This is just the kind of happening that I have in mind when I tell guy's that in all good conscience I have to give the warnings to go along with the rest of my answers to post like this. Trailer rentals are a risky venture that to many people try to short cut on lookin for easy money. Just wish it hadn't been you that had to be the example.

 

agreed. I couldn't imagine being on either end of that situation..

sometimes people just don't think.. and that's scary!

 

thats the problem in this world some people don`t have the brains it takes to blow their own nose
if you do decide to rent out that trailer all i`m saying is cover your butt realllly good
people taking short cuts costs others all the time and keep lawyers rich

 

this is going to become valuable discussion.

I was thinking the liability side in the back of me head, and was going to let an ins. company help me figure that out, and then base the overall decision on if i could make enough to cover the insurance payments if it would be worth a shot.

in my travels this weekend I saw someone towing a 26' box camper up a steady grade, in the left lane, doing 45 in a 65 with no hazzards or anything.. figured it would be some guy in a V6 half ton, pass and it's a newer dodge charger or something like that with some huge tow mirrors bolted to the doors... ugh. wish i coulda got a picture.

 

I can't even tell you how many trailer rental reservations I had that they would show up in some jeep cherokee or mini van to rent my 18ft steel stock trailer that weighs in over 3000 pounds empty, wantin to hook it up to a bumper hitch with no brake controller and haul they're horses around.

I always wanted to send it out just once just to show them how stupid they are but I didn't, I always refused the rental.

 

I would imagine a live load is a bit tougher to pull than what I've done which is just vehicles and scrap. but to have a load like that behind a van or jeep? that wouldn't be fun and a bit hard on the horses I would imagine.

but spend any time out on the highways and you'll see just about anything...

saw a box truck with a toyota truck stuffed in the box (hanging out the back)
a geo metro trying to move a huge boat... had it up to about 35 before he got to a hill.

etc. etc.

I'll let you guys know what my insurance company comes back with, they might require me to go commercial to loan it out.

 

Overhere every trailer with a GVW of more than 1500lbs has to have an overrun brake.
Which is a very good thing for those noobs.

Laws are very hard overhere about overload. 10% to much and your license is gone for a month+ hefty fine.
I have a Cherokee and the load limit of the trailer is 6600lbs(including load), but only with a overrun brake!

A trailer without a overrun brake is limited to 1650lbs (including load) maximum.
Which makes sense in my opinion.

It seems that overrun brakes are not very common in the US?

 

The worst part of these renters was the bumper mounted ball they wanted to use. They all either have a 300 or 500 pound max tongue weight. This trailer I'm talking about even empty was well over 400 pounds because of a steel tack room divider up front. Add 4 horses to that, all moving around and they would rip that bumper in half.

I also had trailers for rent that they actually could have safely used but they were only two horse trailers. Stinker, your probably familiar with the Brenderup trailers. They were made for smaller vehicles and didn't require an electronic brake but they wanted to haul as many as they could.

A fool and his bumper would have soon been parted.

 

Can't say I've seen one with an overrun brake on it.

usually that's handled manually through the electronic brake controller. only time I had to manually activate trailer brakes was when a front brake rotor split in half on me and I had effectively nothing to stop with other than that scary bit of fast downshifting in 3lanes of traffic going downhill to a red light.

here we go by trailer weight determining how many axles have to have brakes, and what type of brakes. a break away box and properly rated chains are a big plus to have.

 

Wow, we don't have chains.
The overrun brake is cool
in that moment you hit the pedal, mass moves the trailer forwards and it applies brake power to the drum.
It also does have a small wire around the trailer hitch which acts like an emergency break and blocks the drum if you loose the trailer from the hitch.
The only disadvantage is backing up in uneven terrain which can block the brakes too if you don't go smooth enough.
I also remember the fun when pulling a car and the car started to push me- that wasn't really funny.

this the principle how it works- every camper trailer, heavy load trailer, car trailer or horse trailer over here has it.