Towing capacity of 1.3 Hijet?

Submitted by vertical fool on

Forum: 

Hi all.

What's the towing capacity of the 1300 Hijet?

Thanks

Vertical

Towing capacities

Submitted by M4X on

There was an old rule of thumb for caravans:

Take your cc divide it by 10 and you have got the length of the caravan you can tow, the weight was then worked out for each foot of the caravan was approx equal to 1cwt

e.g.

1000cc is able to tow a 10' caravan (approx weight 10cwt)
1200cc is able to tow a 12' caravan (approx weight 12cwt)

AND NOW TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION PROPERLY!:

For the petrol 1.3 Piaggio give the "Trailing Mass" as 600kg

600kg is just short of 12cwt

Taking into account that the hijet is quite a heavy little van this fits with the old rule of thumb.

AFAIK Daihatsu grudgingly

Submitted by Kenari on

AFAIK Daihatsu grudgingly allowed for a 1000Kg towed mass IF the van was fully laden...

Having owned a few micro-vans and liked the compact nature but not the limited cargo area, more so when I had a 3 man crew with me; so I purchased a 750Kg 3cuM van trailer to operate in combination and transport lighting and sound equipment around.

My experience showed that this is about the optimum capacity and still allowed the Rascal to reach 60 in under 30 seconds. plus climb a 1:6 hill without changing down too far.

I have seen a Hi-jet with a 14' sprite on the hitch. Which is much too large and would give major problems in anything other than still weather conditions.

Personally I would go for one of the small continental "Puck" caravans or explore the teardrop units which are now coming on line for smart cars etc and gross at 350Kg which is right on the limit for a smart, but would still allow the Hi-jet to perform more than adequately and would not require the van to be fully laden.

Hi Ken "AFAIK Daihatsu

Submitted by vertical fool on

Hi Ken

"AFAIK Daihatsu grudgingly allowed for a 1000Kg towed mass IF the van was fully laden..."

I would appreciate anything more that you know about this as I thought that the towing capacity was a calculation based on the kerbside weight.

It's even more important to me now as I have a trailer now that I was moving with an Astra Diesel and then a high roof LWB Transit.

My Transit was written off and at the moment have no cash as I'm appealing the value etc forcing me to transfer my insurance on to the Hijet. They charged me £15 to transfer it over and an extra £2.The extra because of the higher insurance premiums on the Hijet than on my High roof, LWB Transit. Scratch one-s head I wonder if this is because on Tesco's insurance it comes up as 4X4, hence more expensive. (Really I should post a new thread about Hijet insurance. Maybe another could be why I have to pay £99 tax for 6 Months tax for my little 1.3 Hijet exactly the same as my Transit!

Anyway the current trailer I have is a twin axle, braked Towavan 220D which is 8 foot long, 5 foot wide and 6 foot high internally (I think I could get the Hijet in the back of the trailer!). I know this is too big for regular use but I think I could get away with it on a Sunday to take stuff to a local car boot. I also think I could get away delivering mattresses in it ( I have about 25 from an auction )m, even one or two at a time (the trailer alone is heavey).

By the way, my clutch is slipping a little when under heavey acceleration so a big problem for towing. I've been looking for a replacement. I've not been able to find one for much less than £150 even at trade prices. This is the part/s only. Does anyone have any experience of doing this job?

Regards

Vertical

BIG van trailer

Submitted by Kenari on

Hmmm...

Seems like you are right in the poohey stuff. I have experience with a twin axle van trailer and 998cc Rascal as a combination and it was just about possible in fair weather conditions, which is why I have a single axle 750Kg 3cuM trailer.

The big box is too much of a sail behind either a rascal or hi-jet, even the now rebuilt box is on the limit as far as drag is concerned and manouvering the twin is a cruel work-out for the clutch and as yours is coming to the end of its life may be terminal especially if you have any serious hills to climb.

