Just 2 seconds earlier or later would have been fine

[Garry Edwards]

So, I towed a loaded trailer back to the farm, as you do. Not the biggest, but at least 3 tons.
And then I drove it into a field, backed it up, pointing downhill on a fair slope, so chocked all 4 wheels, as you do.
Then I unhitched it, got into the car and moved off, as you do.

And then the trailer hitch hit the bumper, quite hard, after rolling over the chocks and then riding up over the tow hitch

If the trailer had over-ridden the chocks just a couple of seconds earlier it would have gently come to rest on the tow hitch. It's strange that it happened at all, the chocks were bits of 4x4 timber and I'd answered my phone just after unhitching the trailer, so it was sat there for a few minutes before it attacked my car.
And if it had happened a couple of seconds later the car would have been away, and the trailer would have just run down the field and probably wouldn't have hit anything.

Such is life

 

[Box Brownie]

Sounds like a case of c'est la vie.......or just maybe sods law.

Whichever epithet, b***dy annoying :banghead:

 

[Tigger.ufo]

A**E!!! :banghead:

 

[Suvv]

At least your spare tyre looks OK.

What an annoying thing to happen.

 

[woof woof]

Looking on the bright side... It's only money. No one was hurt. Worse things happen at sea etc.

 

[Diving Pete]

If it was four wheels then I also assume it was braked ?

 

[Garry Edwards]

If it was four wheels then I also assume it was braked ?

No. It's a braked trailer obviously, but I never use the parking brakes - easy to put on, very hard to take off. We've always used chocks instead, this is the first ever problem.

 

[Diving Pete]

No. It's a braked trailer obviously, but I never use the parking brakes - easy to put on, very hard to take off. We've always used chocks instead, this is the first ever problem.

I used to do that as you until I had the same sort of problem.
I parked on a slight incline as you don't often have a choice - with the trailer pointing uphill in the middle of a field in France. It weighed around the 3.5 tonnes limit - (officer) lol.. being towed by a twin axle LWB Transit. The terrain was stoney and grass interspersed.
So applied the handbrake, got out and the 2 of us found a few stones to chock the wheels. We then dropped the jockey wheel and proceeded to wind off the tow ball. The INSTANT it popped off the ball, the trailer started to move downhill.
As both of us were at the A end of the trailer he grabbed the A, & I grabbed the hitch plate. The trailer started getting faster.. I shouted to him to let go & just pull the brake. He did & gave it an enormous pull. This then caused the trailer to tip onto just the back wheels & the nose lift into the air. - we had good brakes that worked - ha ha ha.. This ripped the Hitch out of my hands BUT at least the trailer stopped - although the load inside had shifted & we had to use some interesting tactics to resolve it back onto 4 wheels. Since then the brake is applied before we detach. Its just safer.

 

[Garry Edwards]

I used to do that as you until I had the same sort of problem.
I parked on a slight incline as you don't often have a choice - with the trailer pointing uphill in the middle of a field in France. It weighed around the 3.5 tonnes limit - (officer) lol.. being towed by a twin axle LWB Transit. The terrain was stoney and grass interspersed.
So applied the handbrake, got out and the 2 of us found a few stones to chock the wheels. We then dropped the jockey wheel and proceeded to wind off the tow ball. The INSTANT it popped off the ball, the trailer started to move downhill.
As both of us were at the A end of the trailer he grabbed the A, & I grabbed the hitch plate. The trailer started getting faster.. I shouted to him to let go & just pull the brake. He did & gave it an enormous pull. This then caused the trailer to tip onto just the back wheels & the nose lift into the air. - we had good brakes that worked - ha ha ha.. This ripped the Hitch out of my hands BUT at least the trailer stopped - although the load inside had shifted & we had to use some interesting tactics to resolve it back onto 4 wheels. Since then the brake is applied before we detach. Its just safer.

Sounds interesting . . . Personally I would never use stones, we do have a few of the custom-made metal chocks but have far more trailers than chocks, and so tend to use these big lumps of wood, which have always worked before. You and I have met, you're young and healthy, I'm old and knackered and that's why I don't use trailer handbrakes. Everything I do minimises my physical effort, I can't waggle heavy trailers around with the Jockey wheel, so use the camera that you can see in the bumper (which is pointed directly at the tow hitch and which survived) to get the positioning perfect, and I need that anyway for when the trailer is fitted with a ring hitch and needs to be millimetre perfect. I sometimes have a laugh with that, people don't realise it's there, they see me reversing perfectly onto a trailer hitch in one easy movement and make comments such as "You've done that before" to which my standard reply is always "No, complete fluke"

And I normally use a trolly jack to get the height right, because I'm too knackered to wind up the jockey wheel on heavy trailers. To me, luxury is picking up a trailer with the PUH on a tractor

 

[Diving Pete]

Yep - it was entertaining from a distance, where we were, it was rapidly going downhill... lol..
The trailer was full of diving cylinders (over 50 ! ), diving kit, water tanks - 200 litres, caving equipment, 2 compressors, a couple of km of rope, 2 generators - one weighing over 300kg & other bumpf. The heavy gen was strapped down but due to the sudden stop shifted about 6 inches to the rear. This also meant the water shifted in the tanks. We were exploration cave diving and so were entirely self sufficient.

Getting the nose weight right was a little bit of practice..

 

[broc]

I used to do that as you until I had the same sort of problem.
I parked on a slight incline as you don't often have a choice - with the trailer pointing uphill in the middle of a field in France. It weighed around the 3.5 tonnes limit - (officer) lol.. being towed by a twin axle LWB Transit. The terrain was stoney and grass interspersed.
So applied the handbrake, got out and the 2 of us found a few stones to chock the wheels. We then dropped the jockey wheel and proceeded to wind off the tow ball. The INSTANT it popped off the ball, the trailer started to move downhill.
As both of us were at the A end of the trailer he grabbed the A, & I grabbed the hitch plate. The trailer started getting faster.. I shouted to him to let go & just pull the brake. He did & gave it an enormous pull. This then caused the trailer to tip onto just the back wheels & the nose lift into the air. - we had good brakes that worked - ha ha ha.. This ripped the Hitch out of my hands BUT at least the trailer stopped - although the load inside had shifted & we had to use some interesting tactics to resolve it back onto 4 wheels. Since then the brake is applied before we detach. Its just safer.

The guy who resurfaced our driveway some years back told me how his workers did a similar thing at a customers house. He told me one of his workers parked & unhitched a trailer (with a bobcat excavator) facing uphill. Unfortunately the trailer ran down the slope, was stopped by some obstruction whereupon the bobcat broke loose, came off the trailer & flattened the customers car.