A family sedan is a suitable tow vehicle for the large flat bed twin axle + four seven tonne truck spring configured trailer we built 35+ years ago for hauling across broken land in the Pilbara.
It's a good idea to use anti-sway bars on, say, a Hayman-Reese hitch when things get technical and loads want to skid sideways.
Rig your trailer right and you can have a removable gull wing hutch for sleeping in / tool security, etc.
IMHO there's more room on a dedicated heavy load trailer than an SUV "truck" bed and there's usually better tie down with a custom trailer as the rope rails run full length for hitching.
> A family sedan is a suitable tow vehicle for the large flat bed twin axle
You may get away with it but it is not suitable. It doesn't have the brakes or the weight to safely pull a large trailer, and you'll likely burn up the transmission as well. Now, if you're talking about a body-on-frame GM sedan from the 1970s, with a 350 or larger V8 engine, maybe. A 4-cylinder typical family sedan of 2025? Not a chance.
We work in agricultural and mining and have done, in my fathers case, since 1935.
Admittedly he started with horses, bullocks, and kerosene fueled tractors, but hey, we understand engines, how to keep them running, and a host of tangential factors that roll alongside; recovery, survival, first aid, fire fighting, bush mechanics, etc.
Vehicles are maintained, used within their limits, regularly checked before long trips, and routinely clock up 750,000 - 1,300,000 km before being replaced.
To date no transmissions have been burnt out. Multiple long distance trips on sealed and unsealed roads have been taken across the length and breadth of Western Australia - it's reasonably tough country.
As a pro-tip, if you're burning out transmissions pulling loads on a regular basis, I'd suggest parking up to take load facing downhill (and chock the wheels to be safe). That way, when you start up under load you have the advantage of a downhill rolling start. That'll help to prevent spinning tyres, getting bogged, and undue strain on the transmission. If you're not doing it already consider starting off in a low gear rather than relying on an automatic transmission to select for you.
You do understand, I trust, that there's a perfectly usable 6-cylinder class between a stupidly oversized rarely needed V-8 and the woefully under powered 4 cylinder?
We have trucks, we've just spent the last month on district harvest, and we're dropping a modular house in place later this afternoon (GMT+8) - by trucks we mean prime movers + trailer trains (usually two, sometimes three), nine tonne tippers, ex-military scrabblers that can carry 5-tonne of water up bush tracks (fire control) and the like.
And if you live in an apartment, where do you park your trailer? Most apartments won't let you keep/store such a thing... are you going to pay for a storage unit large enough for a trailer to use occasionally?
Seems like a specious hypothetical, as a peer comment pointed out most people in light residential construction don't need US style "trucks" (oversized cars), in my experience there are a number of people that have trailers who live in apartments - alongside other two car / two bay families.
Ultimately if you're serious about contracting work of any kind, or even just craft glass blowing / wood working, etc, you get a workshop in a light industrial area or a rural block with space for sheds, drive ways, loading ramps, car sized LNG tanks, etc.
If you live in an apartment, what are you regularly doing that needs a giant truck or a trailer? It's not like you're doing woodworking in your one bedroom apartment or doing lots of gardening.
And if your answer is "well you'd go to the workshop and do that"...well there's your answer on where to park the trailer.
A lot of people do construction work and use a pickup truck while living in an apartment. They aren't working at a "workshop" the jobsite is residential neighborhoods.
What a joke. I know several people who work in residential construction. All of them bought their large trucks associated with their small businesses for the tax write-offs. None of them actually use their trucks as trucks. When they really need a truck, they drive their fancy $80-100k pickup trucks to the warehouse, where they hop in their International trucks to actually go carry loads places.
My neighbors are doing extensive renovations to their home. Half the people show up in pretty fancy trucks most days. Nothing in the bed, the trucks look pristine with their company branding. Most of the actual people working hard in the house show up in beater Corollas or Civics. When material shows up, it comes in the back of a flatbed truck by the distributor dropping off pallets of drywall or mud or whatever or in some box van. These people driving trucks to their construction jobs rarely actually need pickup trucks for their construction work. Its like arguing chefs need to carry their own gas ranges to the kitchen. The real work often gets done with the company's equipment, not their own personal luxury toys.
When roofers came to redo the roof on my home a few years ago it was the same story. All the sales people drove big fancy pickup trucks to talk and show off proposals on an iPad. I didn't realize a pickup was absolutely necessary for an iPad, but hey I guess that's what it takes. After all others in this comment area think you need a few tons of towing capacity to move a 50lb canoe. A big box truck came to drop off the pallets of shingles and decking to my roof. The workers showed up in beater cars, the supervisors showed up in pristine fancy pickup trucks. Once again, they can easily write off that big truck cost immediately, but a passenger car would take years to write off the depreciation. I wonder why they chose the big pickup instead of the smaller car.
I've got family working commercial construction as well. He also drives a fancy big truck. When asked if he uses it for work, his words were "fuck no, why would I fuck up my truck for them?" He uses it to drive to job sites on well-paved roads, goes to Twin Peaks for UFC nights, and sometimes get groceries.
Residential construction jobs also existed in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, and yet pickup trucks weren't the top sellers in any of those decades. Meanwhile in the 2000s onwards pickups and large SUVs hold a good chunk of the top selling spots. I guess we just all work in residential construction?
It's a good idea to use anti-sway bars on, say, a Hayman-Reese hitch when things get technical and loads want to skid sideways.
Rig your trailer right and you can have a removable gull wing hutch for sleeping in / tool security, etc.
IMHO there's more room on a dedicated heavy load trailer than an SUV "truck" bed and there's usually better tie down with a custom trailer as the rope rails run full length for hitching.