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This is my post 1 of 2 of my review of the King Kutter 1.5T-DT-XB (1.5 Ton Dump Trailer) Offroad-only. (https://www.kingkutter.com/store-product.aspx?id=3511)
Background (my justification for needing this trailer):
My wife loves horses. I love my wife. I buy 2 horses to make my wife love me. She does. Winter comes. Path to horses (about 1/3 mile) becomes a muddy, hellish pit. I hate mud (ok I like mud when playing in it - not fun to work through it). I decide to put in a drive by hauling in #2 stone. Conclusion: I need a heavy-duty tool to make this task more bearable / fun.
Last fall, I used my Ranger (500 EFI midsize) to haul #8 stone and dump on the path. Then spread it with a borrowed Kubota (which now lives in my barn). That worked fine, but the farther I got from the pile, the task got exponentially longer. The Ranger bed just isn't big enough (narrower than the tractor bucket so I lose part of the rocks when loading the bed) and dumping it can be a pain when its REALLY full (try doing it facing downhill). That's when I started looking at trailers online. Last weekend, I rented a full-size dump trailer but it was too big to get down the trail and too heavy to move with the Ranger. So for the first 2 tri-axle loads of #2's, we hauled the rock, one load at a time in the Ranger and Mule. Not a bad solution, but it took my whole family (6 of us) an entire Saturday to get 1/4 down the trail and we started at the rock pile so this was the fastest part of the job. The last 3/4, which is much muddier and much further away would take another 3-4 Saturdays. Hence, my interest in an offroad dump trailer was renewed. And who doesn't like to get a new tool anyway? (I can justify just about any project to get a new tool/machine).
Here are a few of the trailers I considered:
King Kutter (https://www.kingkutter.com/store-product.aspx?id=3511)
ATV Wagon 1600UT (1600 Utility ATV Wagon - Power Dump Cart, dumping ATV Trailer- Power RAM strongest, best, ultimate atv farm trailer, atv ranch trailer)
Country ATV 7550ATV (ATV Trailers Heavy Duty Tandem Axle Model 7550ATV)
Polar Trailer HD1500 TA (HD 1500 TA - Trailers)
MUTS (Multi use trailer system - MUTS - Multi-Use Trailer System for your ATV, Quad and 4 Wheeler - Welcome)
Provonost P503 (Pronovost- Dump trailers - Off-road service)
Bri-mar DT508LP-3 (DT508LP-3 - Bri-Mar)
In the end, I narrowed my selection down to 3: the KK, the ATV Wagon and the Country ATV. The others were either too expensive or didn't have the features I wanted (metal or wood dump bed with some way to mechanically dump) Here's the way I saw it:
KK Pros: 3,000lb GVWR (-600lb dry weight = 2400lbs load capacity), hydraulic cylinder dump (like a full-size dump trailer), spreader gate, dual-axle wide 8" tires
KK Cons: Expensive online prices range around $2300 or more, hydraulic dump is manual (dual direction hand pump)
ATV Wagon Pros: Electric dump, huge tires, dual, torsion suspension (great offroad ride), trailer brakes, less expensive ($1800 which is still expensive, but $500 less than the KK)
ATV Wagon Cons: only 1600 GVWR which give about 1100lbs load capacity, 2ply tires could pop under load.
Country ATV Pros: 2,500lb GVWR (350lbs dry weight = 2,150lbs capacity), hydraulic lift, great price ($900 + shipping)
Country ATV Cons: 350lbs dry weight makes me think it's not as heavy duty as the other 2, I can't validate this myself, but it was a concern. Also, the lift is rated at only 1000lbs. So I could haul over a ton, but I could not dump it (ok maybe it would work, but definitely exceeded the recommendation)
I finally decided (or so I thought) on the ATV Wagon - price was the deciding factor between it and the KK, but I had this nagging feeling about the 1100lbs load capacity. 1100lbs is not alot when you're hauling stone. I ended up speaking to the owner of Bosski, the manufacturer of the ATV Wagon. Great guy. Answered all of my questions and offered me a great deal on a scratch and dent model, and even threw in a 3yr warranty and wireless remote for the dump. With all this, the final price was somewhere in the $1800 range delivered. Still alot more than I ever thought I'd spend on a trailer like this, but after seeing the other options, this was a good deal.
But....the 1100lbs load capacity kept nagging at me. I knew I would load more than that in it. I'm also an engineer and I know there can be quite a bit of band guard used when defining the specs, especially in the litigation-rich environment that we get to live in, but I thought I might be dissatisfied with the limitation.
Then...by chance one night I stumbled across a place called "Jim's Farm Equipment". Jim, as in Mr. James Fraley, former owner of King Kutter. As it turns out he purchased King Kutter in the mid 1970's and has since sold the company to his kids. They had a trailer that looked exactly like the KK, but was called a Prohaul for $1695. Wow. That's a deal. After a few phone calls, and after speaking to Mr. Fraley directly, I learned that this location was the actual manufacturer of the trailer and they market it under many different brands (King Kutter, Prohaul, Taylor Pittsburgh, etc). And the plant was a 4 1/2 hour drive from my house. So...after verifying they had a unit in stock, at 3:45am on Saturday I set off for southeastern Ohio.
