Trailer Prices - WOW

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ontheplane

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Hi all,

About 8 years or so ago I bought a brand new trailer for about £2700.

It was 7m long and had a 3000 gross capacity, I added extra rollers, flushing kit and so on and so forth....

I was casually looking around the web recently and see that a similar piece of kit is now £4200 or so!!!!

I know a few years have passed - but a 50% increase over that sort of timespan seems mad - any ideas why trailers have gone up so much in such a short time?

I bought from Becktons (Formerly Parrymores) who now seem to have ceased trading - a shame as they made a lovely trailer.

I know of the following manufacturers

DeGraaff - pretty good, used to be good value - seem dear now
Hallmark, Bramber, indespension, SBS and Extreme all seem very dear

Are there any GOOD independent trailer manufacturers making a good product at a more sensible price these days?
 
SBS have some sales of stock from time to time if you are not in a hurry, but made to order is not cheap.rollers and swing cradles are v expensive but straight bunks and lower weights isn't that expensive?
 
Would never have anything but full multiroller again after owning one.

SBS are dear - £4300 for a 3000kg Gross - DeGraaff are similar money.

As I say, a few years ago one of these would have cost under £3000 - that seems a huge jump when most other things haven't gone up that much
 
After looking for about a year I bought a 3 year old De Graaff 3000kg for £2000, I was about to order a new one as I was getting fed up with looking as what was for sale was either no good or over priced as new wasn't much more.
As said above I aggree that roller trailers are the best after having 5 now I would never have any other type.
 
Yes, I think I'll keep an eye out for a good used trailer, if I then buy a boat that has a good trailer with it, I bet i won't lose much on the one I've bought and if it has a rubbish trailer I can swap over and sell the rubbish one.
 
Bergamot said:
Try RM Trailers ( I have no connection)

http://www.tex-engineering.co.uk/our-divisions/rm-trailers/
Click to expand...

+1 ....for what its worth , I bought my S24 inc trailer as a package so it was a case of "what the boat came with".. .. since new, its had 4 bearing sets, 1 brake shoe set all in 14 yrs !!!!...... cant say fairer than that !!!!!.............(also no connection)..ps. boat lives on trailer and at the last count its done 48000ish miles..
 
Am I alone in finding some comments in this and other threads rather incongruous?

Surely there is a link between lower prices and companies going out of business?

If companies are not charging £4K+ for trailers they won't survive. The same applies to lots of other products.

I'd rather pay a fair price and see the business continue, especially if it's English or Welsh.
 
Perhaps you have a point. I don't know why Becktons wen't out of business to be fair - although with a small workshop I think their overheads were very low.

However, at the time I paid £2700, DeGraaff were making a similar trailer for similar money.

My question was really, why have they gone up so much in the last few years - did the need to Type Approve trailers make them a lot dearer?
 
The introduction of Type Approval and higher prices can't be a coincidence.
Removed the opportunity for the lower-priced manufacturer to build trailers.
 
ontheplane said:
My question was really, why have they gone up so much in the last few years - did the need to Type Approve trailers make them a lot dearer?
Click to expand...

But back in the mid 70's when I worked at Rubery Owen we were selling type approved trailer running gear with EEC approval. so little cost bar paper work is involved.

Brian
 
It also shocked me when I looked recently. In 2009 we got a top condition used trailer for £700 and but now even ropey old trailers fetch £1500. Our current trailer (with all the bells and whistles for a 7 metre boat) lists at £5000

I have seen no change in the quality of good quality trailers so I am not sure that the rating approval has affected much.

Watch out for some of those Chinese trailers on Ebay at present. Some large trailers available at just over £1000 that look the part in the pictures but when you read the rating information they can hardly tow themselves yet alone a boat (750kg trailers rated at 1000kg total). Only look suitable as a yard launching trailer.
 
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