Anyone who regularly travels with a trailer knows how inconvenient and tedious it can be to have to hitch their trailer to their truck every time they need to move or reposition it. For that reason, electric trailer dollies have become a popular investment to make the experience faster, easier, and far more convenient. If you’re looking for a trailer dolly of your own, here are some of the most important features of an electric trailer dolly that you should pay attention to.
Electric vs. Manual Dollies
To best understand the features of an electric dolly, you should know the differences between electric and manual dollies. In particular, manual dollies may look similar to electric ones as they’re constructed of steel, featuring two or three wheels, a hitch ball, and an added handle. While similar appearance-wise, manual dollies have a much lower weight capacity because they lack a motor.
Because they can tolerate a heavier weight capacity, electric motorized trailer dollies may also feature treads for more heavy-duty applications and the ability to traverse more difficult terrain. Furthermore, without a need for a handle, motorized trailer dollies are often more compact and easier to store away and transport until you need it again. To control the motorized dolly, you use a remote control that allows for easy and precise movements without any excessive effort from you.
Features of Trailer Dollies
With the important distinctions between manual and electric dollies established, we can now look more in-depth at the specific features electric dollies can provide.
Weight Capacity
As mentioned, electric dollies can carry a far greater weight capacity than manual dollies, so it’s essential for moving heavier trailers like 5th wheel campers. Whatever trailer you own, the weight capacity should be displayed on the trailer itself, or in your trailer’s owner’s manual. With this number in mind, you’ll then need to ensure the model of the trailer dolly you’re considering is able to handle that weight. Typically, the bigger the trailer dolly, the more weight it can handle.
Materials
Because trailer dollies need to be sturdy pieces of equipment that will last you for a long time, they’re typically made with an all-steel chassis. Sleek and simple, this ensures the dolly can handle the great deal of strain, wear, and tear it’ll endure throughout its lifetime. This wear could come from managing heavy weights, traversing difficult terrain, or being exposed to the weather and elements.
The smooth and simple exterior of the steel also helps make maintenance easier, as it’ll be an equally simple process to clean up. It can be sprayed down and wiped off to remove any kind of dirt or debris the trailer dolly picked up.
Adjustability
Adjustability is a good feature to look for in a trailer dolly to accommodate all the different models and sizes of trailers. This adjustability helps compensate for the bulk and weight of your trailer, and also makes it easier to find a trailer dolly that will accommodate your trailer. An adjustable dolly is also a good future-proof investment should you ever get a new trailer with different height and weight needs.
For further convenience, the adjustment of the hitch ball makes uneven ground a breeze because you can make small adjustments to the hitch height. Generally, if you need your trailer dolly to operate offroad, you’ll really want to focus on finding these adjustability features. If you plan to use your trailer dolly on pavement where the height and terrain are consistent, you can choose a more fixed trailer dolly.
Balls and Wheels
Picking the dolly with the right hitch ball and wheels is an incredibly important factor. The size of the dolly’s hitch ball determines how large of a coupler the dolly can accommodate, so you should get the size and details of your trailer’s coupler before you start browsing dollies.
As for the wheels, many dollies use inflatable wheels or flat-free tires. But as mentioned earlier, heavy-duty trailer dollies will use treads to better handle any terrain and eliminates the worry of a wheel getting damaged since the treads replace them with something much more durable.
Benefits and Trailer Dollies
By focusing on the features that matter most and ensuring you have the ones most important for your needs, you can reap some additional benefits.
Save Time
Rather than going through the hassle of hitching your trailer to your truck every time you need to move it, a trailer dolly is a much faster solution that can transport or reposition your trailer in no time at all. Trying to maneuver your trailer with your truck can require a great deal of effort because of how difficult it is trying to manage both the imprecise movements of your truck and the trailer. You should save yourself the hassle when a simple solution is readily available.
Prevent Injury
Manual trailer dollies can require a great deal of strain and effort from you, which may put you at risk of injuring your back or other aspects of your body. Electric dollies require no effort, as they’re controlled by a remote control and have no trouble moving hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Affordability
While the initial investment may seem steep, finding a trailer dolly with all the features you need can save you a lot of money simply by saving you time and gas. Because the dollies are designed to have a long life span, your dolly will offer far more value in the long term and doesn’t have any running costs like needing to be refilled with gas.
TRAX Power Dolly is one of the best online retailers for electric trailer dollies, so we encourage you to start searching for your perfect dolly with us! We have a wide variety of models for you to browse so that you can compare the most important features in an electric trailer dolly between each model. Furthermore, if you require assistance, you can always get in touch with our experts, who can help you find or make recommendations as to what features are best. Shop with us today!
