OH_Whoknew

We're not shopping yet, much more of in the education mode. This forum and others have so much information about RV's so I was on a "sight seeing" trip if you will to see what I've been reading about. This particular consignment dealer has lots of brands, types and ages of RV's. MH's, 5th Wheels, TT, etc. One is free to wander about the lot and look at whatever you want, as long as you want, without a sales person in tow. And they're not too far from the house. So this particular trip was to look at frames, tires, windows, roofs, spotting water damage (which was abundant) and so on. To kb0zke's question, we didn't really look to see if it was on a particular brand, or frame type. Again I didn't crawl under them to see if they were U-bolt attached or whether they were loose, bent, damaged or other.

Also posted this on the Technical Tips & Tricks theme............... Is it very common that an axle in a tandem axle set-up will shift to one side? If so, what causes that? Wife and I were wandering about the local consignment lot yesterday to see what was available and noticed a number of used fifth wheel units where it appeared that one of the axles had moved horizontally and was not in rolling alignment with the other. I didn't crawl under them to diagnose or anything but pretty clear to the naked eye that one tire was sticking out further than its front/paired tire in a tandem axle set-up. Once noticed, I walked to the other side to confirm the same axle was offset in the same direction. We had to have noticed this on at least 10 trailers. And the offset was as much as 2" on one trailer. We didn't pay attention to whether it was one specific brand or big trailers or small. As part of our research on used trailers, I've been reading about frame construction, tires, pressures and all things durability but had not come across this. And I've pulled a lot of boats, moving, and utility trailers and had not seen this before. Also saw a number of wheels canted out at the bottom. Bent or had been overloaded I suppose. Easy to see in contrast with the other tire on the tandem axle. I would expect a fair amount of advice about having a thorough and qualified inspection done before buying anything used, but am more interested in the experience others have had with this offset axle observation.