When it comes to increasing the lifespan of things you use, nothing beats regular maintenance. Regular maintenance of your trailer is essential to ensure the longevity of the trailer, as well as ensuring that the rate of accidents on the driveway reduces drastically. From statistics, an overwhelming percentage of death on the highway is caused by trailer accidents. And trailers malfunction due to poor maintenance.
Before taking your trailer out there, ensure that the trailer and its various body parts are in sound working condition. If there is a worn or broken part of your trailer that needs to be fixed, your duty is to fix these parts before you embark on a journey. Broken or trailer parts that are worn out can cause the trailer to lose control during driving and death or injury is imminent. After any suffered impact or accident of your trailer, it is highly advisable to have your trailer inspected professionally.
You must take it as your responsibility to maintain, inspect, and service your trailer as regularly as you can to be sure of the safety and reliable working condition of the trailer. If you don’t know how to perform a thorough trailer inspection, then you can hire a professional to do it for you at a relatively low cost. You can use the service of trailer inspection near me to locate a professional trailer inspector that is very close to you.
In addition, you can as well endeavor to always check the manual that came with the trailer when you bought it. This will teach you some maintenance tips and tricks.
Preparing trailer for serious maintenance and inspection
To make your trailer ready for maintenance and inspection, it is essential that you jack up the trailer first. To jack up a trailer, follow the steps below;
- Park your trailer on level ground in a safe place.
- The user manual that accompanied the trailer from the manufacturer usually contains suggested jacking points. However, if your trailer does not come with this instruction, you can just place the jack and jack stand under the frame rail (located on the outside) to which the axles have been attached. In fact, some trailers have been built with attached jack stands at the necessary place.
- Ensure that the jacks are clear of the brake lines, wirings, and suspension part including torsion bars and springs.
- Do not make use of your trailer’s axle for support.
- Never touch the hydraulic tubing or the wiring.
- Do not crawl under the trailer unless the trailer is supported on secured and properly positioned jack stands on level ground.
- If you are working on one side of your trailer, make sure that the wheel on the opposite side has been blocked before you jack the trailer.
- If you wish to remove the tire, make sure that you loosen the wheel nuts before the tire gets off the level ground.
Just the way a car needs proper maintenance to function well, trailers also have a maintenance schedule that you will need to follow for decent operation. However, if you can’t find the user manual of your trailer to check how the frequency with which your trailer needs to be maintained, just take it like you need to be carrying out routine maintenance at least once in every six (6) months.
However, manufacturers advise that some trailer functions such as tire pressure, wheel torque, and breakaway must be checked every now and then.
Checklist for trailer maintenance
If you don’t know where to start first with your trailer inspection, there are two (2) options available for you. The first option is to carry your trailer to a repair (service) center so that they can help you inspect it and figure out what is wrong. For trailer users that can’t tell when there is a fault with their trailer or that don’t know how to adjust brakes for their trailer, this seems like the best option.
However, for trailer users who are planning to save extra dollars, you can just incorporate a trailer maintenance checklist. Although, most trailer manufacturers have their own checklist, however, you can use a checklist of another trailer for yours so far, they have the same body part.
Grease your trailer as often as you can
One key part that affects the frequency with which you can grease your trailer wheel is actually the size of your trailer. If your trailer is just a small travel trailer, you should try and grease the wheel every two thousand miles.
However, for most trailers, it is advised that you grease for every ten thousand to twelve thousand miles.
Conclusion
If your aim is to increase the longevity of your trailer, then it is very important that you inculcate a good maintenance habit. Also, regular maintenance helps to reduce accidents caused by trailers.