trailmanor closed for reorginaztion

Both of the trailer reviews in this month's Camping Life and Trailer Life were for "lightweight trailers."
Sure seems to be the trend especially considering that the forecast is for gas to remain relatively high.
TM should have a market if it can get its act together.

[BOB_STRONG]

In my own opinion, I think that it is going to be a long and difficult road for TrailManor to get their act back together. I see three issues that they are up against. For most people, price is what is very important. The TrailManor is way over priced for what you are getting. You can get another lite weight camper for about $5000 to $10,000 less than a TrailManor. The concept of the folding trailer is great, but having to open and close a trailer all the time turns most perspective buyers off. And the last thing is the quality issue of the TrailManors that had been built in the last year. They are going to have a difficult time with their dealer base since the way a lot of them were treated regarding warranty claim reimbursement or lack of reimbursement. Without a dealer network, you cannot survive.

It's a tough time to make it when times are good, but with this economy, people are looking for a bargain for their money. They want the most bang for their buck, and you won't get this with the high price of the TrailManor. Just look at what the retail prices are for the 16 & 19 RD models. The models are cute, but not $23,000!!!!!!

I have been looking at the RV trader site, and I cannot believe how many late model TrailManors have been traded in at non TrailManor dealers. In the past, I never saw this happen. To find a good used TrailManor, you had to look on the forum to find one. Also, there seems to be more units for sale on the form than in the past. Maybe it's just my imagination.

My best wishes to the new TrailManor when and if it happens.

[trailbiker]

My wife and i spent a lot of time looking at trailers this summer. We thought we would have to settle for an 18' foot trailer with tent ends. Most of the trailers in that category were close to 4000lbs dry and I felt that would be pushing the weight limit that I would be comfortable with. Based on info from various forums if we had purchased that type trailer I would have gotten about 9-10 mpg with my tow vehicle. I get 16 mpg with my 2027SL. It is lighter than the "ultralite" trailers we looked at and it fits in my garage. There is definitely a market for this product if TrailManor makes a quality product. If they try to compete with cheap trailers they will lose.

I think the biggest problem is not showing so much that a good product is being made but coming back and proving that they will be around for the long haul.People are going to think twice about spending that kind of money on a new unit and then wonder if the company will finally fold up and then no factory support. I worked for a coach manufacturer that finally went down for the count on the third time and it was not a pretty thing.

I think there is a market out there, but TM must produce a quality product. More Boomers with little or no towing experience will appreciate TM towing characteristics and ease of storage.

[Brittany Dogs]

The cost of my 2011 2720SD was perhaps higher than other light weight units on the market but I want to encourage the general RV trailer owners out there that for us, we understood that we were getting something that was not available anywhere else; a large folding hard side trailer.

There is an added price to pay for that and we gladly paid it. It is not fair to apply a price analysis on the TrailManor units, saying their units are much higher in cost, when you are comparing the TrailManor to a regular hard side unit. Using a criteria like "lightweight" or "ultralight" is only one of few aspects that is common to other manufacturers.

I wanted a large hard side trailer, that was light, that can still fit in my garage and on my backyard concrete slab for winter storage. Since a new HoLo was not available and it might have even been questionable if that would fit in a 19 foot garage, I considered the extra cost of the TrailManor folding 27 foot trailer, along with the unique swing hitch, to be a fair and reasonable price.

If you don't want those costly features, your options are wide open and you can look at a dozen of manufacturers and compare those prices. But it is not fair to compare the TrailManor folding line to any other manufacturer that does not have those highly unique features.

More than once this past camping season I looked at my 2720SD and said to myself "Self, this trailer was the ticket, yeah baby."

Lastly, my wishes for TrailManor to recover and figure out how to run a profitable and smart business. Consider some of the concepts out there such as lean manufacturing and six sigma. Work on the quality control. Don't sell to China either, they'll only make knock-offs and beat you in the ground.

[ThePair]

Hear, hear!

2720SL, largest open floor space available (remove the recliner!), hard sided no-canvas goodness, full bathroom, AC, fits in garage, can be towed by minivan.

Seriously, there was no question in my mind that it was worth every penny I spent on it, and still is! No comparison to other brands, not for my needs. No way to achieve the full package that we have, stored in the single, 3rd garage for the winter. Savings on storage alone will more than "pay" for the trailer if I felt the up front cost was too high...but, for what we have, I still feel it was well worth it.

...especially because my kids and wife *love* camping in the TM, and I don't know that that would be true under other circumstances.