Spreading Gravel: New Big Tex Dump Trailer and Disappointment 

I was a inspector for Big Tex until the Covid layoff, wasn't called back because I was " a troublemaker " had supervisors says I knit picked about issues with all trailers. They are more about getting quantity not quality. The way I look at it is these trailers travel up and down the same highways our families and friends travel but it cost me my job. Beware of any trailer built under the American Trailer Works banner.

I'm in the market for a dump trailer this month and thanks to your video, I will take Big Tex off my list. I thought they were a great company. Thank you so much. $250.00 is an insult on the money they gave you. Best of luck and hope you don't find any more lack of quality issues.

Uuuuughhhh! Watching that back blading was painful! I love my box blade! Get you one!

So great to see this channel is back! More on the dozer, please!

Congrats on the second channel and new trailer. I don’t blame you picking on the quality of the trailer. You hear the name is associated with quality and you spend good money, yet you see lots of quality control issues. Good luck and hope it lasts a long time for y’all.

I just got mine last month they were hard to find i had drive 5 hours to pick one up but mine was brand new in perfect condition i think yours was in clearance

Thanks this was enough to make me grab another brand!

yep,yep, thanks for confirming I should build my own trailer. Luckily for me, I don't care for painting, nor the paint job. chemical blue/black, good enough!

had bigtex for 4 years total pos.. only bought it because 14ft 14k for 6000.00 .. Just bought new Lamar 16ft 21k gvw triaxle beast best quality trailer made

With that bent top rail, they should have refunded $1500 or 2000. Those welds are horrible

A paint and body man told me that black paint is used to make mistakes less obvious.

Those welds look bad enough that they will likely crack in a few years. For 10k they should be providing a much better product. They buy in such bulk that they probably don't have $3000 in the whole trailer(1250for steel and 1250 in axles/tires/lift etc and the rest in paint and labor. Average joe could buy all the materials for 8k and with skill build a better trailer. Thats not always an option for everyone but maybe the best bet is to buy the cheapest trailer you can find and just plan on fixing all the deficiencies cause regardless of the amount of money you spend there appears to be deficiencies in all brands granted some are a good bit better than the others. It might be hard to find decent used dump trailers now, but rest assured with the boom in trailer sale growth the used market will be full of them in years to come. No different than RVs or Harleys.

Sorry to hear about your crappy job on your trailer. If you buy a different one, I would suggest Texas Pride Trailers. I bought one from them and had to travel 8 hours to pick it up. Custom build for every trailer. Not a cookie cutter trailer. They also have great customer service. I had a custom 18,000 lb trailer made by them and couldn't be happier. In reference to your rear gate latch. The pivot lock area will fill up with debris from having them open and dumping. With the debris in the latch hole, it makes it want to spread the area you showed in your video. I carry a screwdriver with me and clear it out before I try to latch my gate.

We bought a 2019 "new" 16LP with the 4' sidewalls in a 16 footer, i don't think the quality was too bad, i mean not great, the issue was, after much research, the 16LP was a larger axle version of the 14LP, it lifted the same weight. It was terrible one day our old 14' 2007 Quality steel dump trailer in not good shape anymore, dumped more dirt side by side to the new 2019 16LP. The 2007 trailer was a 12k rated trailer with dual side by side hydraulics "not a scissor hoist", while i stalled the same amount of dirt loaded in the big tex 16lp rated for 17,500. We had roughly 10-11,000lbs of dirt in the trailer. Not long after, i went to the concrete yard, and the loader guy said his new machine they had was roughly 50lbs accurate for whats in the bucket. I had them start with 7000lbs, then he added 1000lbs ~ per dump into the trailer, by 9000, you could tell the pump was struggling to lift the dump body off the frame, but would. By 10,000lbs it almost wouldn't, I had the load centered dead center in the 16' long dump trailer, the sand didn't touch the front bulkhead or the rear doors yet. I knew it probably would stall with another load, but it was able to lift the 10,000, i got it home, went to dump, it couldn't lift it now. We had already changed out a larger exide Nautilus deep cycle battery , kept it charged when not using it etc. The hydrualic hoist was just too little, not even as large a cylinder as most Ford F550 sized class trucks with a 9-12' mason dump. After some more arguments with the dealer, and them verifying the hydraulics were working correctly, i saw their 14LP had the same exact hoist and hydraulic cylinder ram on it, of course my 16LP was rated for about 12,250lb load capacity and i knew anywhere near that meant having to use multiple people in machines upon trying to dump it to get it to start to lift. Later sold, end of 2020, just before the massive trailer hike hit. The trailer when new was less than $13,000 with tax, i ordered a 20k Diamond C 16' LPT210 with 44" sidewalls and 7ga side and floor and it was $15,800, good amount more but in a whole other league in strength and quality. Big tex used to be a good brand with other premium trailers so my gripe here is the hassle the gave me in acting like it was operator error, or overloading when they knew it was just a 14lp trailer, "that barely even met the spec to lift the 10k those claim to hold", and i paid a ton more for literally only axle/tires only. I see now they make a 20lp with 10k axles too, not long after i got my 2019, they changed the box frame that was "so so" to the I beam style they sell now too, but the hoist was the same so we declined to trade in and upgrade.

Let us know what they will do for you. Awesome video

That same trailer now is 13k.

You just want to hope that they use a proper metal priming system before they applied the finish. Otherwise it will rust under the coating.

100% agree with u. For the name ur paying for I'd expect much better welds and honestly would be a lil disappointed if I seen all those issues with it. I always hear good things with big tex but that just didn't seem like they paid much attention to detail there. Hopefully they see this video and do a better job with quality control in the future.

Now I know to scrutinize the look and welds of a Big Tex.

I have a small big Tex trailer and the wiring is subpar at best.

Texas Pride Trailers are the best

The thing is I found a dealer in my city and got a brand new one for7k

I’ve got the same issues with mine! I just picked it up Monday afternoon. Welds are crap, everything is stitch welded, welding wire and spatter stuck all over it, and the power coat is garbage. Everything that they “Welded” on has rust on at least one corner where they were cheap on the powder coat! I made a video about mine to just needed to post it on my channel. I’ve never posted anything on it before but I’m going to start post everything and calling all these companies that are putting out half ass shit to us hard working consumers!

That's 17k now

So they didn’t state that is was a used unit ? Hopefully they do right by you

Do you know the purpose of that bar going across the back?

How do you open the ramp like a pickup bed?

You musta let the Dealer do his own inspection !!!!!

Maybe I missed it but why did you take delivery of the trailer in that condition?

Sounds like a big wrexs

Crossing big tex off the trailer list. Being in NC, is there any reason you chose them over Kaufman trailers?

Nowadays that same trailer would be a few thousand more sadly. Most dump trailers ive seen lately are all terrible quality

Just paid 15k for identical trailer new.

Great video .On the welds ,if I welded that bad I would not show anyone ,let alone sell it.

$100 a ton more? Are you sure? It's $280 for 20 tons delivered here

Big Tex was bought out ...the quality has gone down...

3yds

Did u call the company r u going to make them fix it

Need to check your paper work. That is clearly a 14LP not a 14LX like you kept saying

Big Tex is absolute garbage. To be fair though I have a 2014 25DU. It’s well built. Then I ordered two 2024 70PI and what a world of difference. Stay away from BT and find a quality trailer.

Refurbished trailer.