Stay away from this HF trailer!!!!

Ok so im writing this post to give a warning to all those who may have or may be thinking about purchasing this particular trailer. The Harbor Freight Foldable Haulmaster. This is nothing against HF or its products, im just stateing my experience. This trailer about ruined a very good trip, ill tell ya the story.

So if you were at NA's at Lake Erie you may have met the 3 people from Charleston, SC. Thats me. anyway we got up to there on a trailer that our sailing coach let us use for free so we cant compain to much... we kinda knew what we were getting. The first big red flag that popped up was FOLDABLE!! Automaticly this trailer doesnt sound good, but hey, we need a trailer with a 3 boat rack and he has one and is willing to let us use it.... ok ill go with that... So the second red flag was some rust along some of the frame... nothing new when you live in SC, all trailers get a little bit right.... We were assured by our coach that the trailer had made trips all the way to Rhode Island and Flordia just fine... ok ill go with that... still its a trailer and we are in need... So we make the trip up to Lake Erie with no problems at all. Couldnt have asked for a better drive. When we got there, unloaded the boats and had a great regatta except for one of our members was really sick and could only saild the first day and 1 race of the second.
So we pack the boats up and are heading home happy to be on the road and good on it about the event.... But somewhere in West Virginia I look into the rear view mirror and notice that the boats seam to be riding low on the left hand side....... Oh what i would have given for a flat tire.....

TBC... gota go to class

so...what happened, did you fall asleep in class?

No didnt fall asleep in class, just couldnt find my digital camera to take pictures of the trailer. So we will have to deal with the camera phone pics.

So we have we pull over into some gas station in West Virginia to check out the trailer. I go back and look at all the tires, they look fine. Hmmm?.... I take a step back to scratch my head a little and then I see it...... The whole trailer is bending!!! The the boat on the bottom of the trailer is no more than 6 inches away from the road. The frame of the trailer has BROKEN and the trailer is folding down behind the axle. Luckily there was a large grassy area nearby that we pulled into and did some repacking of the boats. We spun them around and put them stern forward and put them as far forward and to the right as we possibly could.... its was a quick fix until we could find a nearby Lowes. When we got to Lowes about 20 miles down the highway, the trailer was in even worse condition. about 4 inches is all that separated the bottom boat from the highway, but really if the the trailer did completely break, it wouldn't of mattered who's boat was on the top or bottom, they all would have been destroyed. We spent about an hour in the Lowes parking lot attaching two 6 foot 1" square steel tubes on. We jacked the back corner of the trailer up... attached the square tubes with some U-bolts and admired our handywork... We mannaged to get the trailer back to level for the moment. It got us home but the the metal tubing bent as well and when we got home the trailer was back to where we first discovered the problem. But had we not added the steel, the trailer would not have made it home at all. Back to the main point of this whole post. The trailer was a piece of crap to begin with. The steel is very thin and weak. Not what you would want to use if you are traveling with 3 boats. So buyer beware, and may your travels be more successful and safer than ours.

WHooooo Doggy,

Sounds like you got lucky there. nothing worse than a 3 boat pile-up on the highway to ruin your good week. So was the coach p-o'd that you broke his trailer?

Glad you had fun in my playground. hopefully see you next year at yours.

Not really. We saw a trailer for sale for a good price and we bought it and are rebuilding the sunfish trailer.... now we will know what we condition the trailer is next time we need to use it

To be fair, you really can't fault the trailer for certain because you don't know how it was used/abused before you used it.

Fred

I have worked on the HF trailers before.

I bought a new one and cut it in half to make it more narrow. The metal used for the frame is only metal in a sense, it is real junk and was almost impossible to weld ( and I have a degree in welding). I would never put a HF trailer in the water, and would only consider keeping one if I lived where there is no hummidy or salt (Think Airzona or New Mexico).

The running gear, axle, tires, springs, wheels and bearing are ok. As are the lights and coupler.

Im glad to be getting this much feedback on this topic. To answer Wavedancer's comment, the trailer is rated to hold 900lbs. We were well within the rating. And Memnar, you nailed it right on the head.... We took it to a trailer shop to see if he could weld it back together and he said there was no way, even if the trailer was brand new he couldnt weld on to the metal because there isnt enough MEAT to weld on to. Have the new trailer all swaped out... ill take some pictures .... If you have had any other wacky trailer incidents or stories, lets hear them