Comprehensive Trailer Buying Guide

Comprehensive Trailer Buying Guide

Know How To Choose a Trailer

How do you hook up your short bed truck? Short beds are increasing their popularity while decreasing their length as with the 2003 Dodge 2500/3500 standard bed at 6’3″. You still need the trailer weight far enough forward from your rear truck axle for steering control, balance, and efficient and effective brake and spring use. Pop Up has extensions for gooseneck and 5th wheel trailers. Read More…

#1 Gooseneck, fifth wheel or bumper type hitch.
The gooseneck trailer hitch, attached to a 2 5/16 ball in the bed of the pickup truck or the mini-fifth wheel trailer attached to a pivoting receiver with a king pin from the trailer, similar to semi-trucks, are usually attached to the truck 2 to 5 inches in front of the rear axle toward the cab. This puts enough weight on the front axle to steer properly leaving the majority of the tongue weight on the rear axle. This type of trailer is dramatically easier to pull, back up and control. Bumper trailers are for lighter loads. They tend to sway back and forth unless you attach a weight distributing hitch on the trailer tongue and are more sensitive to load balance. They are also harder to back up. With any trailer, having too light of a pulling vehicle can be dangerous traveling down hill or braking, the trailer can push the vehicle!

#2 Tandem, double or triple axles.
It all depends on use. For heavy loads triple axles are cheaper than tandems, but are harder on your tires unless you never turn corners. When you turn corners with triple axles the front tire and the rear tire flex their sidewalls extremely. It can pop the tire beads under a heavy load. Not to mention the pressure on the wheel bearings. I had trailer house axles for awhile under my 33 foot hay trailer. The tires on trailer house axles are touchy. I had to have at least 90 psi of air in them to keep them from heating and disintegrating. I found some 6 bolt Chevy wheels that matched the spindle bearings. That was an improvement! When I bought my first new gooseneck 32 foot flatbed, I made sure it had 8 bolt wheels to match my pickup wheels. You can never have enough spare tires and it’s nice to have the trailer and truck use the same spares.