 lb boat up and down a boat ramp (don't know how steep or whether paved), I'd want something that weighed at least as much as the boat, so it will be the "puller" and not the "pullee". So the tractor or 4x4 pickup sound like the best options to me.

So are you saying I can't tow my 10k dump trailer or 7000 lb tractor/trailer combo behind my "light" 5300lb Dodge RAM 1500 pickup truck? How about that "light" 14k lb Kenworth hauling a 30k lb trailer? Even brand new 1/2 ton pick-ups only have a max weight of around 7k lbs yet can tow over 10k...
Point is, very rarely will a tow vehicle weigh more than it's trailer load. Remember, your towing the load not carrying it. Big difference!

 

[Rancher Ed]

I am in agreement with Grandad4 that you most likely want something that weighs close to if no more than the boat. While an ATV or side by side would have no problem pulling your boat on level ground, I for one would not want to try it. What you would be doing is trying to pull 3 to 6 times as much weight up a steep ramp that could be wet where if it lost traction you would end up in the water. Another thing is that ATVs and side by sides have pretty short wheel bases and tongue weight from the boat plus a steep ramp could have a not so great ending.

An old pickup would work fine and should be cheep to buy. (If you get a 2wd I would fine 500 to 1000 pounds of weight to keep in the bed so you know that you will have traction.) Just about any tractor that weighs more than 2500 pounds would also work fine.

Ed

 

[Runner]

"An old pickup would work fine and should be cheep to buy. (If you get a 2wd I would fine 500 to 1000 pounds of weight to keep in the bed so you know that you will have traction.)"

I like the pickup idea too.

If it were me, and pulling a boat up a ramp was the only job, I'd forget 2WD and go for a 4WD truck.

 

[Grandad4]

So are you saying I can't tow my 10k dump trailer or 7000 lb tractor/trailer combo behind my "light" 5300lb Dodge RAM 1500 pickup truck? How about that "light" 14k lb Kenworth hauling a 30k lb trailer? Even brand new 1/2 ton pick-ups only have a max weight of around 7k lbs yet can tow over 10k...
Point is, very rarely will a tow vehicle weigh more than it's trailer load. Remember, your towing the load not carrying it. Big difference!

No, not saying that at all. We're talking about a wet, possibly muddy, soft or steep boat ramp that goes into the lake, where you have to stop at the bottom or go in the drink when launching and you need enough traction/pulling power to climb the hill going the other way. That's not the same as ordinary highway towing. Plus all those other scenarios you describe have working brakes on the trailer; with an ATV or side by side, it's the tow vehicle's brakes only. Now, I'll admit there are boat ramps and then there are boat ramps. But many of the man-made ones I've seen are pretty steep.

Just for laughs....

YouTube - ‪4x4x4x4x4x4‬‏

 

[jake98]

If it's a straight shot, a winch and rails is the way to go.