Flatbed Gooseneck Recomendations?

[Peter Campbell]

I have been looking at E-bay doing searches under " gooseneck " There are variations in price- and some are selling pretty painted junk. It is hard to tell what is good. Are there any sites that rate the construction of the various brands? It seems anyone in oklahoma or texas with access to steel is in the trailer business . Buy online and got a ? for what you bought, go to a dealer and they see you coming. Some sites will give the specs but no idea of price, some are more upfront about price. I recently bought a Bri-mar dump trailer. Good axles, good tires, nice welding and stout frame - and cheesy wiring and lights. What is up with that?? Can't they get it all together at once?? If anyone has specfic info on trailer fabricators to avoid please post - Especially the ones that cheese out on the structure, welding and suspension.

 

[99guy]

I bought a PJ a year ago. I don’t use it every day but it gets loaded pretty heavy when I do. 24 and a 5 with fold overs, three. 20k axles. Construction is solid, paint and wiring a little less than desirable. Good axles, good brakes, came with the spare. It suits me, if you’re on the road every day you might want to spend a little more. I’ll be running mine in the shop before long and replacing the crimp on wiring connectors with solder joints and sealer.

 

[kevin1]

I live in southern oklahoma and your right everyone builds trailers including the company I work for. You will find that almost all of them here anyway employ the cheapest fabrication techniques and the people they have doing the welding have NO:MAD: buisness running a welder. The company I work for has all certified welders but if your not careful quality issues can still pop up. With steel prices the way they are buyer beware, corners are being cut all across the Fab process. My recomondation would be look at the gooseneck if the welds are small and done "down hill" stay away. ALL VERTICAL WELDING SHOULD BE DONE UPHILL PERIOD a 'down' weld will not pass code anywhere period. sorry for the rant it is just frusrating seeing the kind of GARBAGE for sale out there today.

 

[Wolffman]

Kevin1,

what part of southern oklahoma are you from. I am from the Tishomingo area, also what trailer place do you work for.

 

[QRTRHRS]

Poor metal prep!

Living in a salt belt, rust is a big concern for me. That was another reason I sold my Oklahoma built trailer after having it for only about two years or so. It was weathering badly so I sold it when I could still get a decent price for it.



I agree with Scott on the 5' tail dragging. That's why my next trailer will have no tail at all. I plan on going with a tilt deck to eliminate the problem almost totally.

 

[kevin1]

wolffman, I live in Durant right arond the corner from tishomingo in fact I live at durant lake,anyway I work at HayVan I am the shop foreman we don't build flatbeds but we do have people telling us that we should, thats not up to me. Once they descide to do it then it becomes my baby making sure that what comes out of that shop is built right, and that the design is sound, I will tell all who read this there isn't a trailer out there that I have seen built right. But I havn;t seen them all. (no flames just my opinion)

 

[Coalsmoke]

plenty of good trailers up here in canuck land. I've seen some pretty stupid things done to trailers and occasionally they somehow survived. But too many times they are made way too light (or missing brain cells on the desin team). Usually if I want to know about the trailer manufacturer's skills, I recommend asking the rep to explain the whole tounge / hitch weight proportions and where they should be for your truck. Go there knowing the right and wrong answers but play dumb. I've had a guy try to sell me a trailer with 27% weight ratio on the gooseneck hitch. It was great, 10,000lb trailer, weighed over 3400lbs and had a huge weight / fulcrum problem. Needless to say they are no longer in business.

 

[kevin1]

so whats the verdict which trailer are you going to buy? if you find a good one please let me know otherwise I will be building my own this summer they are really easy to build from what the trailer looks like.

 

[OCarney]

Haven't decided on a trailer just yet. Hooked up a 33' GN loaded with a 2755 John Deere, front end loader, and disk over the weekend, and the truck performed almost too good. I let my buddy drive, and thought he was going to buy the truck right then. There are some good trailers right close to home, and I have looked at the ones you guys suggested. I hope by mid to latter part of next week I will have one. Let you know.













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2004. 5 325/600, 2wd, 3500, dually, 6 gears. 3. 73, SLT.

 

[TX Gooseneck]

Thanks for the compliments Forrest and Dave!



If I remember correctly 90% (give or take) of goosenecks are built in the TX and OK area.

