Aluminum hotshot trailers?

We used one at one of my jobs years back to haul agricultural fence building supplies. The welds cracked alot. It was a good name brand too. Never overloaded or abused it. The owner sold it and only uses steel now. However, that was 13 years ago.

 

Wouldnt use an aluminum trailer, Just based off my experiences with my 48 foot flatbed. Doesnt take much force to crack welds on stake pockets. Not real happy in general with aluminum trailers.

 

All depends on WHAT aluminum trailer you have, a GOOD aluminum trailer won't have welds, it will be riveted or bolted together. Over the years I have had Chapperal build me over a dozen ALL aluminum trailers.

Right now I am still running 6 2005 custom build Chapperals, NEVER a problem and we average OVER 150,000 per year, per truck.

Problem is that Chapperal sold out 5 years ago, and they were NOT CHEAP to buy!

 

150,000 miles per truck??? sounds like you have a surplus of freight.....

 

We do stay busy 8 trucks average over 1.2 million miles a year. I am just now replacing the axles under my trailers, but at over a million miles per trailer, I can't complain.

 

Wow, thats good....Glad to hear you folks are staying busy, wish I could say the same!

 

IF you really want to be slick, take an F-650 and stretch it so that you have enough room for an 30' ALUM bed, put a rack over the cab (cab height on those is only 88") so any car will fit and then put two cars on the back. Your truck should come in at about 14,000 and three cars at 4,000 per car will put you right at 26,000 or less.

Even a 3500 dually w/diesel is going to weigh about 8,000 plus a 7,000 trailer and you will have to find SMALL cars to make it work, to be honest, I think you will be over 26,000 more than you think, or you will be running around with only two cars alot.

Nice thing about what I mentioned is that you will only have to insure and register ONE VEHICLE. And it WILL get better mileage that pulling a trailer around, also you will save a ton on maintenance. Think of it as a small 5 pack, we ran 4 Sterlings back in 2001 set up like that and did ok.

Now, can you make any money with this setup nowaday's? I think a lot depends on where you live and what you can find to haul.