loaned new trailer - broken axle

[gemini5362]

Well I sorta went thru the same thing this evening as you did with your friend. I loaned my truck and trailer to my step daughter so she could start moving. My pickup came home with a dent in the tailgate and both trailer fenders are bent up. I did not want to loan them out especially after reading this post but I could not be there and she has a dead line to get out of her old place. I told my wife that I did not want to let her have it and that made me the bad guy. So I gave in and now I am really upset that I did. And as most kids are she is broke with the expence of moving and getting a new place so I guess dear old Dad will have to take care of this too. I did get I am sorry. Still makes me mad as He@#.

I have a policy the only way my kids get to use my truck and trailer is if I am driving if I am not going to be there then they have to either wait till I can or else make other arrangements.

 

[patrick_g]

I totally agree with the author of the comments about the strength of the components in the chain of connections from truck frame to trailer frame. Is the receiver hitch rated appropriately and in good shape and connected to the truck properly? What about the draw bar, ball, and coupler.

I just took delivery of a new truck and went to the local trailer manufacturer's parts store to get a drawbar and ball. I had to paw through a lot of stuff but I managed to find parts rated stronger than the Ford Super Duty F-250 receiver (12,500 lbs) rating. The drop style draw bar I got is rated at 15,000 lbs and the ball is rated at 30,000 lbs.

I feel confident that the weakest link in the chain is the 12,500 lb Ford receiver hitch. I don't want anything that I buy and install to be the weakest link in the chain. If anything happens I don't want to be responsible for having installed the weakest link.

The jury is still out regarding the pin that retains the drawbar in the receiver. I couldn't find a rating on the ones in the trailer shop and the owner who has been building trailers for quite a while has never heard of a HD one. I will be looking into that. This trailer outfit sells trailers with 15 or 16 inch wheels and new or used tires. I went for 16's with load range E tires because I don't like losing a tire with a load.

My HD car hauler, rated for gross wt of 12,000 will probably never have much over 10,000 gross.

I never loan just the trailer! I loan me and the trailer, with or without my truck. MY fenders take quite a beating since not everyone is careful or good with a forklift. Lately I have been doing considerable logging and even I ding a fender once in a while even if I am careful. Unloading at the mill is unpleasant and the fenders cringe to think about it.

I also loan my tractor but only with me as operator!

If the business connection I had with a company made me so much money that I didn't mind them screwing me, essentially lying to me, and proving repetitively they don't care about my equipment, I'd give them the trailer and buy one for myself that I would NOT loan to them.

Pat

 

[rback33]

I am on the list of people that is a "borrower." While I do have my 3/4t CTD that I love so much, the only trailer I own is a 3 horse slant. If I need to haul a tractor or anything else, I borrow a buddies. Now this is different because.. A: he knows me well B: I have a Class a CDL and am a "permanently retired" truck driver. C: I have borrowed it many times before, have never damaged anything. OTOH, my grandpa won't even allow his own grandson to borrow his smaller car trailer, but he has had negative experiences like others here and is justifiably gun shy. These days he would probably let me borrow it, but it's not worth the hassle to me when I have access to others. The key is that my father and grandfather instilled in me early on that if you borrow something you bad better take it back in the same if not BETTER condition than when you picked it up. I have had to go so far as a tire for a different buddies trailer. Had a tire blow out on me. Now it was a lousy tire to begin with and was glad I was only 5 dirt road miles from home when it happened. I surely chipped in one of my used truck tires to replace it with. (was still the nicest tire on the old farm trailer) Just the cost of doing business.

 

[gemini5362]

I have a close friend that I borrowed his trailer while he was doing some work on it. I lost a hubcap and had to replace it. Another friend of ours borrowed it and bent the hitch ( really stupid accident) He bought him another hitch and the guy that owned the trailer had not put it on yet. I borrowed my friends trailer for something and decided that while I had it I would just take it and get a bulldog hitch put on it. We had talked about them and he wanted one but did not want to pay that much money. When he saw the new hitch he was pretty impressed. It feels good to borrow something and bring it back in better shape than when you borrowed it.

