Miasmatic Review

It's in my face, but I can't grab it.

For a long time now I’ve wanted to get a trailer for all of my re-enacting gear in. It would mean that we could go to an event in one vehicle instead of two, have plenty of room for ALL of our crap AND we could store our equipment in there between events. This is all very pleasing to us.

Today on lunch I decided to go check out a local RV center to see if they had any cargo trailers and to price them. We were greeted and introduced to a salesman that explained they don’t normally deal in cargo trailers, but they do occasionally get some used ones in on trade. The only trailer they had on the lot was one they just recently received on a trade in. It was a 22ft long by 8.6ft long by 8.6 ft high vehicle hauler.

This was much larger then I needed. Just for giggles I thought I would ask the guy how much he wanted for it. When he said $6,000.00 my jaw about bounced off the blacktop. This was a 2005 heavy-duty car hauler; it was in excellent condition except some logos on it. I know someone that bought a trailer very similar to this one new for around $12,000.00. I was sure I was mistaken; when I asked for clarification he told me the same number.

My head screamed at me, “BUY THIS NOW!!!!” Then logic set in. It was much larger then I needed. The thing was huge. It could fit all of my gear and Ktreva’s van in the back end! The salesman was good; he knew he had someone interested. He did his best hard sell. Almost biting on the bait we went back to the office. He even offered to knock an additional $500.00 off of the price.

Logic stepped in at this time, the logical part of my brain helped me to realize why this is NOT a good idea. First it’s more then I wanted to spend, yes it is a good deal, but I don’t really have the money for it. The salesman brought up financing. Second. Storage, I have no place at my house to store it. The Salesman offered up storage for a year. If I stored it someplace else it would defeat half the purpose of having a trailer. I wanted something that I could keep all my re-enacting stuff and work out of between events. I couldn’t do that if it was parked at a storage lot. I’d have to go get it, and bring it home every time I wanted to work on my gear. I’m not doing a good job of explaining this part, and I can’t think of a better way unless you are familiar with re-enacting. There is a lot of gear that takes maintenance, cleaning and repairing. Then I thought about my house. There is no way I would be able to back that thing into my driveway.

I have a narrow one-vehicle driveway. At the end of the driveway are a telephone pole on one side and a bush on the other. Then I live on a narrow city street. When people park on the street (which is all the time), two cars can’t pass. My neighbors park their cars on the street. They seem to think my driveway is a good central point to do this. I have problems pulling my truck out on some days because of how narrow the street is and how close to my driveway they park. Put an extra 22 feet of trailer onto that and it would take forever to get out. It was too big to park in the street.

All this weighed in and I opted to not purchase the trailer. I may regret it later, but for now I think it was the right decision. What really gets me is that after work the family and I went to a place that sells new cargo trailers and found out they want almost $3,000.00 for a brand new 12 ft long, 7ft wide and 6.5 tall trailer. Which is the size I ideally want.

I’m hoping to find a good used one that fits more of what I want. So far I’m not finding anything. From what I’ve discovered it seems that most of the good used trailers sell quickly.