Just remember that with HF / NT trailers, you're stuck with their flimsy axle, little spindles, and tiny tires, unless you throw even more money at it.
Whereas, if you build or have a frame built, you can easily design to accommodate larger tires that ride better, wear better, and are naturally less prone to bounce.
Also remember that if you run 5.3x12 tires (like those on the HF trailers), you always take the chance of being affected by yet another tire recall, even if your tires are not the ones recalled. The 5.3x12 tire market is absolutely flooded with cheap Chinese and Indian tires. At least once a year, there's a recall on one or more brand and model, which eats up almost all, if not
all of the available supply of decent tires. It's probably just my bad luck again, but I've been bitten twice by recalls, simply because I needed a replacement when all that was left on the market was cheap Chinese trash.
The most recent example was this past Friday.
I had to replace the tires on the family trailer (pop up tent trailer) earlier this year (pre-Coronapocalypse) due to age and a large tread chunk separating on one. But, at that time, quality 5.3x12 tires were in short supply. Even the cheap imports were out of stock most places.
I bought what seemed to have the best reviews out of what was available to me, and figured I'd run them for a while until a domestic tire was available.
That trailer got its chance at its first trip of the year this past weekend, and made it only 19 miles, before this started (~1" bubble). It had a total of 22 miles on it by the time I was able to stop in a safe place to deal with it (~2" bubble). The remaining bubble shown in the photos is what remained pressurized
after I removed the core from the valve stem, and after the bubble had reached about 8" beyond tire diameter and 6" out the sidewall.
Only one used Carlisle 5.3x12 tire was found within about a 40 mile radius. The rest of the shops had nothing at all, or cheap Chinese crap; with one outlier having a "Hi-Run" tire (a "better" Chinese tire).
- bubbles.jpg (273.79 KiB) Viewed 3059 times
- bubble2.jpg (297.73 KiB) Viewed 3059 times
Minor note: These "Parts Million" tires are the same as some of the tires that were issued as replacements for the recalled HF tires.
The TD is going to run LT tires, common LT tires.
Aside from improved ride quality, I can get replacements anywhere. Even if not exactly the correct size, I can get
something that will be close enough.
kfh227 wrote:I've seen off road trailers. Where are people taking these?
Off road, mostly.
There is a certain portion of the population - particularly out west - that doesn't enjoy staying in campgrounds, state parks, recreation areas, etc. We'd rather find our own place, away from the people, the noise, the utilities, the generators, the smells, the AC compressors, the heat of sun-baked asphalt, the fees, the traffic, the graffiti, the abused equipment and poorly maintain facilities, and even the accessible dirt roads.
...The kind of people that work their way up a remote, overgrown logging road (when legal), look out from a mountain top and see a rough jeep trail around an isolated alpine lake, way off in the distance, and think, "I am going to be there tomorrow."
