Car trailer price increase and wait time to build are unbelievable !

[Trulyvintage]

Ken owned the 1917 White that Ed purchased - Ken ordered a new enclosed custom built car hauler trailer in February

and traded in his car hauler trailer and put a deposit down as well.

 

His trailer completion date has been pushed back repeatedly - he tours actively and needs it for his cars to trailer to tours that are at a distance.

 

A few days ago - his estimated completion date was set back from July to September and his price was increased from 15K to 20k.

 

Ken called around & was willing to pay to dollar for a Featherlite custom aluminum car  hauler - but after going thru his experience he decided to call the Featherlite factory direct - he was told he could have a trailer built but there currently is a 14 month wait

and the prices have gone waaay up 🤨

 

So - don’t sign a contract with a dealer before contacting the manufacturer directly to find out what the actual build time will be.

 

Ken negotiated the price increase down to 18K and he still is looking at an estimated delivery date of September for a trailer he ordered in February.

 

Like many manufactured items - labor is in short demand and materials are out of stock or in short supply ✅

 

 

Jim

[edinmass]

A good friend just bought a "standard" 24 foot Featherlight off a dealer floor last month for 24K. It was one of two he could find in the country. It's a great trailer. EXCEPT the wiring looked like it was done by a five year old. We were working on it at the Pierce meet. It was so bad, we decided to remove ALL THE WIRES and start over. Thats what happens when you use crack heads to build things. Most of the new trailers are of such poor quality that we now just put time and money in our older units. My 1987 flatbed needed replacing three years ago. I paid 2400 for it.......and that was high end back then. We replaced everything..........welded it up, reinforced it, sandblasted it and painted it. Looks new, and is five times better than the 8900 dollar POS they tried to sell me. Also, no new sales tax, registration fees, ext. It cost less than 2500 do do it over. Looking at it last week, we ordered another set of new tires. The new replacement set that came with rims had two broken belts. 

Edited July 8, 2021 by edinmass (see edit history)

[TAKerry]

Im in the construction industry. This problem is all over. An item as simple as vinyl siding can take months to get to the supplier. I installed a door last week that was ordered the first week of April.

 

Ed, I am about to do the same with my deck trailer. Deck will be replaced with rough sawn oak, planning on sandblasting, and painting. One fender needs some rust repair. Electric is good. I do need tires, can you suggest a good place to get a set?

 

Trailer is about 15 yrs old, but its just wood and steel and a couple bits of rubber. Nothing that cant be 're-stored' with a couple days of work. No sense in buying new just because.

[hidden_hunter]

10 hours ago, Trulyvintage said:

Like many manufactured items - labor is in short demand and materials are out of stock or in short supply

 

It's happening here as well, our labour shortages seem to be mostly caused by the fact we can't import cheap labour wholesale from the 3rd world. Employment has technically gone up because a lot of the shonky off the book jobs aren't being taken by locals who expect certain pay and rights 

[edinmass]

3 hours ago, TAKerry said:

Im in the construction industry. This problem is all over. An item as simple as vinyl siding can take months to get to the supplier. I installed a door last week that was ordered the first week of April.

 

Ed, I am about to do the same with my deck trailer. Deck will be replaced with rough sawn oak, planning on sandblasting, and painting. One fender needs some rust repair. Electric is good. I do need tires, can you suggest a good place to get a set?

 

Trailer is about 15 yrs old, but its just wood and steel and a couple bits of rubber. Nothing that cant be 're-stored' with a couple days of work. No sense in buying new just because.

 

I buy my trailer tires from simpletire.com lots of options. Look at the actual weight of the tire in the speciations. If they are 16 inch, the only tire to buy is Sailun.

Edited July 9, 2021 by edinmass (see edit history)

[TAKerry]

Thanks Ed, I will check them out. I was looking at TSC but all they had was stuff for small landscape trailers. I need a real tire. 

[Trulyvintage]

Regarding 16 inch trailer tires …

 

Load range G all steel ST tires are

pretty much a blow out proof run flat tire.

 

I buy mine on the road & pay about $132

a tire on up - it is best to buy them where you have them mounted - not all tire shops have equipment to mount/dismount 

all steel trailer tires.

 

 

Jim

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

1 hour ago, TAKerry said:

Thanks Ed, I will check them out. I was looking at TSC but all they had was stuff for small landscape trailers. I need a real tire. 

 

 I don't have a dog in this fight, but have seen LT tires and trailer tires with lower mph and wt. ratings than a good passenger car tire.  There are 15" semi trailer tires that are much better. Probably require different axle.

 

  Ben

 

  Ben

[Trulyvintage]

1 hour ago, Ben Bruce aka First Born said:

 

 I don't have a dog in this fight, but have seen LT tires and trailer tires with lower mph and wt. ratings than a good passenger car tire.  There are 15" semi trailer tires that are much better. Probably require different axle.

 

  Ben

 

  Ben

 

 You don’t what you are talking about ….

 

I tow every day - have been doing this 

since 2006.

 

 

Jim

 

 

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

9 minutes ago, Trulyvintage said:

 

 You don’t what you are talking about ….

 

I tow every day - have been doing this 

since 2006.

 

 

Jim

 

 

 

 Say what?  

  I retired in 2009. Forty years.   100,000 + per year.  

   Nah, on second thought, I probably don't!

 

  Ben

[Trulyvintage]

1 hour ago, Ben Bruce aka First Born said:

 

 Say what?  

  I retired in 2009. Forty years.   100,000 + per year.  

   Nah, on second thought, I probably don't!

 

  Ben

You cannot legally run passenger car tires on a trailer - there is a practical consideration for that - sidewall flexing is one.

 

ST tires are engineered - designed - built for the different needs required by a trailer.

 

Yeah - you don’t know what you’re talking about ….

