Here are 10 car trailer maintenance tips:
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- Check the tire pressure
- Check the suspension system
- Consider lubing
- Inspect the brakes
- Maintain the lights
- Perform regular trailer washes
- Clean up the interior as well
- Keep up with the security
- Keep an eye for symptoms indicating problems
- Inspect the fame and body
Owning a trailer is a big investment, and it can reward you in the long run. However, it can be a huge responsibility in terms of maintenance. Therefore, it's essential for you as a trailer owner to understand what exactly you should maintain and what things you can do by yourself, and things you must defer to a professional.
This article provides you with 10 car trail maintenance tips to help extend the lifetime of your trailer and prevent dealing with situations related to major breakdowns that could cost you thousands of dollars down the road. The article also highlights the type of maintenance you can do yourself and the other ones you must send to a mechanic, so you don't cause any issues by mistakes.
10 car trailer maintenance tips
Maintaining a trailer can be a little more work than maintaining a regular car. The bigger the trailer, the more parts it has, the more it needs, and the more experience it will require to perform simple maintenance.
Our team conducted an in-depth review of all available car trailer maintenance tips and listed the top ones below:
- Check the tire pressure
One of the most critical elements that you must keep for car trailer maintenance is checking the tire pressure. Dealing with major damages in your vehicle's tires requires very high repair costs, and therefore, if you don't want to deal with these major breakdowns, you should maintain the proper tire pressure and tire inflation.
Experts noticed that their trailers drivers are typically busy, and checking the tire might slip during their daily lives. Therefore, experts recommended installing tire pressure monitoring or inflation systems. These systems will warn you whenever the tire pressure is not at the optimum level. However, it's very common that these systems themselves break down and require maintenance. Therefore, you cannot 100% rely on these systems unless you perform regular maintenance to the systems themselves.
Therefore, if you decide to switch to the tire pressure monitoring systems, you must perform regular checks to these systems, including:
- Check that the system is reading the tire correctly
- Inspect the auxiliary battery that powers this system
- Confirm that the valve is not turned off
By maintaining these regular checks to the tire monitoring system, you don't have to worry about issues or warnings that are not communicated.
Keep in mind that if your tires are fully inflated, and you still have tire issues, the problem might be linked to something else within your vehicle's components, including issues with the suspension systems, the shocks, the axle alignment, etc.
- Check the suspension system
Since the suspension system is more complicated in trailers than in regular cars, you will most likely need a professional to check for suspicious system problems. However, there are things that you can do by yourself to help the mechanic and detect issues before they even happen.
For example, you can perform a visual inspection and check for any symptoms of wear or tear around the different components within your air springs or probably the minor components across the suspension system. In general, you want to make sure that any component does not infer the suspension while it's moving. Otherwise, you will deal with problems and other breakdowns in the air springs.
Also, look at the air suspension height and confirm that it's even across the entire vehicle. If you realize that the height is very low or very high, there might be an issue with how the air suspension system functions. Therefore, you might need to consult your mechanic to take a closer look and provide you with additional advice.
- Consider lubing
Lubing the trailer is one of the critical maintenance that you must keep up with to prevent dealing with major damage related to overheating issues. When choosing the praise for lubing your vehicle, you must look at three main characteristics:
- The thickness
- The grade
- And the rating
Most grease used for lubricating larger trailers is based on lithium complex chemicals. However, some are based on calcium compounds. Therefore, it's very important that you carefully look at the base chemical used to make it up whenever you purchase your next grease. In addition, experts indicated that you could not mix two different greases because you'll achieve a lower grade and a lower efficiency.
When purchasing the grease, look at the viscosity level because it depends on how easily the grease flows during different temperatures. The viscosity is extremely critical, especially if you're driving in very cold or hot environments where Greece might be significantly impacted.
Unfortunately, not all manufacturers put the grease details on the label of the bottle cared; therefore, it's recommended that you consult the original in factor to get an idea about the main characteristics of this grease and which one is recommended for your vehicle.
You should consult your vehicle owner’s manual to get a clearer idea about what type of greasy you should use and the minimum characteristics you have to maintain, so it doesn't deal with complicated issues. However, experts also recommend that you consult your professional mechanic if you find it challenging to go through the vehicle’s manual.
- Inspect the brakes
Since the braking system has to do with your safety and the safety of people around you on the road, it's critical to regularly inspect the brakes and make sure that they're working properly.
To inspect the brakes, you need to look at two main elements:
- If your vehicle is equipped with spring breaks, measure the angle between the slack adjuster and the air chamber pushrod. This angle must be at 90 degrees. Otherwise, you need to perform brakes alignment.
