inspecting a repo enclosed trailer you cannot see: axles, brakes, tire dates and the floor

good list and you got the big ones. let me fill in how to read each so it means something.

• axles: the tag gives you the rating, and two 5,200s or two 7,000s is what you want under a car. look at the hub faces in the photo too, a greasy black streak down the wheel means a leaking seal, which is a 40 dollar fix but it tells you nobody maintained it.
• tires: the DOT code ends in four digits, week and year, so 0320 is the third week of 2020. anything over six or seven years old is aged no matter the tread, and on a repo that sat still, the tires are your most likely problem. count on at least one being old.
• floor: stains in the front corners and at the door are a leaking roof's fingerprint. have them stand on the soft spots on video, a floor that flexes under a boot is wet.
• roof: shoot up at the front seam from inside with the door open for light. aluminum roofs delaminate and lift at the front first. a stain running down the inside of the front wall is water that already got in.

the one you are missing is the brakes and the wiring. get the junction box opened and photographed, confirm electric brakes on both axles, and look for a breakaway box with a battery. and the frame, the tongue welds and the coupler. that is the whole inspection and you can do all of it through a camera if you ask.

i am the guy from the 2020 Pace thread, so i will tell you the part that actually matters more than the checklist: ask for the shots specifically, by name, in one email, and give them a couple days. i sent my list and had every photo back the next afternoon. the gooseneck guy sent his and waited four days, so the response time is not consistent, and the fix is to email your questions early, well before the bid closes, so a slow reply does not run you up against the clock.

the mindset that made it work for me: the conaway's photos are evidence, not advertising. a broker selling a bank repo does not own the trailer and photographed it for the lender, so when i asked for the floor corners and the tire dates, the one bad tire showed up in the photo exactly where it was on the real trailer. the camera does not lie if you make it point at the right things. what gets people is buying off the 48 glamour shots without demanding the ugly ones.

the trailer checklist above is complete, so i will add the paper and the money side for a first-timer, because that is the part that actually scares people off and it should not.

title: on a repo the trailer sits in the lender's name with a lien. confirm with the conaway auction that the lien is released after you pay in full and the clean title plus the notarized paperwork rides along with the trailer. an open or enclosed trailer titles simple in most states, Idaho included, but check what your county wants.

money: the top sealed bid is the entire price, no premium tacked on underneath, and it binds you, there is no backing out, so name your true ceiling and not a dollar over it. financing is off the table, you wire the full sum, so line up the cash or your own loan ahead of the bid. the haul runs free out to the first thousand miles, then 70 cents for every mile beyond, and it gets rolling a couple days after your money clears.

and read the warranty line. there is a limited warranty plus a thirty-day return window if the unit came materially different from how it was listed, which is your backstop on a blind buy. an old tire you already spotted in the photo is not a misrepresentation, it is a disclosed flaw, so that is yours to price in, not to claim later. know the difference going in and you will not feel cheated by a call you made yourself.

since your car is a first-gen Miata, two things specific to you. one, you do not need a big trailer, a 20 foot enclosed is plenty and it tows and stores easier than a 24, so do not overbuy because the 24s look like a deal. two, a Miata is low in the nose, so ask for a photo of the ramp or ramp door and the interior height, and plan on carrying a couple of boards like the loading thread says. that little car will clear almost anything but check.

and the DOT date code reading someone mentioned, read it yourself on every tire photo before you bid. it is the single number most likely to cost you on a repo and it is the easiest one to check from your couch.