Trailer costs?

[Drew61199]

I bought my Chase 263 from a guy that kept it on a lift. I found a 10k trailer locally, but the bunks are not ideally setup (a lot of weight is on smaller front bunks and makes it difficult to get boat on/off). I've suffered with it long enough and want it corrected for this season. The brackets are rusty and carpet needs redone, but I believe wood is good (small front ones appear 2x4 size, so likely not expensive, but two large back ones no doubt are $$$).

There's really only one major trailer shop in town and when I called them today, they won't give even the slightest estimate. I didn't expect one for parts, but I just wanted to know "on avg, how many hrs does it take to setup a trailer"? Nada. All he'd say is labor is $147/hr and we'll call with a quote before doing any work. They have a lift and sling the boats to assist in setup, so no doubt it'll be correct, but how long does this take? 4hrs? 8hrs? I can estimate parts, but I'm just trying to figure out if this is a $2k job, $4k job, etc?

 

[igblack87]

I’m on the south shore of Ma. I had my 22’ roller trailer repaired: all new rollers and pins, replaced all the lights with LED’s, new wire harness, 4 new tires. &1500

 

[DennisG01]

It's really hard for them to say without having the boat/trailer on site. There are just TOO many variables when it comes to trailers vs the boats setting on them. Add in old age and the labor goes up - dealing with rusted bolts/nuts. They can't give an estimate for something they know nothing about.

Somewhere between 2 and 8 hours, most likely.

 

[seasick]

Having a lot of weight on the forward bunks can be an indication that either the boat is positioned too far forward on the trailer, the forward or main bunks are set up incorrectly with respect to height, or the trailer is the wrong size for the hull. The last factor is particularly true if the trailer is too long for the boat or the forward winch bumper it too far forward..
The purpose of those short forward bunks is to reduce too much 'droop' that can result in the hull hitting a crossmember and to reduce pitching of the hull when trailering.
So first task is to verify that trailer is sized for your boat.

For a decent tri axle aluminum bunk trailer with surge disk brakes, that would fit your boat a typical average cost for new one right now is about $11,000

 

[JJF]

Honestly, I think they are doing you right, by saying they need to see it first. They need to know what they are getting into. I could easily see them quoting four hours and it turning into a day and half (just the way things go sometimes.)