Aluma Utility Trailer Thoughts? (1 Viewer)

[turbocruiser]

Fine folks, I was not sure whether to put this here or in home improvement but I am thinking about getting an aluma utility trailer for an all purpose trailer that meets several specific criteria. Does anyone here have any experience with these? Thanks.

 

[John E Davies]

Sorry, I don't have anything to say about the Aluma, but I have owned an aluminum trailer for about 6 years and if you will state your criteria I might be able to comment constructively about if you will be happy with your choice.... or not.

Here's mine:
Soft Road Trailer

There are other pics scattered around the website....

I know one thing... compared to when I bought mine, the cost of aluminum has skyrocketed and it's no longer a cost effective option if you are counting dollars.

John Davies
Spokane WA

 

[dingdong]

I got this one. Model 486.

I like it. I do nothing but abuse it and it follows along nicely.

I mentioned it in this thread

 

[turbocruiser]

Very cool Paul, thanks for that. I ordered a 6310 H which is 63 inches wide, 10 feet long and the H is for heavy duty. The thing weighs about 400 pounds, can carry 2600 pounds and will never rust, need painting, or need maintaining. It has the EZ Lube Torsion Axles so it will be wonderfully smooth ride without the need to R&R the hubs, wheels or wheel bearings. I'm glad to hear that you can abuse these things a little; I always associate aluminum as a fragile metal but the construction technique seems super strong. Thanks again.

 

[pfbz]

I realize this is a pretty old thread... but not much info about Aluma trailers out there.

I've had my Aluma 638 (single axle 5'x8') for several years. Very light, tows super easy, can fit three dirt bikes or two big bikes easily.

The trailer itself has been very solid, but the optional removable aluminum stake-bed style sides have broken several welds. I think it is partially because the ramp/tailgate secures to the sides in the up position, then has all the weight/vibration/bouncing pulling against the side rails. And I tend to take it down lots of washboaded and rutted dirt roads.

I got tired of paying silly prices for aluminum welding repair, so ended up just using some bolts to repair it.

Overall, highly recommended, but watch the welds on the side.

Here it is outside of Moab behind my FX4 EcoBoost with a couple of KTM's loaded up...

 

[Michael Lehner]

I bought a used Aluma trailer. It is a 7212 or something like that. It's a 12' with a bifold rear ramp. These trailers are nice but not indestructible. The high points of the sales info mainly state that they are not susceptible to the same issues that steel trailers have. The real benefit to me was that the tow vehicle could be smaller. My 2002 Honda CR V has 205,000 on it and a 200 pound tongue weight was about all I wanted to put on it. So I bought an aluminum trailer from a farmer and started refurbishing it. The bifold ramp was bolted together and had some steel incorporated into it where aluminum slats had broken away. I removed that and took it to the welding shop for repair. The ramp has aluminum 2X4 slats that are tacked to other components and bolted to side beams that are part of the floor structure. It looked like the ramp was overloaded and what gave were the aluminum welds. The weld shop fabricated the missing beams and welded all the pieces back together. The important thing I learned is that the trailer will hold together if it is overloaded but it can suffer damage that will be somewhat difficult to detect. Also, that bifold ramp bolts to two beams that hold the floor. Without the rear ramp there is no structure to hold the back part of those two beams together. If your ramp is removed, you must reinforce that back part so that the rear part of the floor won't fail. The next failure point that occurs from overloading is the underside of the floor structure. It is welded in numerous places and overloading can cause these welds to fail. The trailer can still be usable with these welds broken but you will notice over time that the trailer will rattle loudly when you pull it empty. Another potentially deadly failure point is metal fatigue. If you carefully inspect the underside of the trailer frame up front towards the tongue, you might find transverse fatigue cracks. You must fix these but they can be fixed. I also upgraded the wiring and lights, installed brakes, a spare tire, an aluminum equipment box, refurbished the tongue jack and eventually painted the whole thing with aluminum paint to restore that "new" look. It could have been polished but the front aluminum faces were pelted with gravel and very rough. So I sanded down those front facing surfaces and spray painted them. I also replaced the tires so I pretty much touched every single thing on the trailer.

 

[pengfinn]

For an aluminum trailer, Aluma makes a good trailer.

 

[Michael Lehner]

I like mine, but my post was mainly to say that anything can be destroyed if you try hard enough. It was fun for me to do a poor man's restoration. Now if I could just afford the OHV to put on it I'd be golden.

 

[AlaskanWheeler]

We just bought an Aluma 8X12 it's been up an down the haul road a few times, so far so good...

 

[Pleease]

View attachment 1495394 I bought a used Aluma trailer. It is a 7212 or something like that. It's a 12' with a bifold rear ramp. These trailers are nice but not indestructible. The high points of the sales info mainly state that they are not susceptible to the same issues that steel trailers have. The real benefit to me was that the tow vehicle could be smaller. My 2002 Honda CR V has 205,000 on it and a 200 pound tongue weight was about all I wanted to put on it. So I bought an aluminum trailer from a farmer and started refurbishing it. The bifold ramp was bolted together and had some steel incorporated into it where aluminum slats had broken away. I removed that and took it to the welding shop for repair. The ramp has aluminum 2X4 slats that are tacked to other components and bolted to side beams that are part of the floor structure. It looked like the ramp was overloaded and what gave were the aluminum welds. The weld shop fabricated the missing beams and welded all the pieces back together. The important thing I learned is that the trailer will hold together if it is overloaded but it can suffer damage that will be somewhat difficult to detect. Also, that bifold ramp bolts to two beams that hold the floor. Without the rear ramp there is no structure to hold the back part of those two beams together. If your ramp is removed, you must reinforce that back part so that the rear part of the floor won't fail. The next failure point that occurs from overloading is the underside of the floor structure. It is welded in numerous places and overloading can cause these welds to fail. The trailer can still be usable with these welds broken but you will notice over time that the trailer will rattle loudly when you pull it empty. Another potentially deadly failure point is metal fatigue. If you carefully inspect the underside of the trailer frame up front towards the tongue, you might find transverse fatigue cracks. You must fix these but they can be fixed. I also upgraded the wiring and lights, installed brakes, a spare tire, an aluminum equipment box, refurbished the tongue jack and eventually painted the whole thing with aluminum paint to restore that "new" look. It could have been polished but the front aluminum faces were pelted with gravel and very rough. So I sanded down those front facing surfaces and spray painted them. I also replaced the tires so I pretty much touched every single thing on the trailer.

Replying to a 3+ YO comment, but maybe you'll see it.

Thinking of buying a 6x12 aluminum trailer, primarily to haul (occasionally) my subcompact Kubota, which weighs ~2300# including the bucket and mower deck, in part due to my mid-sized truck's mid-sized towing capacity of 5000#, and of course because of the no-rust advantage.

My thought has been that if a trailer has a 3500# axle and only weighs 5-600# itself, that leaves me plenty of payload capacity and a total weight of ~3000#, which is ideal for my situation. However, beyond the load capacity I was already wondering about the durability of an aluminum frame. I'll try not to abuse the trailer, but is the frame (generically; I'm sure they vary in strength) likely to develop stress cracking, etc., from carrying a little over a ton?

Given your experience, thought you might have an opinion on this.

TIA for any info.