Dear trailer manufacturers

[john_bud]

Why on earth are you down there greasing them every 3-5k miles? Seems more than a bit excessive. There has been more than one occasion that 3k wouldn't even make it through a trip.

On both of my trailers the bearings are identical to the ones on the front of my truck; tapered roller with a grease seal. I do them once a year just to be through, but I suspect they could go longer without issue.

Yeah, now that you mention it, I checked my records this spring and found that I had skipped bearing greasing on my big trailer - twice. OOPS! That made 3 years with out doing more than grabbing the hubs at each stop to check for heat. When I did them, they were still nice but needed to be repacked. That was about 15-18k miles. Not a lot for some, but still...


And I agree - the inventor of scotch-locks should have to crawl under every trailer with a corroded connection in the winter, in the snow, at night when it's -20f and the wind is howling to fix them!! All of the electrical connections I do are inside the lamp housings and straight run wires. I don't have to worry about lights not working that way.


jb

 

[madpogue]

The previous owner of my wife's truck trailered with it. All the old Scotchlocks were still there, gradually cutting thru the wiring on the TRUCK side. We couldn't figure out why she kept randomly blowing fuses, etc. I spent a coupla evenings in the rain under the back bumper, eventually rebuilding EVERY wire under there.

Best option on the tow vehicle side is a "T" connector. It's a sealed, three-way harness with one male and one female connector that mates to the car's rear-end wiring, and a standard trailer connector on the "third" end.

Oh, and a P.S. to the trailer mfrs: while you're at it, come up with a standard lighting system and connector pinout for separate turn signals, since most cars nowadays have them, so we don't have to rig in one of those silly converters.