Mattresses are bulky but not too heavy so even my van trailer (8'x 4'x 6' to you for £500) would be able to manage several stood on their side not laid flat. In the current combination I would advise adding some weight to the tractor unit (18" x 18" x 2" paving slabs are ideal) to get it better able to control the trailer otherwise the tail may wag the dog if you encounter an emergency situation and need the brakes in a hurry.

A clutch change is always expensive but a genuine part is probably the way to go and treated reasonable should last 70-80K. The one in the Rascal lasted just under 90K and at least half of that was done with the friction plate split in half! If you get the job done at a tyre and clutch centre the fitting will be cheaper than at a dealer plus you will get a warranty on the unit installed.

Insurance is a pain in the fundamentals and there is no logic with the treatment of vehicles I found that trading up to a Bedford Midi was cheaper than the micro but moving to a Mazda E2000 was more expensive. The change to the Sumo made things cheaper and then I bought an ex-Police LDV Turbo Diesel Riot bus and REALLY paid for the priveledge(?) via a policy called mini-bus plus from Norwich Union.

Contary to R H-D's and HMCE; Tax does have to be taxing for those running small commercials as private cars. We are all trapped in the £190 band even though our vehicles are mostly sub 1500cc, and should be paying circa £140. IF I was still working in theatrical hire I would probably have settled for a Wagon R or Grand Move/Pyzar fitted with a tow bar and give my trailer more work to do AND qualify for the lower RFL.

towing

Submitted by MG on

i do read this topic with intrest as

my dad bought an e reg hijet pick up 4x4 with low range box in 1988 for business and carnival work (for those who don know down in devon and somerset we have flood lit evening carnival parades with colourful floats lit with hundred of lamps on small entrys and up to 25,000 on the big somerset ones with music and big moveing parts, see somersetcarnivals.co.uk for more)

anyway our family was puting togeather a small entry and we got the hijet to tow it

now thats to say it was a 24ft long trailer single axle at the back with turntable axle at the front, no bakes fitted till 96 when we added another back axle...... and then on behind that we had another very small trailer with 3 generators on puting out 12kw

hopefully the pic i post will work and you can see our 1989 entry

http://www.somersetcarnivals.co.uk/forum/download.php?id=230&mode=view

now for towing the truck was great only used the low range box in procession for slowness while on the road in between normal ratio was fine apart from a 1 in 6 T junction turning that we had to do each week speed was always kept around 35-40mph max

as the year went on things got bigger and better we stopped towing the 2 trailers between carnivals and only had them both on in procession as i said in 96 we fitted hydrolic brakes to 1 of the rear axles and in 99 put extra cable brakes on the front axle, not that it was needed but regulation required it (it was noted with the brakes on the trailer the tuck could be held on them alone!)

anyway hopefully i've manage to post a pic of our 99 entry too and as side not we think the weight for this year was about 3 tons ish but we never would had admitted it at the time

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://thumb4.webshots.net/s/thumb3/0/81/23/33208123ONMzIG_th.jpg&imgrefurl=http://good-times.webshots.com/album/33205509NPuFeO&h=67&w=100&sz=2&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=ttRemDzf_ukreM:&tbnh=55&tbnw=82&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgliddons%2Bcarnival%2Bclub%26ndsp%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN
now all things come to an end and it 2000 we did our last entry and just as well as after new brakes were fitted in 03 and the engine rebuilt in 05 it's never been the same since, not got the power or braking ability

so the question is did we get the best 4x4 hijet out there or are there others????

Hijet towing

Submitted by oldminiman on

The weight is obviously important and I think 600kg is about the limit. What is imprortant is the height and width of what you tow as the Micro vans anr quite light and narrow. I once towed a car transporter on a SUMO and when I braked the trailer tugged the van to a stop and of course the over hang on each side was horrendous. Height, well anyone who has driven one in strong wind will know that they can get blown around a bit, add a box or caravan to that and you could find yourself in trouble.

My advice and personnal opinion would be to keep it within the 600KG, don,t push it and keep it lower than the van height, preferably just an open camping type or small builders type trailer. In addition get one you can see but that is not too much wider than the van itself. A 4 wheeler is better than a 2 wheeler.

Good luck

OLDMINIMAN

M J Young