No one may care anything about this, but I continue to be somewhat amazed at how often posts regarding mundane life-related stuff intersect what I have going on at the moment so maybe this helps someone out.
In early November 2020, I purchased a brand new 14-foot enclosed cargo trailer. Turns out that even the purchase was a bit of a challenge. I am located in coastal Alabama. When I started actively pricing trailers what I found was, there were no trailers that met my (very pedestrian) specs to be found. Finally after calling all around, I was on the phone with a trailer outfit in Montgomery. When I asked the nice lady why no one had any trailers, the answer was a lack of plywood, and axles/hubs sitting on docks on California. Nobody had materials to build any. Too, we just had two hurricanes hit this region and a lot of trailers got bought up in connection with clean-up efforts. For a variety of personal reasons, I was under the gun and really needed to find a trailer, so I persisted. Ultimately I found one not too far away and bought it. Since getting this trailer, I have made four (maybe five?) 1,200 mile round trips hauling furniture and what not. Here is what I discovered about my trailer to this point. Hopefully this might give folks something to look at while shopping for theirs.
It has a lot of fancy LED lighting - which is nice. But the wiring, man... Wires hanging loose underneath the trailer and inside you have small wires routed over sharp metal edges with no sort of conduit or other protection. Sooner or later something is going to wear or tear and a short will happen. The little marker lights on the fenders are crap in that the ground is a cheap little plate that is supposed to contact a flat metal surface, but the fenders are diamond plate and these lights don’t have good contact. The paint on the frame is cheap and thinly applied. I already need to go back with some rustoleum. The box, which sits in the frame and constitutes the body of the trailer is not square with the frame. This can be observed at the back end of the trailer looking at how the body aligns on the rearmost crossmember of the frame. Across the seven foot width of the body, it is at least one inch out of square. Most all of this would be hard to observe on the trailer lot (for instance, the wiring is hidden behind paneling), but one thing I should have caught was some of the really crappy welds on frame crossmembers. Some are in plain view. Mine has a ramp-style rear door (more on this later) which has/has about a 12-inch wide piece of plywood that folds out to smooth the transition from the ground to the tailgate. That piece of plywood let go on, I think, my second trip. The screws were inadequate to hold the weight of the plywood. The plywood should have been bolted to the piano hinge instead of being screwed. Lastly, and arguably most important, I completely lost the nut on the bolt that attaches the axle equalizer to the frame. I was gearing up for a trip and was checking air pressure in the tires when I observed that the bolt had backed out of the hanger by an inch or so. The bolt had worked out of the inside of the hanger. That would have been a show-stopper on the upcoming trip as, among other things, I was loading an 1,100 pound safe (on that side of the trailer as it turned out) as well as a squat rack and lot of free weights - in addition to a whole bunch of other stuff. It makes me shudder to think about that bolt working its way out at freeway speeds with that load onboard. At a minimum, it would have been a colossal inconvenience, but it could have also killed some folks. I can only assume that BoBo who attached that nut failed to run it on to the bolt far enough for the locking part of the nut to engage the threads on the bolt. The other bolts were fine. When I emailed the manufacturer, I got no reply.
My most recent revelation occurred this morning when I just happened to notice that the cover for the upper side vent is gone. It is possible that a branch took it off at the other end of my round trip and I am checking into that, but damn...
So, all that kinda takes the fun out of it and creates all kinds of doubts regarding other unseen/undetected defects. I had every intention of going with a Lark (or another brand whose name escapes me), but as I said, they were nowhere to be found at the time. Those might be some things to try to pay attention to when either purchasing a trailer or after getting it home/trip prep.
My overall takeaway is to approach the purchase of a new trailer knowing that it is likely that the builder is using the cheapest components and the cheapest labor (probably with a lot of turnover) to churn these things out. My understanding is that this applies to RVs as well. Come at the shopping process with that in mind and you might do better than I did.
Other considerations. A standard cargo trailer comes in at just a hair over six feet from the floor to the roof. I’m 6’4” and have intentions of eventually converting this to a camper, so I got a 7 foot tall one. It makes a lot of difference when loading and is just more comfortable to be in, but that extra foot of height catches a lot of wind. It stands quite proud over the back of my pretty tall Ram 2500. Just something to consider. Also, on level ground the top is about 8’6” tall. This won’t make it thru some drive-thru’s - ask me how I know.
After a good bit of debate, I went with the ramp door in the back. I now wish I had gotten barn doors. I could build or buy stand alone ramps for use when needed - and there would be a hassle factor associated with that. But the ramp, while handy at times, hasn’t saved me a ton of hassle and the barn doors would probably be better for the eventual camper conversion.
Despite the other shortcomings of the trailer, at least the hubs seem to be well-lubed and adjusted correctly, as are the electric brakes. The trailer pulls fine and it is properly balanced when empty.
I bought a back-up camera from Amazon. This after I twice got jammed up at gas stations and had to back up with traffic and people walking around. The back-up camera was money well spent. The addition of a bunch of e-track was also a must-have.
The only other semi-pro tips I have for you are to check and max the trailer tire pressure before every trip lest you experience a blow-out. Carry a jack that will work with your trailer. (I just store my full sized floor jack in mine.) Check the lug nuts for tightness as well. Once you begin hooking the trailer to your tow vehicle, finish the job without interruption. Don’t do it part way and then walk away for a bit. And make damn sure the trailer hitch settles completely on the ball before latching. Have at least one, if not two, spare tires for the trailer. Keep an eye on your hubs. I generally walk back and touch each hub checking for excessive heat during fuel stops. You will know if they are getting too hot. Use a tow vehicle that is adequate for the job - in terms of power, suspension, and braking. (Take the terrain into consideration.). Finally, a checklist for all this stuff is your friend.
ETA: When pulling a trailer, don’t try to drive like you are driving a Corvette. My truck will haul my trailer just as fast as I want to go, but I find going 65 on the interstate gives me fantastic margin of safety. I have also observed on several occasions that I will have the same drivers blow past me multiple times during the same trip which tells me they aren’t really making better time than me. On my last trip, I was passed by a murdered-out Cadillac SUV three or four times over the course of a few hundred miles.
So there you have it. That’s my trailer story (for now). I hope this helps.