Catastrophic trailer failure

Was trailering my boat behind my 5th wheel last week(which I have done many times). 3 miles from Leech Lake this happened(see pic)

Trolling motor took the brunt of the damage(smashing in to the back of the camper). Some damage to the camper. The welds failed behind the safety cables, so they did not help in any way. Only thing holding the trailer to the 5W was the brake lines and wires for the lights. I was only going about 45MPH. I feel very fortunate, as this could have been a very dangerous situation for me and other motorists had it happed on the freeway.

I had it repaired during the week I was at Leech lake. The welder told me the original weld was subpar and was poorly done.

My trailer is an 2004 and I am aware my trailer is out of warranty, but if this happened to you, would you write an email to Ranger?

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Lucky is an understatement. Not sure what you can get out of Ranger, are you the original owner of the boat?

It’s a good idea to check the shaft of the ball as well (I know this is going to go the wrong direction).

A few years ago a friend had the shaft break off just above the threads. It may have been loose as one point but there was rust in the fracture.

Lots of load in the trailer hitch area. A once a year up close visual inspection can catch (some) of these issues.

Just curious because I can’t tell from the picture. Is this a swing away tongue? If so, I was under the impression that the safety chains were supposed to be attached to the main frame and NOT the swing away portion of the tongue.
I assume everything is “original”?

Even after the repair, I’d consider longer safety chains which can be attached behind the weld.

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If Ranger made it contact them. They will want/need to know, they may put a dealer fix out there for it, pretty sure yours isn’t the only one that way. The person welding it probably had his settings that way all day.

I had a 2006 621 ranger that the trailer wasn’t built strong enough on the swing tongue. One sleeve where the bolt that holds the swing tongue broke a chunk out of it. The top part of the bolt stayed in so I didn’t lose the trailer. It was repaired and ranger covered the repair even though I think it was out of warranty. It was a known issue, and they shipped new sleeves for the bolt and the pin to my dealer. Yours looks different than mine did but maybe it is a known defect. I would call Ranger.

Huntindave wrote:

Just curious because I can’t tell from the picture. Is this a swing away tongue? If so, I was under the impression that the safety chains were supposed to be attached to the main frame and NOT the swing away portion of the tongue.
I assume everything is “original”?

Even after the repair, I’d consider longer safety chains which can be attached behind the weld.

safety cables are in front of the swing.

walinutz wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Huntindave wrote:</div>
Just curious because I can’t tell from the picture. Is this a swing away tongue? If so, I was under the impression that the safety chains were supposed to be attached to the main frame and NOT the swing away portion of the tongue.
I assume everything is “original”?

Even after the repair, I’d consider longer safety chains which can be attached behind the weld.

safety cables are in front of the swing.

Definitely get them moved behind the hinge like in the pic huntindave posted. Glad nobody got hurt! Let us know what Ranger says.

My eyes tell me it wasn’t welded properly either. It looks like one side wasn’t properly cleaned or prepped. Considering is a structural weld that would cause catastrophic failure, they should definitely be contacted. If that had hurt or killed someone, they would definitely be held liable. That fact that it didn’t doesn’t change anything.

How far you want to take it is up to you but no matter the warranty they are still liable.

Any company that welds equipment that is under pressure or load takes on a huge risk of failure because weld failures usually put people at risk of harm or death. That fact that it was made to be used on public roadways I suspect that certain specs need to be followed to be compliant. Obviously specs weren’t followed on this trailer.

If it were me, I’d be satisfied if they covered the repair cost.

Wow! I can’t believe the wiring harness held it all together long enough to pull over. Pretty lucky!

Pat McSharry wrote:

Wow! I can’t believe the wiring harness held it all together long enough to pull over. Pretty lucky!

I was honestly only upset for about 3 minutes until I realized how lucky I was.

3 miles left on a 4+ hour journey. crazy lucky

Another item to look at on swing away hitches…. the bolt through the two portions of hitch. I had mine sheer the head off. Bolt fell out as I was pulling back into the drive way. Took out the truck tailgate. I now use a heavy wagon style trailer pin in both sides.

Here is a close up of the weld. very little penetration, if any.

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Just an update.

Ranger has agreed to ship me a new tongue jack and a lockable swing tongue pin.

it is all a expected for a 15 year old boat that is out of warranty.

Similar thing happened to my father’s Spartan trailer that carries a smoker craft pro mag 162. Except it wasn’t identical- he didn’t have a swing-away tongue his trailer tongue snapped in half between the two U-Bolts holding the post to the trailer.

Quick question- if you were by Leech, did you hapen to bring it to Barney’s welding in Black Duck? That’s where we went Barney is a good guy. Even gave us back the original tongue in case we “wanted to throw it through the window at spartan headquarters in Indiana”

Root cause was determined to be Spartan used way too thin of a gauge of steel on the tongue and it simply rusted through.

walinutz wrote:

Just an update.

Ranger has agreed to ship me a new tongue jack and a lockable swing tongue pin.

it is all a expected for a 15 year old boat that is out of warranty.

Thats pretty decent of them considering the age.

KPE wrote:

Similar thing happened to my father’s Spartan trailer that carries a smoker craft pro mag 162. Except it wasn’t identical- he didn’t have a swing-away tongue his trailer tongue snapped in half between the two U-Bolts holding the post to the trailer.

Quick question- if you were by Leech, did you hapen to bring it to Barney’s welding in Black Duck? That’s where we went Barney is a good guy. Even gave us back the original tongue in case we “wanted to throw it through the window at spartan headquarters in Indiana”

Root cause was determined to be Spartan used way too thin of a gauge of steel on the tongue and it simply rusted through.

It was not. I used a mobile welder out of Hackensack. Guy knew is stuff. and was way cheaper than I would have ever imagined.