OK. Enough blabber. About the trailer.
(Continued on post 2 of 2.)
Background (my justification for needing this trailer):
My wife loves horses. I love my wife. I buy 2 horses to make my wife love me. She does. Winter comes. Path to horses (about 1/3 mile) becomes a muddy, hellish pit. I hate mud (ok I like mud when playing in it - not fun to work through it). I decide to put in a drive by hauling in #2 stone. Conclusion: I need a heavy-duty tool to make this task more bearable / fun.
Last fall, I used my Ranger (500 EFI midsize) to haul #8 stone and dump on the path. Then spread it with a borrowed Kubota (which now lives in my barn). That worked fine, but the farther I got from the pile, the task got exponentially longer. The Ranger bed just isn't big enough (narrower than the tractor bucket so I lose part of the rocks when loading the bed) and dumping it can be a pain when its REALLY full (try doing it facing downhill). That's when I started looking at trailers online. Last weekend, I rented a full-size dump trailer but it was too big to get down the trail and too heavy to move with the Ranger. So for the first 2 tri-axle loads of #2's, we hauled the rock, one load at a time in the Ranger and Mule. Not a bad solution, but it took my whole family (6 of us) an entire Saturday to get 1/4 down the trail and we started at the rock pile so this was the fastest part of the job. The last 3/4, which is much muddier and much further away would take another 3-4 Saturdays. Hence, my interest in an offroad dump trailer was renewed. And who doesn't like to get a new tool anyway? (I can justify just about any project to get a new tool/machine).
Here are a few of the trailers I considered:
King Kutter (https://www.kingkutter.com/store-product.aspx?id=3511)
ATV Wagon 1600UT (1600 Utility ATV Wagon - Power Dump Cart, dumping ATV Trailer- Power RAM strongest, best, ultimate atv farm trailer, atv ranch trailer)
Country ATV 7550ATV (ATV Trailers Heavy Duty Tandem Axle Model 7550ATV)
Polar Trailer HD1500 TA (HD 1500 TA - Trailers)
MUTS (Multi use trailer system - MUTS - Multi-Use Trailer System for your ATV, Quad and 4 Wheeler - Welcome)
Provonost P503 (Pronovost- Dump trailers - Off-road service)
Bri-mar DT508LP-3 (DT508LP-3 - Bri-Mar)
In the end, I narrowed my selection down to 3: the KK, the ATV Wagon and the Country ATV. The others were either too expensive or didn't have the features I wanted (metal or wood dump bed with some way to mechanically dump) Here's the way I saw it:
KK Pros: 3,000lb GVWR (-600lb dry weight = 2400lbs load capacity), hydraulic cylinder dump (like a full-size dump trailer), spreader gate, dual-axle wide 8" tires
KK Cons: Expensive online prices range around $2300 or more, hydraulic dump is manual (dual direction hand pump)
ATV Wagon Pros: Electric dump, huge tires, dual, torsion suspension (great offroad ride), trailer brakes, less expensive ($1800 which is still expensive, but $500 less than the KK)
ATV Wagon Cons: only 1600 GVWR which give about 1100lbs load capacity, 2ply tires could pop under load.
Country ATV Pros: 2,500lb GVWR (350lbs dry weight = 2,150lbs capacity), hydraulic lift, great price ($900 + shipping)
Country ATV Cons: 350lbs dry weight makes me think it's not as heavy duty as the other 2, I can't validate this myself, but it was a concern. Also, the lift is rated at only 1000lbs. So I could haul over a ton, but I could not dump it (ok maybe it would work, but definitely exceeded the recommendation)
I finally decided (or so I thought) on the ATV Wagon - price was the deciding factor between it and the KK, but I had this nagging feeling about the 1100lbs load capacity. 1100lbs is not alot when you're hauling stone. I ended up speaking to the owner of Bosski, the manufacturer of the ATV Wagon. Great guy. Answered all of my questions and offered me a great deal on a scratch and dent model, and even threw in a 3yr warranty and wireless remote for the dump. With all this, the final price was somewhere in the $1800 range delivered. Still alot more than I ever thought I'd spend on a trailer like this, but after seeing the other options, this was a good deal.
But....the 1100lbs load capacity kept nagging at me. I knew I would load more than that in it. I'm also an engineer and I know there can be quite a bit of band guard used when defining the specs, especially in the litigation-rich environment that we get to live in, but I thought I might be dissatisfied with the limitation.
Then...by chance one night I stumbled across a place called "Jim's Farm Equipment". Jim, as in Mr. James Fraley, former owner of King Kutter. As it turns out he purchased King Kutter in the mid 1970's and has since sold the company to his kids. They had a trailer that looked exactly like the KK, but was called a Prohaul for $1695. Wow. That's a deal. After a few phone calls, and after speaking to Mr. Fraley directly, I learned that this location was the actual manufacturer of the trailer and they market it under many different brands (King Kutter, Prohaul, Taylor Pittsburgh, etc). And the plant was a 4 1/2 hour drive from my house. So...after verifying they had a unit in stock, at 3:45am on Saturday I set off for southeastern Ohio.
OK. Enough blabber. About the trailer.
(Continued on post 2 of 2.)
