THSCC Forums

I am considering purchasing a car trailer. I have questions and wanted to benefit from others experience. I have searched the board and gained knowledge about Kraftsman, etc.
Given:
Steel trailer pulled by a gas F150 truck
Extra D rings
Stake pockets
Removable fender
Questions:
1. Best length trailer to pull a 3 series BMW? 16' or 18'
(length not limited by where I will storage trailer)

2. Disk or drum brakes?

3. Brakes on one or both axles?

4. Leaf spring vs Torsion bar suspension?

5. Bias Ply tires vs Radial?

6. Length of dove tail?

7. Length of ramps? (car is lowered)

8. Best place to purchase tie down straps for car?

Any other helpful info based on your experiences?

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Gilbert

Silver 97 M3 Sedan ///MPWRD

If you read all the past posts you probably know I have a basically stock 16' Kraftsman full deck I bought new in 2000 and have been very happy with it. It's not fancy but it works great.



I have a 16' which works fine with the M3. I have never heard someone regretting getting the 18'.



Drum is standard and widely available for parts/service. Never seen discs on a regular trailer, I'd stay away ($$$).



I have one axle and would do that again. Fewer moving parts is good. I never have had a real emergency stop though.



No opinion. Leafs are the norm and I have no complaints.



I have radial passenger car tires on mine with probably 15k miles on them and no complaints. I believe there are some good reasons to go to special trailer tires but I can't recall.



2' is pretty normal. Longer than that and you'll be scraping the back end on driveways all over the place.



Ramps are never long enough. The 16' Kraftsman has straight pull-out ramps which are limited by the location of the axle and are 5-6' long. With the 18' trailer you might be able to get a 6-7' long. 16' trailers with 7' ramps must store them across the width of the trailer which can be a pain to get out. I have little wooden ramp extenders which I add to the 5' ramps. Works fine on a lowered M3.



Absolutely get the closed-end straps from Racer Wholesale, Pegasus, Discovery Parts, etc. Most of the race shops selling trailer hardware will have the good stuff.



- Insist a torque wrench is used to tighten the lug nuts if you special order
- Insist that wiring be protected wherever it touches a metal edge.
- Consider adding small casters to the back edge to prevent scraping sloped driveways
- I'll let others chime in on removeable fenders. Mine is fixed and I rarely have had a problem. If you go with a drop axle you'll need loose fenders.

_________________
Mike Whitney
whit32@gmail.com, 919-454-5445
V10, V8, V8t, I6, I6, V6, F4t, I4, I4, I4, I4, I2, 1, 1

Where could you get the small casters (like the ones on a rolling tool box) and how would you attach?

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Gilbert

Silver 97 M3 Sedan ///MPWRD

Per a similar discussion on another board, another possible local source for high quality trailers is Burke Trailer in Elon, NC (just outside of Burlington - http://burketrailers.com/

I have no personal experience, but Bowie, Jr speaks highly of them.

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Tom Freeman
'98 M3/4/5 | '93 Spec3 325i | '12 TSX sport wagon | '03 Tahoe
Team Silver Bullets '91 240SX

Gilbert I have aq 20 foot kraftsman, with a four foot dove tail and six foot ramps I use for my farm equipment, mini cooper and my C5 corvette. The vette is 4.25" off the ground. I have never regretted having the four foot turndown on the trailer. But then my driveway isn't as steep as Mikes.
Once your pulling a trailer it makes very little difference if its 16' or 20' prehaps some difference in backing but not enough to worry about.

Gilbert,
I've owned a Burke for eight years. It was new when GH Sharp bought it.I bought it from Tom (autocrossed a Vette) can't remember his last name.
I've loaned it to Bowie,Matthew Johnson and a bunch of people and everyone agrees it one of the best towing trailers they ever used.
It had six foot ramps that stowed in the side..kind of a pain ,but good for low cars. I beleive they will make you just about anything you want.
I would definitely check out their work.
Chris

Thanks

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Gilbert

Silver 97 M3 Sedan ///MPWRD

Like Mike, I got the 16'. Both my Subaru and Miata fit fine, but I wish I had gotten the 18' if only to make the strapping down easier, since the straps can't really be shorter than ~2ft long. I now use wheel straps on the rear tires to move the point of attachment forward enough for the straps to fit (I also use the rear anchors in an X pattern, which is probably overkill, but I like 'safe' a lot more than 'sorry')



I put drums on both axles. Mike makes a good point on less moving parts for the 1-axle case, but I wanted best-possible stopping power. With 2 axle brakes, I can't lock them up when loaded down, but stopping power is very good. A good brake controller in your truck is probably the best thing you can do for your brake setup. Tekonsha Prodigy is highly regarded and is what I used.

