Try to deal with a manufacturer directly. If you are just hauling one tractor, a tilt bed might make sense. If you are going to haul a tractor and say a riding mower then that won't work. There are tons of options that drive a price up . Spare tire and mount, rails along the front, or both sides (with one side up front removable for fork lift loads), tilt down or removable fenders on left side if you want to be able to get in and out of a loaded car easier, a winch mount for the front so you can use the type of electric winch that mounts in a trailer receiver bracket, built in tool boxes, stake pockets, complete row of D-ring (for example) tie downs every 2 feet; a tube mount pocket(s) with or without a removable pole mounted swinging boom. You may want to haul all kinds of loose stuff, attachments etc, and having the typical keep-the-price-down 2 tie downs is a pain in the butt. If you go with a narrower then normal 8.6" trailer it is a tiny bit more maneuverable but impossible to use hauling many low cars. This can make the trailer harder to sell later even if you don't need the feature.
If you are already at the high end of the load are you SURE you never want anything else on it? A 10,000 GVW trailer is not that much more. Are you SURE you want a 16 foot? That missing 2 or 4 feet may ruin your day in the future. Are you going to be using the trailer unloaded?, like driving to get a car or without your tractor? Trailers can really throw your guts around sometimes when they are empty, you can have "dexter" or the like rubber spring setups installed, like the nice horse trailers and some camping trailers have.
I like electric brakes, if your truck brakes are screwed up you might not be able to slow the thing down enough to make the surge brakes work. My eperience with surge brakes (granted rental trailers can be crap) were usually a white knuckle experience. Electric brakes are adjustable from the drivers seat, and can be used independently of the tow vehicles brakes to take out any fishtailing.
Most fishtailing is caused by the trailer not having 10-15% of its weight on the tow hitch, sometimes it's just tough to do this depending on what you are hauling. I've always used weight distributing hitches where you have two spring bars going from the tow hitch to the trailer, and an adjustable sway control bar running to the trailer too. Takes a bit to know how to set them but have never had a sway problem (knock on simulated wood grain)
Short wheel base vehicles will also be much more unpleasant to tow with depending on the load. Of course you're dealing with a BX, I'll probably put my BX on the same trailer that can haul my L35 and my JD mower.
I'm not one to be condescending to if you know all this just skip. Tow ratings from manufacturers just mean if you tow that weight and blow the transmission or engine the warranty will cover it. That's all it means. It does not mean you will not be scared out of your mind or not be thrown around in your truck or not hold up traffic for 5 miles trying to go 25mph. These truck salesman as a group NEVER have towed ANYTHING. They will just look at a chart and say, "YEP, THAT RIG WILL TOW THAT!"
My 1/2 ton Ford Van was rated to tow my Ford NH tractor and trailer, what a nightmare. Ran with the heater on all the time to keep it cool (even had the tow package). Went SLOW. Carbureated 351.
Switched to a 3/4 Ton Ford Pickup Extended Cap 460. The truck knew the tractor was back there but definitely was an easy-on-the-blood-pressure machine. Most Tow packages include extra transmission and engine cooling capabilities. If you have a fairly late model vehicle you may have a sticker in the glove box showing all the order codes the truck came with. It makes it great when you are looking at a used truck to check for tow package, LS rear end, rear end ratio etc. Once you figure out the codes you will be surprised how many salesman go blank when you tell them that the truck on their lot has or doesn't have what you want...
"How do you know that?" I heard that quite often.
Now have the equivalent in a Chevy which means I also have a truck I can use empty without having to push my spleen back in place after I drive it.
/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
DEL