- Check the drum thickness and ensure sufficient material could serve you until the next service time. Consult with your mechanic and confirm whether this thickness is sufficient so you can wait on the brake servicing until the next maintenance time.
- Maintain the lights
Since the trailer can hold some risks to the drivers around you when it doesn't have proper lights, it's critical to keep up with the lights and inspect them regularly. For example, if you find any signs of corrosion or damaged electrical connections around the different lights, you must take care of them immediately.
Repairing the lights is not a big deal, but if you think about it from the other side and calculate how much fees you can pay on tickets when pulled over for a burnt or damaged headlight.
- Perform regular trailer washes
During any trailer trip, there is a very high chance that you will collect a lot of debris or contaminants or probably deicing chemicals, especially beneath your vehicle's trailer. Therefore, experts recommend washing the trailer regularly to eliminate and eliminate all types of chemicals that could damage the exterior and get to the vehicle's metal structure.
Experts recommended that you perform a pre and post-trip inspection every time you ride your trailer. In addition, however, it's recommended that you watched the trailer at least once every 45 days and performed a thorough inspection once every 45 to 60 days.
Some contaminants or debris might get to the sensitive components, including the hydraulic system that primarily operates your vehicle. When debris gets into these systems, you are very likely to deal with major complications that could cost you a lot of money to get it repaired.
- Clean up the interior as well
Most trailer owners focus on the exterior and the structural components of their vehicles and completely forget about the interior. However, the interior is another critical element that you should focus on because any small hole on the roof or the sides of the vehicle can lead to major leaks that could cost thousands of dollars.
Therefore, keep an eye on any simple furniture damage or minor hole immediately before it gets much bigger over time and requires expensive repairs.
- Keep up with the security
Another important element when it comes to maintaining your trailer is keeping up with the security. Experts recommend that you perform a thorough visual inspection of the different security hardware, including the tiedown straps, the chains, the ratchets, and any other relevant components.
It's not recommended to wash the tie-downs to clean them up because they might grant to the fiber components and cause issues that reduce efficiency and workload limits.
- Keep an eye for symptoms indicating problems
One of the best things you can do to your trailer is to keep an eye on any symptoms indicating early problems. Experts indicated that whenever you notice any symptoms or detect a problem early, there's a very high chance of resolving it without needing to install major components.
This way, you can resolve the problems by very small repairs without installing things that could cost you thousands of dollars. In addition, there are many available online articles highlighting symptoms of a bad engine, transmission, catalytic converter, etc. Once you learn about these symptoms, you can detect major problems early and let your mechanic know.
- Inspect the fame and body
Finally, it's critical to keep up with the frame and body issues. It's very simple to detect loose connections or loose parts. You can easily use a tool to tighten the bolts and other loose fasteners to prevent major breakdowns.
Depending on where your trailer was made, choosing the right wrenches and sockets can be a little different. For example, American-made trailers use imperial sizing, which is based on the inch fractions. However, foreign-made trailers rely on the metric system and require faster and size based on the MMS. Thus, before you invest in an expensive wrench, ensure it matches your frame system.
Important don'ts in car trailer maintenance
While it's critical to keep up with the mentioned car maintenance tips before, there are some car maintenances that you should not attempt to repair because it requires a specific advanced mechanical skill set. However, relying on DIYs on the following components of your trailer can be very critical and can cost you thousands of dollars if not the life of yourself and the other people around you:
- Braking system repairs
- Suspension system repairs
- Coupling repairs
- Breakaway switches repairs
Some DIYs on the braking system of your trailer might be illegal in your jurisdiction. Therefore, you must leave it to professionals and allow them to fix the problem using the designated tools you might not have at home.
Furthermore, relying on simple DIYs to fix the suspension system might put your life at risk because there's a very high chance that you might get injured underneath the trailer. Instead, when taking the vehicle to the mechanic, they rely on specific carjack systems that securely ensure the vehicle doesn't move and might not fall on the mechanic.
Conclusion
Owning a trailer is a huge investment, and it can't get to a lot of value down the road. However, it requires special care, and without proper maintenance, there's a very high chance you will deal with measure breakdowns that could cost you thousands of dollars.
This article provided you with ten car trailer maintenance tips to help extend your trailer's lifetime and eliminate major unnecessary breakdowns. These tips help you identify problems early before they get complicated to help your mechanic resolve them without installing major components.
Wildly mentioned tips are great for enhancing and extending the lifetime of your trailer; your trailer might already be at a point where it's beyond repairs. When that happens, you'd better sell your trailer and use its value towards a better one that doesn't require significant repairs.
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