 

 

Jim

[Matt Harwood]

1 hour ago, Trulyvintage said:

You cannot legally run passenger car tires on a trailer - there is a practical consideration for that - sidewall flexing is one.

 

ST tires are engineered - designed - built for the different needs required by a trailer.

 

Yeah - you don’t know what you’re talking about ….

 

 

Jim

 

All he said was that he's seen (what I presume to be crappy) trailer tires and light truck tires with lower weight ratings than a passenger car tire. I did not see where he recommended using passenger car tires on a trailer. Read it again...

[Robert Street]

I agree with Truly Vintage as I live in Maryland and been stopped by Maryland DOT and the inspector recorded weight ratings of each tire to ensure that they exceeded the GCVW plate in the trailer. They did but he got me on the orientation of the safety chains hooks attached to the truck

Robert

I’ve since learned that is an easy stop and fine in Maryland 

[oldford]

2 hours ago, Trulyvintage said:

Yeah - you don’t know what you’re talking about ….

 

 

Is this the same attitude that got you in trouble on the other forums??

 

Frank

[Trulyvintage]

6 minutes ago, oldford said:

 

Is this the same attitude that got you in trouble on the other forums??

 

Frank

The facts about the use of ST tires having nothing to do with attitude.

 

The fact is - I tow a trailer every day.

 

 

Jim

 

 

[charlier]

2 hours ago, Robert Street said:

They did but he got me on the orientation of the safety chains hooks attached to the truck

 

By orientation are you referring to hooks up or hooks down?  Maryland law actually specifies this?

[kgreen]

I'm trading trailers and need to sell my 18-foot enclosed Aluma if interested.

[Robert Street]

51 minutes ago, charlier said:

 

By orientation are you referring to hooks up or hooks down?  Maryland law actually specifies this?

Absolutely Maryland does enforce and I don’t remember hooks up or hooks down. We used to have to get a medical card to pull trailers but that was dropped several years ago. To be honest the question of hooks up or hooks down is in the FMCSA book.

Robert

[Trulyvintage]

The 2017 rules do not state orientation of the hook - but if you kill somebody while towing because you failed to meet the requirements of the section - the maximum fine is $1000 ….

 

@ https://govt.westlaw.com/mdc/Document/N2CD72AF0709B11E799A4C440C6302D98?viewType=FullText&originationContext=documenttoc&transitionType=CategoryPageItem&contextData=(sc.Default)

 

 

Jim

Edited July 10, 2021 by Trulyvintage (see edit history)

[mike6024]

The hitch on a trailer carrying a pizza oven that disengaged, careened across Lakeville Highway and smashed into a car, killing the driver, was not strong enough to pull the weight of a 3,950-pound pizza oven owned by local restaurant Rosso Pizzeria, CHP investigators said. 

Investigators determined that a hitch on the trailer carrying the oven disengaged because it couldn”t handle the weight. The safety chains weren”t in place and the trailer didn”t have an automatic braking system.

The lawsuits have been filed against the driver of the van toting the oven, Rosso Pizzeria owners, as well as the trailer manufacturer and its owner.

[Trulyvintage]

Every day on the road I see different scenarios that are serious accidents waiting to happen.

 

A consistent theme in Texas is double towing - usually a small truck or passenger car is pulling a second vehicle using a tow bar.

The second vehicle - in turn -  has some kind of rigged hitch and is towing another vehicle.

 

So - three vehicles total.

 

Every universal tow bar I have seen is rated at 5000 pound max - the towed vehicle is

towinganother vehicle equal or greater to it’s footprint/ weight - so the first tow vehicle is towing a minimum of 7000 pounds which is exceeding the capacity of the original tow vehicle’s rating for towing and the rating of the tow bar.

 

I have seen this rigged set up pass 

police - sheriff - state marked patrol

vehicles and I have never seen one get

pulled over.

 

 

Jim

[Robert Street]

6 hours ago, Trulyvintage said:

Every day on the road I see different scenarios that are serious accidents waiting to happen.

 

A consistent theme in Texas is double towing - usually a small truck or passenger car is pulling a second vehicle using a tow bar.

The second vehicle - in turn -  has some kind of rigged hitch and is towing another vehicle.

 

So - three vehicles total.

 

Every universal tow bar I have seen is rated at 5000 pound max - the towed vehicle is

towinganother vehicle equal or greater to it’s footprint/ weight - so the first tow vehicle is towing a minimum of 7000 pounds which is exceeding the capacity of the original tow vehicle’s rating for towing and the rating of the tow bar.

 

I have seen this rigged set up pass 

police - sheriff - state marked patrol

vehicles and I have never seen one get

pulled over.

 

 

Jim

I’d almost bet you in Maryland you would see a stop and that might be why I’ve never seen such a sight. Now we have areas where electronic surveillance is done on trucks and trailers whereby you need to be in the right lane to be observed. I hear allot of stopping is done up the road from these areas.  Landscaping trailers seem hardest hit because of their many Maryland infractions

Robert

[edinmass]

Towing a trailer is ALWAYS a opportunity for disaster. It’s very similar to handling a firearm. If you do absolutely everything perfect, no one gets hurt and you never hear anything about it. Just one minor little issue can cause a disaster that takes someone’s life. 80% of the people who haul a trailer are absolutely clueless. The next 15% take risks that they shouldn’t, and know better. Your equipment is never good enough, it’s never heavy enough, in the 99.9% of the cases it’s not maintained properly. When it comes to car trailers being hauled by pick up trucks or something similar, just about everybody is on the edge of being overloaded or is overloaded. I want to have a 40% excess capacity not being used by the vehicles. It provides a very comfortable safety margin. When you start hauling the big heavy classic cars,  even using a 1 ton dually, things are marginal at best when it comes to safety and stopping distances.