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Isn't is a mystery why some well known large manufacturers such as Four Star, Featherlite, Exiss and Sundowner use aluminum frames, walls, roofs and interior dividers while others such as Double D Trailers and EquiSpirit use mostly Z-Frame®?

I believe the answer lies, not so much in benefits of one over the other, but in the history and development of the horse trailer industry itself.

Back in the late seventies and early eighties, companies such as Sooner Trailers, Gore and Featherlite horse trailers began to search for alternate materials to replace their quickly rusting all steel horse trailers. Horse trailer owners and horse people were accustomed to seeing rusty horse trailers everywhere so were very open to any new suggestions in material for a better alternative.

Many materials were experimented with but after much consideration, alumnum was the ultimate chosen material.  Sooner and Merhow trailers tried FRP (fiberglass-reinforced plywood). Bison horse trailers experimented with all fiberglass but aluminum was the chosen material.  The all-aluminum horse trailer market began to grow very quickly.

Like everything else in the world, there are always positives and negatives to any material.  Owners didn't have the necessary horse trailer information to accurately determine that using aluminum in the frame, floor, roof and sidewalls would shear and tear when exposed to the stress of the road.  All folks knew was that it didn't rust which seemed to be the main concern. From the manufacturing side, all horse trailer manufacturers knew was that it sold.

However, the main negative at the time was the high cost of aluminum and that was a huge concern to manufacturers.  On the flip side, the high cost actually helped because horse enthusiasts were ready to spend the necessary cost on their hobby of choice. The higher cost gave the impression "it must be better since it cost more". This thinking allowed manufacturers to charge a premium for their product and dealers to reap huge profits over the years.

Once the "all-aluminum" horse trailers hit the market full force, buyers quickly perceived that the all-aluminum trailer was a high quality,  superior product. Therefore, horse trailers such as the models built by Featherlite Trailers, Sooner trailer manufacturing, Featherlite trailers, and Four Star trailers were perceived as being top of the line. Consumers did not realize that the extra expense was due to the higher cost of aluminum, not necessarily,  because it was a better product. Because of this consumer perception, combined growing horse population and  increased market acceptance of the all-aluminum trailer, many existing manufacturers switched over to aluminum, such as Cheriokee, Merhow, Sundowner and Bison. Through the years, many new start ups opted to build all-aluminum horse trailers such as Exiss, Premier, Double D Trailers,  Adam, and Gore for the same reasons.

Of course, it is true that all-aluminum trailers are not equal - in today's economy your normally "get what you pay for".  Manufacturers such as Exiss, Sundowner, Gore and Featherlite will vary in design, quality and pricing according to the company's construction and philosophy. The real issues are the inherent problems in the aluminum material itself.

Facts and information about aluminum: Aluminum is weaker than steel by 1/3. This means that an aluminum horse divider of equal size in steel will fail much quicker under stress.  Again, with aluminum it tears and shears leaving sharp dangerous edges when it fails.  When using aluminum to build the frames of horse trailers, since it is 1/3 weaker than steel pound for pound, this has to be considered.  Horse trailer manufacturers have to significantly increase the amount of aluminum material in floors and frames to get the equivalent strength of an all steel frame.  This is why the perception of aluminum trailers being much "lighter" than steel trailers simply isn't true.  Better built aluminum trailers such as 4 star will be the same weight or many times heavier than a comparable Z-Frame® Trailer.

Another fact about aluminum is that it is an excellent conductor of heat.  Why this works very well for cookware, it doesn't work so well for your horse's comfort.  This is why many aluminum horse trailers offer insulation as a standard item on their trailer compared to a large majority of steel horse trailer manufacturers do not.  The aluminum makes it necessary to maintain the horses comfort compared to the steel which doesn't conduct heat nearly as well as aluminum. Finally, repairing aluminum is costly and difficult since a re-weld can never compare to the original strength. 

Many major "all-aluminum" horse trailer manufacturers such as Featherlite, Sooner, Sundowner and Exiss have have enough experience that they have greatly improved their manufacturing process in using aluminum.  However, in this same time period, all aluminum trailers have been around long enough that consumers have seen holes eaten out in aluminum floors from the alkaline in urine and waste which is a result of not cleaning.  Horse trailer owners have also seen broken structural welds, heat problems on their horses, torn dividers, fender and broken ramps and doors.

Is there an an alternative?

The answer is yes there is. If you look at the auto industry, very few if any automobile manufacturers use aluminum to build the cars with.  Since rust is a major concern for automobile owners and lighter weight which increases fuel economy, you would think aluminum would be the solution since the same thinking is in the horse trailer industry.  Not the case.  Zinc coated steel is the choice for the automobile industry, powder coat and other technologies and is a much better alternative to aluminum. It is much stronger, Z-Frame® is less expensive and easier to use and repair than aluminum.

With the information age of the internet, consumers are realizing when they ride in their car, they are surrounded by a steel cage, riding on a steel chassis, wrapped in zinc coated steel sheets of metal.  If it is good enough for us, it should be good enough for the horse.  Consumers are also seeing no rusting in their cars for the last ten years and most rust has disappeared in all cases.

Looks like companies would stop using aluminum?

Horse trailer dealers and manufacturers have rode the band wagon for the last twenty years and done an excellent job of convincing potential buys that aluminum is the way to go.  It will take some time for horse trailer owners to realize a new mind set but with more education and information, horse trailer owners will make smarter decisions in the future. The aluminum market is dwindling and horse trailer manufacturers will have to do some changing in the future to keep up.

So what is the direction of the market?

For sure, companies like Double D Trailers, EquiSpirit and others have had tremendous growth in the market and market share is rapidly increasing.

As technologies and more materials become available, composite built trailers will be the trailer of the future.  These trailers will use advanced materials like Z-Frame® , SafeBump, SafeKick and other new products that are surfacing each year.

At Double D Trailers, we heavily rely on the millions of dollars in research spent each year in safety for you by the auto industry.  We think that a light weight non-rusting steel frame around your horses like the steel frame around you in your car is the way to build horse trailers.  This includes Z-Frame® for the main frame, Zinc sheets on the side walls and roof.