Trailer Toad

[jodiesel2]

I’m one of those guys who looks at Craigslist every day to see what my neighbors are selling. This Trailer Toad was listed and caught my attention. So I quickly did some research online about it and bought it. I have an older truck in excellent condition that I’ve owned since new. It has a factory 12k trailer capacity rating. The new toy hauler I just purchased, stuffed with all my stuff and water, weighs in at 12k. Which is also the gvwr of the trailer. When I towed the trailer on short local trips, I didn’t carry much water and was very selective of items I put in the front of the trailer to keep tongue weight to a minimum. The tongue weight was 1,350 then. Even with my rear air bags and an Equalizer WD hitch, you really felt the weight. In fact, I think you could feel driving over a bug in the road. She handled well and braked well, but the ride sucked.

Enter the Trailer Toad. It is rated for 4,000 lbs of tongue weight and 25,000 lbs of trailer weight. I just completed an 1,850 mile trip up the California coast to Coos Bay, Oregon to the dunes. I had the trailer fully loaded with 8 days of clothes, tons of food and 150 gallons of fresh water. I was able to put 1,770 lbs of weight onto the tongue. With the Toad, there is ZERO tongue weight on the tow rig. The toad takes it all. The tow rig just has to pull and stop. This allows you to have maximum available bed capacity on the tow rig to carry more stuff. It also allows you to have a much better ride. No need for 80 psi in the tow vehicles tires and my air bags were at minimum, making a very comfortable ride. In fact, droning along the highway, it’s easy to forget the 33’ of trailer behind me….

The Toad has its own suspension, so when it hits a bump, the trailer is not trying to rip the receiver off the tow rig. The tires of the Toad and the table top swivel on a vertically mounted hub. So when you are driving around, the Toad turns also, which allows the trailer to turn less on its hitch. When backing up, there are two pins that drop down on the Toad which locks it in place. The Toad has twin shocks on the vertically mounted hub, which control sway. The way the trailer handles and turns is different than without the Toad. It’s hard to explain. It’s just different the way the trailer pulls through a corner. It’s something that you just get used to after about 5 minutes of driving with it. Similar to the first time you pull a trailer, you learn quick how to control your load.

I am not affiliated in any way with this company. I’m very happy with my purchase. I think anyone who doesn’t have a 1 ton duallie for a tow rig could benefit from this device if they are pulling a large, heavy trailer.

[dtsullivan69]

I use one to tow my SXS behind my Ram 5500 with stock suspension while hauling my Host Mammoth camper. I need an extended hitch to get the trailer tongue out from under my camper, and I was worried about loss of tongue weight capacity, oscillation on bumpy roads, and the loss of payload capacity due to tongue weight. All that disappears with a Toad, in exchange for some extra care in backing up. I love mine!

[dodge_guy]

You also missed a great positive. There is an extra set of brakes in the toad!

[ScottG]

Worked for Lucy and Ricky err, Nicky.

[ferndaleflyer]

You drop into any large drag race and you see these everywhere behind motor homes pulling trailers with 2-3 sometimes 4 cars inside. In this situation it mainly saves the damage done to the motor homes that aren't designed to tow this amount of weight on the hitch. The man that owns Trailer Toad is a drag racer. Never heard a complaint about them. Passin through just dosen't gett it.

[Reisender]

Thanks for the post. Kinda cool.

[JRscooby]

Early '60s Grandfather showed me a picture of something similar except the wheels where driven by chains from hubs that replaced rear wheels of Model T. We started with front axle of wrecked C60, made 1 that mounted to the Jubilee Ford to move grain semi-trailers.

[jodiesel2]

befusj23 wrote:
Thanks for the info and just curious what vehicle are you towing with and what's the ratings for the truck trailer?

Not sure who you are asking. I have am '03 Avalanche 2500 that has a 12K tow capacity rating.

[Grit_dog]

Summoning someone from 5 years ago?
The tow vehicle is in the pictures. FYI.

[befusj23]

Thanks for the info and just curious what vehicle are you towing with and what's the ratings for the truck trailer?

[jodiesel2]

carringb wrote:
charge-by-axle toll roads.

You just reminded me I did have an extra $5 charge on the Benicia bridge.....

My ATV's take up so much space in the trailer that I have to put the chairs in the hallway. Which makes it impossible to access the bathroom without removing a lot of stuff. Now, because I have the full capacity of the truck bed, I can haul one of the ATV's in the bed and keep the chairs out of the hall. The wife will be very happy about this!

[GeorgiaJim]

It makes the trailer and tow Vehicle more stabile. It effectively makes the wheel base longer on the towing vehicle, so it is not affected by cross winds as much. I think some of the comments here are based on ignorance.

Not only is it more stabile, it preserves the trucks full payload capacity for cargo.

Only criticism of this particular design I see is the missed the opportunity to add an extra set of braking wheels, which would have shorten stopping distance.

I never towed this exact set up, but I have towed a wagon. Anyone who has towed a wagon , will tell it is a much easier tow, and better ride. The only disadvantage is backing up.

[carringb]

The trailer toad will add stability, not take it away, since the trailer ball is located over a set of tires. These aren't new, and have been used successfully is this or similar forms for half a century now.

The trailer toad really only has 3 main drawbacks:

1) Cost
2) Reduced traction. Added weight on the drive axle is certainly needed in some conditions. This would not be a good solution for winter towing.
3) Added steps when backing. It's too bad they don't have an electric locking option.

To a lesser extent, it could also reduce reverse maneuverability since it will scrub the tires in hard turns while backing.

As for legality....

Dollies are legal anyways, and don't require registration when they are empty or towing a registered vehicle. Trailer Toad claims isn't not a dolly, which is probably correct since it's rigidly attached, but either way it wouldn't matter except for maybe charge-by-axle toll roads.

If you want something to fret over... check out many of the home-made trailers being pulled daily on all roads. Many of these have no brakes, questionable structural integrity, and often no safety chains. Seem like at least once a year I see one in the news in my area, for coming off and going through somebody else's windshield. Or the numerous motoromes towing heavy trailers with 2-3x the tongue weight their hitch is rated for, often without the use of any WD at all.

[jodiesel2]

The Toad comes standard with 15" wheels and E series 225 ST tires. Optionally they can come with 16" wheels and steel fenders.

Backing up is not an issue. If you have to back into a space, you drop two pins on the Toad that locks it straight. Then the only pivoting point is the trailer coupler. The Toad adds 30" of length. When at a park, I'd unhitch the trailer and leave the Toad hooked to my truck. Driving around town with it you don't even know its there.

Here is a pic of the drop down pins for backing. They have red handles.

[Kavoom]

Let me tell you about the time out by Russell Kansas when that kind of set up got squirrely and the sway did the escalation thing getting worse and worse until all three went over across I-70 with stuff everywhere. We were stopped for like two hours till they could scrape it all up off the road. No one hurt but scary. I made a vow that day to NEVER tow more than one thing behind me and the shorter the better imho.