Toy haulers are often put in a box as the enclosed trailer of choice for hauling a couple dirt bikes, ATVs, or whatever else gets your adrenaline pumping wherever your hobby takes you. In today’s series, we’ll help you see just how creative you can get with toy hauler trailers for rocking everything from campouts to tailgates with these multi-purpose utility trailers.
WHAT CONSTITUTES A TOY HAULER TRAILER?
A toy hauler is an awesome amalgamation of one part enclosed cargo trailer with one part recreational vehicle for live, work, or play (or a combination of all three). The rear section of a toy hauler trailer will typically house a small, garage-like structure with a heavy duty ramp door, features like a reinforced floor and walls, and any number of different arrangements for tools and gear that go along with whatever mechanized units are to be hauled in the space. On the other side of the vapor-sealed partition are living quarters where you can have fold out beds, a small kitchen and dining space, and entertainment area.
Most toy hauler trailers out there are offered as a fifth wheel option but there are also many other varieties including full-scale motorcoaches and gooseneck toy haulers.
The cargo trailer toy hauler affords its owner incredible versatility. Most of the internal layouts, such as those with popular ATC toy haulers, can all be rearranged to take on whatever needs you have for the toy hauler at the time.
ADVANTAGES OF A TOY HAULER OVER OTHER ENCLOSED TRAILERS
Enclosed cargo trailers are great but there are many advantages to getting a toy hauler if you need a multipurpose workhorse such as to haul cargo, create more outdoor living space, support your continued business operations during a crisis, etc. See our point here? A toy hauler’s main advantage lies in its versatility.
Let’s look at an enclosed cargo trailer’s purpose. That is to safely and securely transport cargo from one location to another. The interior of enclosed cargo trailers are certainly spacious and well designed for being able to haul heavy loads, but they aren’t exactly a place where you’d want to lay down and sleep at night, tucked in close to your cargo. The toy hauler solves this issue by having both a cargo area and a living area combined in one enclosed trailer toy hauler package. You also get the benefit of areas that can fold out for dining, as a living space, the kitchen, storage, and usually a restroom with a shower (talk about roughing it in the great outdoors).
You might wonder if a toy hauler smells like gas or other fumes. It certainly would if the design teams for toy haulers didn’t factor in vapor barriers and increased ventilation for the rear section where the machinery resides to keep fumes away from the living quarters. The floor material for the garage section also usually includes protections from vapors and stains from the engine oil and grease. Because of these and other considerations in the engineering, the toy hauler makes it really easy to get your offroad vehicles and other equipment out to the outdoor playground of your choosing, while affording you a well-provisioned, mobile basecamp.
A LOOK AT TOY HAULER TRAILER SPECS
According to Polaris.com, the 2020 Polaris RZR empty weight comes in right at 1,369 pounds. That’s a lot of weight for just one piece of cargo. When you factor in furniture, appliances, tools, equipment, and all the other things you’ll need to take with you, it’s no small wonder to see why toy hauler trailers need to carry a lot of weight. There are single axle toy haulers out there for smaller loads and pack outs but most all toy haulers have a minimum of a tandem axle setup and many triple axle options abound, as well.
Trailer specifications will vary greatly based on the manufacturer and the model you’re interested in. Looking at the 8.5 x 25 toy hauler that includes both a bedroom and separated garage/living area partition, standard specs you’ll see include things like:
- Full perimeter aluminum frame
- Tandem axles with EZ-lube and self adjusting brakes
- Recessed D-rings in the floor for securing cargo
- Screwless aluminum exterior
- Stoneguard front wall
- Stainless steel rear corners
Toy haulers do tend to be heavier but come in many of the same sizes as any other enclosed cargo trailer including 8.5 x 20, 8.5 x 24, and 8.5 x 28.
Renown’s Top Picks for Toy Hauler Trailers
When it comes to the best toy haulers out there, it’s hard to make any list that doesn’t have an ATC toy hauler somewhere on it. ATC’s are some of the best on the market with a solid all-aluminum frame construction, an easy to clean exterior, and high payload capacities with relatively low curb weights. ATC also offers some of the very best levels of customization available. You can even add and remove the modular furniture to make the perfect layout for whatever expedition you’re setting out on.
While the perfect trailer is hard to come by, ATC offers some of the most dependable and well made we’ve seen on the market today and we’re proud to recommend this manufacturer to our customers.
DO GOOSENECK TOY HAULERS EXIST?
As we alluded to earlier, yes gooseneck toy haulers do exist. Offering commercial grade structural integrity and greater cargo capacity, gooseneck toy haulers are the heavy lifters in the toy hauler realm. Because of their capability to haul heavy loads, these types of trailers are popular for transporting livestock and especially show horses to and from competition. However, their use is only limited by your imagination. Heavy hauling gooseneck toy haulers are favored by motorcycle and auto enthusiasts, ATV riders, outdoorsmen, vendors at tradeshows and events, and many on-site construction crews and skilled tradesmen.
HOW TO FIND THE PERFECT TOY HAULER TRAILER SET-UP
Enclosed toy haulers can be the perfect choice for those individuals that want both a large multi-purpose space and also attached living quarters. We’ve outlined below the three areas to look at to help you find the perfect trailer for your situation.
- Your first stop should be to ponder on how you envision using this trailer the most. This will help narrow down the category of toy hauler that would meet the most amount of needs possible, within your budget.
- This brings us to the second most important consideration, which is knowing your limits. By working with a trailer financing team like we have at Renown, you can know how much your household can reasonably afford, given your present financial situation. Getting the trailer of your dreams only to realize you can’t pay for it is a major bummer.
- Lastly, seek the advice of an enclosed cargo trailer and toy hauler expert. Our team knows trailers because that’s all we do. But just knowing your product isn’t enough for us, we want to be known as a dealership of integrity, doing the right thing no matter if anyone notices or not. We promise we’ll never put you in a trailer we think isn’t absolutely right for you just to make a sale. Ready for a new trailer buying experience? Contact our team today.