crooked trailer wheel

I have a question for somebody that knows something about trailers. The wheel on my boat trailer (on the left side when facing forward in the boat) has a noticable angle to it. The top is in farther than the bottom so it always sits at an angle. It doesn’t wobble and seems to be aligned correctly front to back, just angled in at the top. It doesn’t seem to affect trailering but does put a noticable wear on the inside half of the tire causing me to need to replace sooner than I should have to.

I have no knowledge of axles and wheels. My question is, what would cause something like that and how hard is it to fix? It’s always been that way and I’ve had the trailer for about 5 years without a problem.

Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks.

Bent axle………??

did you buy it new?
it sounds like the leaf spring broke at one time and bent the axel

Bent axle I would guess.

The only other thing would be the wheel bearings.. but bad bearings are lucky to go 5 miles, not 5 years.

Bent axel would be my guess. The are not to hard to replace but they will cost you a fair amount of money for a new one

Just like Eric said. And it might be cheaper to replace tires over the life of the trailer than to replace it. And that depends on how often you put a new tire on it.

My snowmobile trailer does the same thing, but the tires last three years and it gets used a lot.

If it is a bent axle take it to a good machine shop and they can straighten it or cut it off and weld on a new stub.

Quote:

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did you buy it new?
it sounds like the leaf spring broke at one time and bent the axel

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I got it new in the fall 0f 2002 and didn’t notice it until the next summer. The place I bought it from had gone bankrupt and closed up by then so I’ve just lived with it. I had a feeling it was a bent axle but I don’t know enough about axles to know if that was probable or not.

First set of tires lasted 5 years and I towed it a lot. My plan is to only keep the boat a couple more years and it sounds like it might be a cost benefit to just leave it and keep an eye on the tires.

Thanks for the input.

You have the right idea. Just keep a GOOD eye on the tires and be sure to ALWAYS carry a spare. You will be farther ahead doing it that way than replacing the axel, as long as it still pulls fine.