I have often seen where people have mailed a comment as to how tough their Arctic Cat A.T.V. is. Last weekend my wife and I and some friends decided to go for a Sunday outing. Where we live in central Alberta we have to drive about an hour west to get into the foothills. I had just purchased a cheap trailer because it had a better axle than the one on my old trailer and I planned to trade axles. I decided to use the new trailer as it had a tilt deck and was easier to load.
Sunday morning we headed West and about 20 min. from home I felt a sudden lurch; looked in the mirror and the trailer was weaving back and forth. I backed off the gas and got slowed down to about 60 or 70 KPH (40 or 50 MPH) and there was a snap and the trailer headed for the ditch. My friend who was behind me said the whole trailer did a 360 degree summersault, landed right side up, then rolled sideways and ended upside down with my old quad still tightly strapped to it.
We untied the quad and rolled the trailer over, rolled the quad over and assessed the damage. The quad looked pretty bad, bent bars, bent rear luggage racks both front and rear, some broken plastic. The quad started and I towed the bent trailer to the nearest farmyard and asked the farmer if I could park there until I could return with my old trailer. I later returned and hauled my stuff home.
I stripped the trailer and hauled the metal to the recycler. Because I was busy with work it was Tuesday before I had time to get serious about checking out the quad. I did some straightening, welding and painting for the luggage racks, patched up the plastic (Arctic Cats idea of using Plastic pop rivetts is a great Idea) ,replaced the bars with some motorcycle bars I happened to have, and put it all back together. The frame appears fine. I hope to go for a short ride tomorrow to check it out.
I feel extremely lucky that the trailer headed into the ditch and not into traffic comming the other way. I had forgotten to put the safety pin in the hitch and it had come unlatched, the safety chain was not nearly strong enough. From now on I will remember the safety pin and I am replacing the safety chains on the old trailer to make them as strong as I can.
To anyone out there with substandard safety equipment please have it fixed and be careful. I could have had a much worse experience.
And yes, the quad is tough, I think it will be O.K.

Kenh

 

wow. thats quite a story. safety chain thing is a life saver, literally.