tarheelracer
New Member
After moving my boat across the country I have a review to make of the Karavan trailer. We moved 2 cars and a 26' Penske truck with 10k lbs of housewares and the only thing to cause problems was this trailer. During the first day of a 3000 mile move the trailer lost a rubber bearing cover spewing grease all over the wheel. This scared me, but the bearings didn't give me any trouble for the rest of the trip. Then after about 1500 miles, the bolt that locks the swingable tounge in position SHEARED completely in half. This alone could have caused a serious accident, but luckily I saw the problem. We were in the middle of nowhere Kansas and just happened to be stopped in front of a John Deere dealer who had a quality grade 8 bolt to fix the problem caused by poor manufacturing materials. However our troubles were not over. Somewhere in the middle of no where Montana, I inspected the tires and found that good condition properly inflated tires in 2000 miles had become flat spotted and pieces of tread had come off of the tire. Lucky for us we happened to stop 30 miles from probably the only Tirerama in Montana who happened to have two quality trailer tires in stock. The tire guy said that it appeared that the tires low quality. But the trouble wasn't over with. Somewhere around the Idaho/Washington border we got flagged down by a passing motorist who spotted this!
The winch support had collapsed, causing the boat to slide forward at least 2 feet scuffing the fiberglass on the front of the boat and allowing the boat to be completely unsecured for who know how long. We rigged up some tiedowns, because we were in the middle of no where Idaho and still had to make it another 500 miles to my new home. We also noticed spidercracks in the bow tiedown and in the starboard stern tiedown which were probably cause just from the strain of travel. I dropped the boat off at the local seadoo dealer to fix the fiberglass which hopefully will be covered under warranty. I am also speaking with Karavan trying to get a new bracket for the tongue winch. This part better be free because the failure of their trailer and parts could have caused serious injury and death to my father who was driving the truck, and it is ridiculous that a trailer that was purchased new in January would have tire problems, but even worse serious structural failures of such major things as the tongue bolt and winch support. I currently am moving in to a new place and don't have internet yet so that is making getting my trailer parts from Karavan difficult. I'll keep you guys posted as to how they handle the situation.
The winch support had collapsed, causing the boat to slide forward at least 2 feet scuffing the fiberglass on the front of the boat and allowing the boat to be completely unsecured for who know how long. We rigged up some tiedowns, because we were in the middle of no where Idaho and still had to make it another 500 miles to my new home. We also noticed spidercracks in the bow tiedown and in the starboard stern tiedown which were probably cause just from the strain of travel. I dropped the boat off at the local seadoo dealer to fix the fiberglass which hopefully will be covered under warranty. I am also speaking with Karavan trying to get a new bracket for the tongue winch. This part better be free because the failure of their trailer and parts could have caused serious injury and death to my father who was driving the truck, and it is ridiculous that a trailer that was purchased new in January would have tire problems, but even worse serious structural failures of such major things as the tongue bolt and winch support. I currently am moving in to a new place and don't have internet yet so that is making getting my trailer parts from Karavan difficult. I'll keep you guys posted as to how they handle the situation.