Lowboy Questions

I'm looking at expanding my small one-truck operation and getting a lowboy RGN trailer. I found one on Facebook that I'm going to go look at in the morning. I'm kind of curious what people here think about the situation.

First of all, the trailer in question is a 2007 Trail-Eze TE110DGWS. It has an upper deck on the gooseneck, ag pull outs, third axle, winch, load scale, and hydraulic ramps on the back end. It was listed several weeks ago at $41,000 but about a week or so ago he dropped the asking price to $35,000. The seller says that it has rust on the frame but he doesn't really elaborate past that. The fact that something like this has lasted this long on Facebook at that price here in eastern Nebraska kind of has me nervous already because the rust may be bad enough to make it not worth the price. That's the obvious part but I am interested if anyone out there has any experience with these particular trailers to know what else to look out for, outside of the run of the mill stuff.

Secondly, a business partner and I are looking at purchasing this together. He farms and I run commercially. I already know that I'm going to have to license this trailer and carry the insurance on it if I'm going to be pulling for hire. That comes across as pretty straight forward but is there something on the liability end of things that I'm overlooking?

Lastly, how much pain in the rear am I getting myself into in terms of what I can haul. I know that as long as my cargo fits on the deck of the trailer and is within weight requirements, I'm good to go... but, if we go through with this, I'm very likely to haul oversized ag and construction equipment with this trailer. Such loads will obviously require oversize permits. Now, I operate intrastate and don't leave my 150 air radius. Even so, how big of a pain is it to deal with obtaining permits and such for oversized loads? As they say, is the juice worth the squeeze?

My business partner and I are only going to go look at the trailer tomorrow morning and aren't planning on making any offers, as of right now... but if it comes to it, I want to know that I'm not overlooking something.

Thanks in advance for any advise or insight!

 

Thanks for the insights, fellas!

We went to check this thing out today and it's going to be a pass for me. A "little rust" to this guy was a severe understatement. There was enough room to see under the trailer and the frame rails are rusted through. It'll have to be flipped over and repaired/replaced. The outside of the trailer had several spots with wholes rusted through, as well. All of the brackets and hangers for the brake pods, slack adjusters, and S-cams were barely hanging on. All of the slide pull-outs were seized up. I found on the trailer that it had a DOT inspection sticker from Minnesota, so that probably tells me everything else that I don't already know about this trailer from a little 10 minute walk-around. It's all stuff that can be fixed but I would bet it would take the better part of 20 grand to get it back to being road worthy. Even if the seller lets it go for dirty cheap, I'm still way better off spending 40 or 50 grand on something that's turn-key and ready to start making a profit on day one.

I already have a side dump trailer that has been doing pretty well for me, but it's far from a full time gig. I'm looking at expanding to help fill in the down time. We have a lot of farmers out my way that have big machines like dozers and excavators but they hire out the trucking for a number of reasons. I have a lot of contacts in the construction industry around here too. I think I would probably utilize a lowboy pretty well. I figured if I can get in on some of that action at a reasonable price then it could prove to be a good money maker. Unfortunately, today isn't the day. I'll be pushing the side dump business some more in the mean time and looking for other areas to get into.

 

My favorite kind of kill is overkill, haha. I like to operate on the basis of "it's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it". My set up with my side dump is a real world example. I have a tag axle on the truck and one on the trailer allowing me to operate at the max legal capacity in Nebraska. I know a few guys like me that have started out recently with only tandem axles and an 80,000 lb limit. They're always the last guys called.

I keep a pretty close eye on they online auction sites and have had luck there before. Buying new is not completely off the table but I'm also willing to wait for a good deal, too. The biggest hoop to jump through is convincing the boss (my wife) to spend the money when an opportunity comes by.