 

[AlanB]

And when you do that regularly, it makes it oh so much easier to borrow things from folks in the future.

I think at one point or another I have been on all ends of these deals. The answer for me is you have to look at each situation on a case by case basis.

 

[firemanpat2910]

No wonder some of my friends want to loan me thier stuff, I usualy spend as much time fixing it first than I do using it.

 

[patrick_g]

No wonder some of my friends want to loan me thier stuff, I usualy spend as much time fixing it first than I do using it.

Hey, I resemble that remark!

A friend loaned me a squeeze chute on wheels with hitch like a trailer. You remove the trailer part to use it. It came on tires I wasn't sure would make the 2 mile trip. It will go back on some very much better used tires I can buy at a tire shop.

I borrowed a 25 foot enclosed steel car hauler from a WW II vet friend and towed it to SOCAL and back to central Oklahoma. He had commented as to how if he was up to it he'd remount the axles under the springs to lower the trailer. I returned it with the axles remounted. I also gave his wife $ for 6 months of insurance on the trailer as they would not have kept the coverage when not actively using it.

I blew out a rear end in a pickup and a friend's wife came 40 miles to rescue us. When hubby (WW II B-17 tail gunner) got home he borrowed back a Land cruiser from his daughter and gave it to me to drive while my truck was in the shop and had a client of his come tow the truck to a shop. When I returned the new Land Cruiser it was freshly washed and filled with gas. The daughter remembered that for years, she just couldn't believe I'd wash it AND fill it up. (She was a California girl.)

When in the woods take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but footprints. When you borrow something return it better than you got it, even if the only improvement reasonable is to clean it up like new.

Pat

 

[Renze]

Yes, that's the nice way to borrow things. It gives you a good feeling when your mate or neighbor is happy when you returned the borrowed thing in better shape than you got it, so both are happy.

We have a neighbor, when you borrow something, he gives you a to-do list of things that need to be done before you may use it, ooh it had to be done sooner but no time, blah blah... so he allways knows a way to get half a day of free shop labor done on his machinery, for just half an hour of loan.

The same neighbor finds it handy to have the manure tanker sitting in his yard so they can use it directly, (we own it with 2 other neighbors) but when he returns it our farmyard after he used it, you bet it needs some sort of repair....

another neighbor borrowed a 3,5 ton farm wagon to unload construction supply from a truck that was stuck in his driveway... His Leyland couldnt pull through dry grassland and and the Komatsu 12 ton wheel loader that was called to pull the stuck truck out, dragged the trailer with a 10 ton load (300% overload) to the building site. the axle is bent and the bearings are sore.

Sometimes it is ignorance, sometimes it is... welll... a poor mindset.
I dont borrow to, (and from) just anyone. Only with those i know we can deal with potential issues either way, in a fair way.

 

[deere755]

Well I sorta went thru the same thing this evening as you did with your friend. I loaned my truck and trailer to my step daughter so she could start moving. My pickup came home with a dent in the tailgate and both trailer fenders are bent up. I did not want to loan them out especially after reading this post but I could not be there and she has a dead line to get out of her old place. I told my wife that I did not want to let her have it and that made me the bad guy. So I gave in and now I am really upset that I did. And as most kids are she is broke with the expence of moving and getting a new place so I guess dear old Dad will have to take care of this too. I did get I am sorry. Still makes me mad as He@#.

Well my step Daughter wants to borrow my truck and trailer again to finish moving. I decided the fair thing would be for me to offer to pay for a U Haul since I can not be there to help and they are a lot better for moving anyway and I would not have to worry about my truck and trailer. Now I am really the bad guy for not wanting her to use my truck and trailer and making such an offer. She is really mad at me and I figure if she is mad long enough Momma will be mad too. Do you ever wish you could move away and not tell your kids where you moved too.

 

[workinallthetime]

u-haul is cheeper than the body shop

try this
get an estimate on fixing your truck and present that to the wife and see how she feels about the u-haul,lol