Most haulers are Leafs. Leafs allow axle load to remain balanced over the axles when going over uneven terrain, due to having a pivot point between axles. Most Torsion setups I've seen just bolt the beam to the frame, and the stress gets unequally loaded between axles. Maybe not an issue, especially if your load is easily covered by a single axle's load range, but a difference nonetheless

I upgraded to Radials since I've known others to have some issue with Bias (potentially not a Bias issue as much as a specific tire issue). My justification was durability and absorbtion of impacts from when you drop a tire off the inside edge of a corner (easy to do when towing down narrow county backroads). Hey, what's another $100 at this point
not a "where to purchase" but rather types of straps - I got the G-Force straps. Not the cheapest, but good quality. Put ratchet straps at all corners, don't bother with tie-backs (which are what is typically included in the 4-piece kits you can get). I didn't do tie-backs, but have seen the effort those who mistakenly did had to go through to get the car secured. Ratchets at all corners makes life easy, and only costs a few extra bucks.

I recommend getting at least a pair of straps with the integrated wheel straps - they can be used as regular straps as well and add a lot of flexibility to your tie down options.

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Dustin Fredrickson
-- I'm a nobody --

1. Go with the 18'. Usually it is a 16' deck with a 2' dove tail. It makes positioning on the car on the trailer a lot easier.

2. Single axle brakes will suffice just fine with an 18' open trailer.

3. I think most open trailers are leaf springs. I have torsen on my enclosed trailer and I really like it much better than the leafs on my old open trailer.

4. Radials, radials, radials. Do not skimp on this. Originally, my open had bias. I blew out 2 tires on the interstate. The guy had Just Tires told me to get cheap SUV radials. Had those on the trailer for 4 years and never an issue.

5. I think the standard is 2'.

6. Any ramp is a pain in the butt late Sunday night or in the rain. I liked the rear loading ones, slide them out and then slide them in (careful sliding them in, they will bounce back out). But I had to fabricate extensions for the MR2 or the Camaro to clear. Those were just something else I had to remember to pack and carry back and forth to the truck. Check the weight of the side loading ones. If possible, stay away from the normal construction equipment ramps. They are the ones with a huge gap between the rungs and the rungs are v-shaped. In hindsight, I wish I had a pair of custom ones that had steel mesh. Yes, you can have the mesh welded on....but that is a lot of weight to be carrying around.

I will admit, I love my enclosed trailer. There were plenty of times late Sunday night when I got home that I envied the guys that towed the little tire trailers. I still had all of the unloading to do. Now everything stays packed in the trailer and I have a place to sleep in at the track.

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Jim Pastorius
2008 Silverado VortecMax
1992 Camaro CMC#92
2002 BMW R1150R

2009 3rd Place CMC Mid-Atlantic Championship
2009 CMC Hyperfest Winner

Is the brake controller in the truck a difficult install (2006 F150)

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Gilbert

Silver 97 M3 Sedan ///MPWRD

If you go with the Tekonsha Prodigy, which is probably one of the highest rated controllers, they have wiring harnesses adapters for all models of Fords from '94 up, so they are very easy to install. - AB

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'14 Toyota Sequoia Platinum 4WD
Super Westerfield Bros - '93 Integra - LeChump Du Jour
STX 93 - Scion FR-S

I am trying to decide whether to install a spare tire mount on the trailer or just carry the spare tire in the truck.

If I mount on the trailer then where?

I am interested to know your experiences with spare tire mounting?

Thanks

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Gilbert

Silver 97 M3 Sedan ///MPWRD

I think "standard" is a vertical post up near a front corner, with the tire roughly in the same plane as the drivers side wheels. BUT, I have heard that this arrangement makes it haarder to see where the trailer tires are tracking (for parking lot maneuvers, verifying center in a lane, etc....) so I had mine flat mounted on the tongue. The only downside with this arrangement was that it made mounting a toolbox on the front of the trailer a little more of a challenge (since it had to be ~3" higher to clear the tire), but I'd do it again exactly the same way.

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Dustin Fredrickson
-- I'm a nobody --

How long should the ratchet straps be to tie down a 3 series bmw on an 18' trailer, if I X them? I see the G-Force 2" tie downs come in 6, 8, and 10' lengths.

Thanks

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Gilbert

Silver 97 M3 Sedan ///MPWRD

The Tekonsha Prodigy is probably "good enough" for most people, but the new "standard" in electronic brake controllers is the Tekonsha P2. Awesome controller.

My personal opinion on trailer brakes is that if you needed the axle for weight, you need it for stopping power, too. Okay, you obviously can get away without it at this level, but I like the redundancy and the fact that you're going to extend your brake life by at least 100%. You'll be happy you had it in an emergency, too.


--Donnie