We use certified welders and are getting better at quality control - afterall, they are still human fabricated.



There are enough manufacturers out there that it is hard to know everything about them.

Big Tex is the largest (75mil + in sales)

PJ is 2nd largest but rely on steel manufactured in Mexico

Load Trail is a split off of PJ (The brother of PJ opened this company right next door to PJ)

There are dozens of manufacturers - Elite, EW, Texas Bragg, Cornpro, Kaufman, Pro Trak, Longhorn etc etc.

You also have the manufacturers that don't put their name on the trailer - stay far away from them - they typically offer options like brakes on one axle, faulty wiring, used tires, etc.



I know that Big Tex farms a lot of their work out to smaller companies.



When we started we used Big Tex as our watermark so to speak. They have been doing it long enough and really do make a quality trailer (we have owned several before we opened our company).



Our niche comes in the fact that we can and do just about everything. We are registered with SAE and DOT to manufacturer small trailers all the way up to 75k lbs. We do a lot of hydraulic trailers - tilt decks and hydraulic dovetails, we offers sliding axles and just about any option you could want.



We have sold trailers to individuals with semi's because we offer the same functionality at a much lower cost than the larger manufacturers. The only thing that we are limited to is 53' overall.



We're a small company, so when you call in it's a very good chance that you are going to get one of the owners.



Even if you plan to purchase from another manufacturer and just have questions about them, feel free to give us a shout we have quoted against most companies in the industry





Sean

 

[PatrickCampbell]

Originally posted by TX Gooseneck

Thanks for the compliments Forrest and Dave!



If I remember correctly 90% (give or take) of goosenecks are built in the TX and OK area.

We use certified welders and are getting better at quality control - afterall, they are still human fabricated.



There are enough manufacturers out there that it is hard to know everything about them.

Big Tex is the largest (75mil + in sales)

PJ is 2nd largest but rely on steel manufactured in Mexico

Load Trail is a split off of PJ (The brother of PJ opened this company right next door to PJ)

There are dozens of manufacturers - Elite, EW, Texas Bragg, Cornpro, Kaufman, Pro Trak, Longhorn etc etc.

You also have the manufacturers that don't put their name on the trailer - stay far away from them - they typically offer options like brakes on one axle, faulty wiring, used tires, etc.



I know that Big Tex farms a lot of their work out to smaller companies.



When we started we used Big Tex as our watermark so to speak. They have been doing it long enough and really do make a quality trailer (we have owned several before we opened our company).



Our niche comes in the fact that we can and do just about everything. We are registered with SAE and DOT to manufacturer small trailers all the way up to 75k lbs. We do a lot of hydraulic trailers - tilt decks and hydraulic dovetails, we offers sliding axles and just about any option you could want.



We have sold trailers to individuals with semi's because we offer the same functionality at a much lower cost than the larger manufacturers. The only thing that we are limited to is 53' overall.



We're a small company, so when you call in it's a very good chance that you are going to get one of the owners.



Even if you plan to purchase from another manufacturer and just have questions about them, feel free to give us a shout we have quoted against most companies in the industry





Sean

I wish I had buoght mine from you! Sounds like a good operation.

 

[EB]

I have been pulling a Texas Bragg for over 2 yrs. now and have well over 100k on it. Other than the wiring, (I rewired it with heavier gage) and a few bad welds, I have had no problems with it. I regularly pull 20-24k with it in the oilfields and have been pulled into and out of locations with a cat and everything is still holding together on it.

 

[Peter Campbell]

Anyone know about a company in Salem Ohio "appalachian trailers" Saw a used one on E-bay. Really do not want to buy new. But the used trailers are not much of a savings to getting it new. I am not into the "secret" price companies. And I am looking for something local that they do not think is made of gold. As in the "buy it now" price is 150$ less than the price new from the company. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

 

[OCarney]

Thanks guys for the input and suggestions. I finally decided on the Brute from Tx Gooseneck. Picked it up about 3 weeks ago. It is a 35' + 5' dovetail with center pop up. My truck handles it fine. I just finished putting water sealer on the flooring. Good pulling trailer, and I believe it will do the job for me. Again, thanks for the input, and I recommend www.brutetrailers.com.