Hi all
I am after some advice, im looking at getting a skel, however im not sure of the pros and cons of renting one compared to buying one,
I have seen one for sale starting at the £2000 mark, but I take these are more or less at the end of their lives otherwise they would not be sold off.
If my memory serves me right, I have seen the trailers for rent with people like collease for something like £50-90 per week?
It is more beneficial to own as at £50-90 pw it would soon mount up to the price of buying ( at £2000 or so)
I`ve done both, and renting is the easier/cheaper option [IMO]…
The problem with containers, is you will at some stage change your “customer”, it goes with the territory
And, you could end up working on a drop+swop job, where their trailers are required, or on a job where the “job” knocks the back out of the kit, so their brand new kit gets knocked about and not your old knacker [@ £2k it will be an old knacker]
Lease it. I know renting is sometimes seen as being “dead money”, but it takes all the maintenance burden away, and if your circumstances change, just hand it back.
I would buy personally if you are going to keep it for the longer term. Why would the £2k trailer be at the end of its life? What would it need to keep it going?
hubman:
renting would be easier however if you have trailer over a long period then it would be cheaper, but what is the cost of the new skell trailer?
The insurance brokers I got a rough quote off of estimated the cost of a Maritime brand new skel - sliding skell, safe-park, soft-docking et-all at £25k.
Or you could buy the old £2k one, sink about another £2k into it replacing as much of it as you can, stripping and repainting etc. By my estimate, if you do much of the work yourself you could basically renew all the wiring and airlines, paint the entire trailer again after stripping and cleaning it of its old paint and any corrosion and renew things like light clusters and marker lights.
Then slap on 6 new tyres, they don’t have to be anything special because of the a) the work they do, (just stopping the container from dragging on the ground!) and b) the exposure to damage they take, for another £1200 + VAT.
Then you have one sliding skelly that will likely do you a good five years for £4500 or £17 a week plus MOT and servicing, and it doesn’t have that god-awful soft-docking thing from Haldex which is always a plus in my opinion.
hubman:
renting would be easier however if you have trailer over a long period then it would be cheaper, but what is the cost of the new skell trailer?
The insurance brokers I got a rough quote off of estimated the cost of a Maritime brand new skel - sliding skell, safe-park, soft-docking et-all at £25k.
Or you could buy the old £2k one, sink about another £2k into it replacing as much of it as you can, stripping and repainting etc. By my estimate, if you do much of the work yourself you could basically renew all the wiring and airlines, paint the entire trailer again after stripping and cleaning it of its old paint and any corrosion and renew things like light clusters and marker lights.
Then slap on 6 new tyres, they don’t have to be anything special because of the a) the work they do, (just stopping the container from dragging on the ground!) and b) the exposure to damage they take, for another £1200 + VAT.
Then you have one sliding skelly that will likely do you a good five years for £4500 or £17 a week plus MOT and servicing, and it doesn’t have that god-awful soft-docking thing from Haldex which is always a plus in my opinion.
Budget £3-4k and look around and you wouldn’t need to do anything to it but would be worthwhile cleaning corrosion and painting as it needs it. Not unusual for the big lease co’s to dispose of with six nearly new tyres on. Major expense pitfall would be an ABS fault that needed work.
hubman:
renting would be easier however if you have trailer over a long period then it would be cheaper, but what is the cost of the new skell trailer?
The insurance brokers I got a rough quote off of estimated the cost of a Maritime brand new skel - sliding skell, safe-park, soft-docking et-all at £25k.
Or you could buy the old £2k one, sink about another £2k into it replacing as much of it as you can, stripping and repainting etc. By my estimate, if you do much of the work yourself you could basically renew all the wiring and airlines, paint the entire trailer again after stripping and cleaning it of its old paint and any corrosion and renew things like light clusters and marker lights.
Then slap on 6 new tyres, they don’t have to be anything special because of the a) the work they do, (just stopping the container from dragging on the ground!) and b) the exposure to damage they take, for another £1200 + VAT.
Then you have one sliding skelly that will likely do you a good five years for £4500 or £17 a week plus MOT and servicing, and it doesn’t have that god-awful soft-docking thing from Haldex which is always a plus in my opinion.
Budget £3-4k and look around and you wouldn’t need to do anything to it but would be worthwhile cleaning corrosion and painting as it needs it. Not unusual for the big lease co’s to dispose of with six nearly new tyres on. Major expense pitfall would be an ABS fault that needed work.
But plan on spending on all those bits I said about and it’s a bonus when you don’t have to. Go in thinking that I’m spending £5k so I’ll not have to spend another penny until mot is a good way to get stung.
