We've bought several used trailers, here's what we've learned.
1. The TT will never be as nice as they look in the photos in the ad.
2. You have to be willing to walk away even if you've driven 1400 miles to see it, yes, we've done that.
3. Take a ladder with you to look at the roof, take old clothes and a creeper to look under it.
4. Plug it in and try all the applicances, lights, pump, etc. Then try it with battery only.
5. Back your TV up to the hitch, plug into the TT umbilical cord and try the lights and brakes (The cords from the truck and trailer usually are grounded). You can hear the brake magnets buzzing if they are working. Or pull the emergency brake pin.
6. Wander around looking at every wall, roof and floor looking for water damage. Push on the walls, floor and roof looking for soft areas. Open all the cabinet doors.
I can go on and on, but you need to take the time to look it over and over and over.
I did get bit on an '85 Wilderness that looked pristine, but under the carpet in the bathroom (carpet in the bathroom??) there had been a real slow leak and had rotted out the whole floor mostly under the sink and tub, couldn't get under those. So I ended up rebuilding the floor. However, I love to repair TT's so I didn't mind. Every used TT has taken a lot of maintenance and several small repairs which, again, I love doing. I can never wait to get it home and start working on it.
Oh yeah, the 1400 mile trip was because we had been looking for a certain floor plan of the Trail Lite and Trail Cruiser brand. We have a weak motor in our '94 Suburban and since we had a 30' Trail Lite once and knew they were actually "Lite", we had to look for months to find one. We live in Blaine WA, (north of Seattle, up against the Canadian border) and found that there were two listed for sale near Spokane and one near Coeur d' Alene Idaho. So we packed up everything we would need to provision the TT we would buy into the Suburban (it carried everything that was in our TT). Drove about 700 miles to Spokane and found that both of the them were complete junk, unvelievealbly bad. Drove 700 miles back, decided to hook up existing Tahoe and go camping for the rest of our vacation. While at Grandy Creek 1000 trails near Concrete. We, found an '05 Trail Cruiser with our floor plan about 25 miles away from the campground in Mt. Vernon, about 40 miles from our home. Bought it, then had to deal with two trailers. Sold the Tahoe for what we paid for it within 2 weeks, because we keep our TT's really clean.
1994 GMC Suburban K1500
2005 Trail Cruiser TC26QBC
1965 CHEVY VAN, 292 "Big Block 6" (will still tow)
2008 HHR
L(Larry)V(Vicki)J(Jennifer)J(Jesse)J(Jason)