After giving this much thought, here it goes. A yelp style review. The company name is RockBox Off-Road in Salinas California.
I’ve been hesitant to write this review but after 2 1/2 years of owning a RockBox Steel series, I must review the trailer to warn others of the quality and engineering of the trailer.
The trailer was purchased in October 2017. My trailer was the one on display at the 2017 RockBox open house. Yes, it looked great! But shortly after, the troubles started and haven’t stopped.
1. The way the lid is attached to the body is not a safe and will break like mine did after only the 3rd trip out. The hinges are welded onto the sheet metal, with a roof top tent mounted on the top and the vibration of dirt trails, caused the hinges to rip off from the body’s sheet metal. This is a poor design and very unsafe.
2. The water tank leaked from day one. The seams on 3 of 4 sides were not properly welded and quickly started leaking when I filled the tank up. The welds inside of the tank are rusting very badly. Not sure if the wrong welding wire was used as stainless steel is not supposed to rust. The hand pump doesnt have a rubber seal around the base which causes water to leak from there as well. They forgot to install the hose to suck water into the pump so no water would come out when the hand pump was pumped. You’ll be better off ordering a plastic tank instead of this extremely expensive stainless steel tank. I reached out to Andy about all the leaks and he offered to fix it. I would have to remove the tank and ship it to him. He promised to reimburse the shipping fee. The problem was that I couldn’t find a shipping company that wanted to ship it without a pallet and having the tank in a cardboard package. It was truly a hassle to have it removed and shipped back to him. I hired a local welder that charged me 300 to fix the leaking seams.
3. The pain job is horrible. Drips throughout the trailer not to mention, it doesn’t look like any primer was used as the paint is chipping off in several places. Also, the bottom of the trailer seems to have received a light amount of paint because it’s rusting pretty badly. I plan to get under there, sand the rust off and apply POR-15 to stop the rusting and hopefully have a more durable finish. Not to mention, there are several large areas under the lid that are not painted. The bare metal is exposed.
4. I believe the springs on this trailer are generic 3500 pound rated springs. The trailer doesn’t weight that so the springs are extremely stiff. There’s no movement on the springs which allows the trailer to constantly bounce. Also in my opinion, the lack of shocks on an extremely expensive trailer makes this a terrible design.
5. When I ordered my trailer, I was supposed to get a stainless steel generator box, instead I received an unpainted steel box that I needed to paint and install myself. I should have never accepted that but I needed it for a trip that I had planned the following week and didn’t have time to build my own. Needless to say, I had to spray paint and install it myself.
6. Registering the trailers is a chore in itself. Andy gives you the information on a “loophole” in California law that allows the owner to register it as a “owner built”. I’m not sure why he didn’t give me any paperwork and my opinion is that he doesn’t meet the DOT approval for California trailer building. I could be wrong on this but worth looking into.
6. Andy is a nice guy but would I ever do business with him? Absolutely not. As a business owner myself, honesty and integrity are key to having a successful business.
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