Just a quick look on line at the yellow motor factor’s prices indicates that a problem with one BPW wheel end is going to set you back in the region of:
caliper £450
disc £100
Pads £90
Brake chamber £90
airbag £100
hub £350
exciter ring £100
U bolts £ 60
Trailing arm £ 200
The normal rule of thumb is £ parts = £ labour - but it doesn’t always work because it’s excessive in this instance!
hubman:
renting would be easier however if you have trailer over a long period then it would be cheaper, but what is the cost of the new skell trailer?
The insurance brokers I got a rough quote off of estimated the cost of a Maritime brand new skel - sliding skell, safe-park, soft-docking et-all at £25k.
Or you could buy the old £2k one, sink about another £2k into it replacing as much of it as you can, stripping and repainting etc. By my estimate, if you do much of the work yourself you could basically renew all the wiring and airlines, paint the entire trailer again after stripping and cleaning it of its old paint and any corrosion and renew things like light clusters and marker lights.
Then slap on 6 new tyres, they don’t have to be anything special because of the a) the work they do, (just stopping the container from dragging on the ground!) and b) the exposure to damage they take, for another £1200 + VAT.
Then you have one sliding skelly that will likely do you a good five years for £4500 or £17 a week plus MOT and servicing, and it doesn’t have that god-awful soft-docking thing from Haldex which is always a plus in my opinion.
Budget £3-4k and look around and you wouldn’t need to do anything to it but would be worthwhile cleaning corrosion and painting as it needs it. Not unusual for the big lease co’s to dispose of with six nearly new tyres on. Major expense pitfall would be an ABS fault that needed work.
But plan on spending on all those bits I said about and it’s a bonus when you don’t have to. Go in thinking that I’m spending £5k so I’ll not have to spend another penny until mot is a good way to get stung.
Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk
That wasn’t really what I was saying. I buy a lot of trailers and you don’t want to go too low on price. There’s a sort of sweet spot around £3.5k-4k where you can get good 2008 or 2009 years. At £2k you’ll be looking at well over ten year old trailers and the price is underpinned by export values then. It wouldn’t be worth the aggro of refurbing a trailer yourself to save that kind of money.
cav551:
Just a quick look on line at the yellow motor factor’s prices indicates that a problem with one BPW wheel end is going to set you back in the region of:
caliper £450
disc £100
Pads £90
Brake chamber £90
airbag £100
hub £350
exciter ring £100
U bolts £ 60
Trailing arm £ 200
The normal rule of thumb is £ parts = £ labour - but it doesn’t always work because it’s excessive in this instance!
You could beat those prices fairly easily though. Mostly with trailer it’s brake chambers.
hubman:
renting would be easier however if you have trailer over a long period then it would be cheaper, but what is the cost of the new skell trailer?
The insurance brokers I got a rough quote off of estimated the cost of a Maritime brand new skel - sliding skell, safe-park, soft-docking et-all at £25k.
Or you could buy the old £2k one, sink about another £2k into it replacing as much of it as you can, stripping and repainting etc. By my estimate, if you do much of the work yourself you could basically renew all the wiring and airlines, paint the entire trailer again after stripping and cleaning it of its old paint and any corrosion and renew things like light clusters and marker lights.
Then slap on 6 new tyres, they don’t have to be anything special because of the a) the work they do, (just stopping the container from dragging on the ground!) and b) the exposure to damage they take, for another £1200 + VAT.
Then you have one sliding skelly that will likely do you a good five years for £4500 or £17 a week plus MOT and servicing, and it doesn’t have that god-awful soft-docking thing from Haldex which is always a plus in my opinion.
As a new start owner driver I would lease at first, should you get a long term contract then consider buying, and for a standard new slider you would be looking at more like 15k not 25.
cav551:
Just a quick look on line at the yellow motor factor’s prices indicates that a problem with one BPW wheel end is going to set you back in the region of:
caliper £450
disc £100
Pads £90
Brake chamber £90
airbag £100
hub £350
exciter ring £100
U bolts £ 60
Trailing arm £ 200
The normal rule of thumb is £ parts = £ labour - but it doesn’t always work because it’s excessive in this instance!
You could beat those prices fairly easily though. Mostly with trailer it’s brake chambers.
And airbags, sliding bumpers are an issue, but I suspect as it being “your” trailer it won’t cause issues.
Stalk lamps and mudwings seem to take a beating on skellys. Weather that’s just the work our clients to or its normal I don’t know
But I’d avoid disks. I quite like the BPW eco drum axle. Apart from the abs/ebs fault caused by the sensor mounting bracket breaking.
We have about 200 trailers all on bpw drum brakes, nice axles etc but can be pricey when they wear out, s-cam bushes are favourite which also takes the s-cam with it, but if greased monthly that would not be an issue, parts are quiet dear even at our discounted prices.
They seem to have a few abs/ebs problems as well, haldex system I believe.
