I'm ready to order my trailer. I was ready to order my trailer two weeks ago. I want to get started, already! So the day before yesterday, I finally called up Rob Mandzij at Iron Eagle Trailers, gave him my specs and preferences and contact information... and then I asked, "Could I pick up the trailer at one of the Iron Eagle dealerships?"
You see, the Iron Eagle manufacturing facility is way down near Portland, Oregon. Picking the trailer up closer to home--say, at the trailer dealership in Mount Vernon, Washington, that sells Iron Eagle
trailers--would remove almost a 464-mile trip from our to-do list. Considering Dad and I don't have much (anything) in the way of towing experience, that would be pretty darn nice.
Rob said that he does occasionally sell tiny house trailers though the dealerships and recommended I give the dealership a call to inquire about pricing. I figured, well, I'd already made one more phone call than I like to on a typical day--might as well make two.
So I called up the dealership and discovered that buying from them would add about $500 to the purchase price of the trailer. Yikes. Plus, as I've read on other blogs (like this incredibly helpful one), your chance of success and satisfaction are higher if you work directly with the manufacturer, without a dealer in the middle.
But maybe skipping the 464-mile road trip is worth $500? I really didn't know! How much would that trip cost, anyway? Time for my towing education to begin!
I buckled down for more phone calls. At that time, I figured we'd just rent a pickup truck with a towing package, since we don't own a vehicle with a trailer hitch, nor do we have any friends with tow vehicles that we could borrow for that kind of trip. (Hell, if I had a tow vehicle, I wouldn't lend it to me for that kind of trip!) But after my tenth phone call, I'd only found one measly rental place that would rent me a truck for the trip, and the cost, including gas and taxes, approached $400--and that's if we could manage the trip in a single day.
Ugh.
But paying $500 extra for the trailer, and still needing a way to get it home from Mount Vernon? Ugh!
Idea #2: Actually... Grandpa has an old Dodge Dakota with a hitch ball mount in the bumper. He has allowed us to take the truck as far as California--granted, without a trailer in tow. Anecdotal evidence from online truck forums seems to indicate that it might be enough to tow the empty trailer from Oregon. However, it would need some work beforehand... and people on the internet have been known to be wrong from time to time. And come to think of it, has Grandpa ever used that truck to tow anything? I am dubious.
Idea #3: Didn't Rob say at the PAD workshop that you could use a minivan to tow an empty trailer? He did! And we have a Toyota Sienna minivan. And Mom says she'd like to install a hitch on it anyway, to tow the little camper that she aspires to have one day. Could that be our solution?
After semi-failed online research, a totally failed look under the hood, and finally a visit to the Toyota dealership, we discovered that our Sienna does indeed have the "tow prep package." That means its engine was upgraded at the factory to pull 3,500 lbs. Way more than enough for the empty trailer! I shimmied under its rear and--on the third try--found the bolt holes for easy hitch installation. Looking good!
But that's the easy part. And cheap--we can buy the right trailer hitch for about $150 from Amazon and install it ourselves in 10 minutes, supposedly. The ball mount and heavy-duty hitch ball would be another $60, tops.
However, we also need a wiring harness, so that the trailer can get juice from the minivan to power its lights and--ideally--its brakes. The guy at the Toyota dealership said the wiring should be "plug and play," but we can't find a wiring harness anywhere pre-installed. Dad thinks the installation would be simple enough...
...But about those brakes. If we need the trailer's brakes to function, we also need to install another electrical gizmo called a brake controller. A brake controller makes it so that when we hit the brake pedal, a signal is sent to the trailer and its brakes activate, too. Depending on what kind of wiring the Sienna has back there, we might need to dig into the wiring all the way from the controller in front to the wiring harness in back to connect the wire that would transmit that signal. And that's starting to look like a job for a professional. And professionals are expensive.
...Unless we don't need brakes. The law states that a trailer doesn't need (functional) brakes if a) it weighs less than 3,000 lbs and b) the weight on its tires, when hitched to the tow vehicle, is under 40% of the weight of the vehicle. The trailer weighs under 1,600 lbs and the Sienna's gross weight is 5,690 lbs, so check and check. But the Sienna's manual says that trailer brakes are required if the trailer is over 1,000 lbs, so... uncheck. And my uncle, who tows occasionally, feels that brakes would be a good idea. Common sense also says that brakes would be a good idea. Duh.
But... is the cost adding up to the point where we might as well pay the $500 to get the trailer locally?
I don't think so. If Mom wants all this trailer hitch business anyway, we might as well get it, and if we have it, we might as well save $500 and pick up the trailer from Oregon. Plus, if we buy the trailer locally, we'll still need something for the short trip home--although granted, in that case, renting or borrowing would be much easier.
But Dad will be the one driving, and installing stuff, and paying--and he doubts.
Gahhh!
We'll see.
(You'll note that this post was written in a confuddled, disorganized, stream-of-consciousness way. That was totally on purpose. To, you know, accurately reflect what a crash course on trailer hitches, towing, and tow vehicles is like for someone whose mechanical expertise extends to checking the oil level that one time. ...Oh god...)
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