You put your trailer through strenuous work with so much carrying, storing, loading, and unloading cargo. All these affect its performance and durability, which can shake your confidence. But with regular trailer maintenance, you can keep it in top shape, guaranteeing longer life, optimal performance, and road safety.
Missing proper trailer maintenance essentials can lead to risky situations. Road accidents, sudden breakdowns amid delivery, harm to the cargo, or any other unexpected incidents can occur, leading to higher repair expenses. Proactive planning of the trailer care at regular intervals can help prevent these sudden high expenses and dangerous situations.
The best option is to prepare a trailer maintenance checklist and follow it sincerely. Whether you own an enclosed cargo trailer, utility trailer, or speciality trailer, keeping it in top shape ensures smooth operations.
This blog explains the key trailer maintenance tips for safe, durable, and quality performance on every road trip. Follow these tips and checklists for professional-level trailer servicing.
Why Trailer Maintenance is Essential?
Ensuring road safety and compliance with regulations
A fully-functioning trailer is what you need to complete a successful towing operation. Suppose a part is not functioning or operating at half its capacity. In such cases, you might face accidents, jeopardising your or others' lives, or vehicle harm.
If you catch these issues beforehand, you save yourself from such big disasters. With regular trailer maintenance, you can follow all the regulations on vehicle functionality. Moreover, you can have a smooth ride, ensuring road safety and fewer chances of injuries and fatalities.
Preventing wear and tear on key components
Trailers go through daily wear and tear during road transportation. Bad road conditions, sudden braking, different weather zones, and continuous loading and unloading can harm the trailer body in several ways:
- The brakes might not work properly
- Structural damages to the trailer body
- The paint might come off
- Tire blowouts
- Breakdown in the middle of the road
- Loss of control and injuries to driver and/or trailer
These situations can cause further harm, specifically costly repairs. So, it's better to maintain and repair it at scheduled intervals to prevent early deterioration of components.
Increasing the trailer's life
Regular trailer servicing helps with on-time problem diagnosis, repair, and replacement. By regular operational inspections, you can detect and resolve small issues immediately. Correcting these small issues on time can prevent wear and tear, leading to smooth functioning. And such smooth operations can lead to a longer trailer life. If you ignore them, these small issues might escalate into bigger problems, causing monetary losses.
Comprehensive Trailer Maintenance Checklist
You must prepare a trailer maintenance checklist based on your trailer type and the brand manual. It must be a scheduled maintenance guide including the following:
- Before every transit operation, you must routinely examine lights, electrical systems, brakes, hitch, coupler, and tire pressure. The proper functioning of all these is essential for better performance and complete safety.
- Another crucial point is the monthly inspection of tires, brakes, wiring, lubrication, and lights for repair or replacement.
- You can include seasonal servicing in your trailer maintenance checklist. This can be done before summer and winter to prepare the trailer for season-specific road and weather conditions. Herein, you must inspect the tires, trailer alignment, floor and deck, wheel bearings, frame, suspension, hitch and coupling, and lubrication needs.
It's not mandatory to follow this schedule, but keep trailer maintenance on track for quality functioning without breakdowns and damage. Your trailer maintenance requirements depend on its quality and usage. So, ask your vendor providing the trailer to help you with a schedule and manual on maintenance.
Top Trailer Maintenance Tips for Longevity
Tire Care
Tire care is crucial to avoid accidents or possible blowouts. Checking the tire pressure and inflation every time you start a delivery is recommended to ensure stable towing and increase fuel efficiency.
You must inspect the signs and patterns of wear that will reveal the cause, based on which you can take action. Any foreign objects, bubbles, punctures, bulges, or cuts on tires are also a sign of the need for repair or replacement. For proper road grip, it's essential to examine tread depth; if it's not in the ideal range, the trailer might slide on the road.
Brake System Maintenance
To avoid accidents, examining the working of the brake system is the number one trailer maintenance tip. Specifically, check them if your transit involves wet roads, elevated ways, or heavy loads. You must inspect the brakes for any indication of damages, locking up, or wear and tear.
To inspect brake systems properly, go on a small drive to pay attention to the trailer parts' reaction on applying brakes. If you see any of the following, it means your brakes need repair:
- One or more wheels brake more or less than others
- Uneven or delayed braking action
- Complete lock of brakes
- Faults in brake pads and drums
- Spinning wheels despite applying brake control
You must also keep the brake battery fully charged and connections clean to have adequate stopping power when applying brakes.
Hitch & Coupling Inspections
Imagine your trailer getting separated from the vehicle in the middle of the road during transit. Now, that sounds dangerous, causing injuries to the driver and other pedestrians and vehicles on the road. So, examining the hitch and coupler is a vital trailer maintenance requirement, including the following points:
- The coupling point must not be bent or dented and must be tightly attached to the vehicle and trailer.
- You must check if the presence of dirt, corrosion, or contaminants is disturbing the smooth operations of the trailer.
- Replace or repair the safety chains attached to the towing vehicle if damaged or worn out.
All these actions ensure strong connections that facilitate safe towing throughout the transit.
A Helpful Read:
Understanding Trailer Hitches: A Comprehensive Guide
Lubrication & Rust Prevention
Your trailer maintenance checklist must always include a plan to lubricate and prevent rust on all trailer parts. This step ensures all your components and moving parts are in top condition and do not stick and squeak much.
Greasing will keep the components from rusting. Lubrication of axles, hitch, latches, doors, coupler, wheel bearings, and other lubrication points will ensure smooth running of the vehicle / trailer combination. So, remember to lubricate the trailer components to reduce friction and potential damage.
Electrical System Checks
Inspecting the proper working of brake lights, taillights, signals, and all electrical connections is necessary for trailer maintenance. If they are not bright enough or broken, repair them; replacement is the best solution if they have stopped working.
You must inspect for defects, rusting, corrosion, and moisture in the trailer's connectors and other electrical items. Greasing of all electrical terminal connections keeps them clean and safe. You must also check for exposed bare wires, kinks, pinches, or burned wires that can cause shorting of the electrical system.
When to Seek Professional Trailer Servicing
Your trailers must be fully functional for efficient and safe transit. Regular professional servicing enables you to detect and correct faults on time before they become threatening. So, conduct regular inspections for repairs, do consistent servicing, and keep the trailer 100% operational. It can save you from costly repairs, sudden accidents, and abrupt trailer breakdowns.
If you believe trailer maintenance is challenging, seek professional help. Or, a better option is to reduce your stress of making and following a checklist and ensuring to cover all trailer maintenance tips. You can buy highly functional quality trailers with minimal maintenance needs from Trailershowroom.com.
Trailershowroom.com offers high-quality, durable, and safe cargo trailers, utility trailers, gooseneck trailers, and many others that can run smoothly with occasional servicing demands.
Conclusion
Remember the prominent trailer maintenance tips discussed above to ensure it performs to its maximum potential. See to it that you check tires, brakes, hitch, couplers, lights, and electrical connections regularly. And if you don't want to go through this maintenance anxiety, buy a well-built trailer from Trailershowroom.com with fewer maintenance requirements.
Interested in increasing the returns on your investment in trailers?
Explore Trailershowroom.com's wide range of cargo trailers, or call us at +1 877-458-7245 to share your specific requirements with us for customized trailer options.
