Ready Before
Pickup Day.

Most RVs are ready to go when we arrive. The ones that aren’t usually have the same handful of problems — and nearly all of them are easy to fix if you find them a few days early, and expensive or impossible to fix on pickup day. Here’s the walk-around we’d ask every owner to do before we show up, in plain language, with no RV-mechanic experience required.

1. Plate and Registration — Check This First

A trailer has to show a current license plate with unexpired registration to travel. It’s the single most common reason a pickup gets held up, and the hardest thing to fix at the last minute. Some states issue permanent trailer plates; others renew annually, so check the expiration date today. For a Texas-registered unit with an expired or missing plate, we can often arrange a 72-hour temporary permit for an added $30, but only with advance notice. Units registered in another state need valid registration in place before pickup.

2. Tires — Age First, Then Air

Trailer tires age out before they wear out. Read the DOT date code on every sidewall (the last four digits are the week and year), look for cracks, bulges, or dry rot, and bring every tire — spare included — up to the cold pressure printed on its sidewall. We hold a 6-year maximum regardless of tread. Our full walkthrough is in the 5-point RV tire check, and lug nuts get their own treatment in Tires and Lug Nuts.

3. Wheels, Hubs, and Brakes

Count the lug nuts on every wheel — a missing one puts extra load on the rest. If any wheel has been off in the last 500 miles for a tire, bearing, or brake job, have it re-torqued. Then look behind each wheel: grease or a dark oily film on the inside of a wheel, tire, or the ground beneath it means a bearing seal is leaking, and that needs service before the unit moves.

You don’t need to test your brakes — we road-test trailer braking and the breakaway system before leaving. What we need from you is a charged, connected house battery. On almost every trailer, that battery is what powers the breakaway brakes if the trailer ever separates from the truck. A flat or disconnected battery means the breakaway can’t do its job.

4. Lights, Slides, and Everything That Moves

Pull in slide-outs and awnings, and make sure nothing inside is blocking a slide from closing all the way. Check for torn slide seals, loose roof flashing, or peeling membrane a highway gust could catch. Latch every exterior compartment door and the entry door, and tuck away antennas and satellite dishes. If you can plug into a tow vehicle with a helper, run through turn signals, brake lights, and clearance lights — a cheap 7-pin tester works too.

5. Weight, Tanks, and Loose Items

Water is about 8 lb per gallon, so a full fresh tank is roughly 300 lb sloshing around in transit — empty the fresh, grey, and black tanks, drain the water heater if the route may see freezing weather, and cap the dump valves. Turn LP gas off at the tank valves and put the regulator cover on; we transport with the gas off. Latch the refrigerator doors, lower and lock any TV lift, and secure or remove heavy loose items like toolboxes and cast iron.

6. The Hitch Connection — The One Fifth Wheel Owners Miss

This is the check almost nobody thinks to do, because the parts involved are underneath the front of the trailer where you rarely look.

A fifth wheel tows from a kingpin under the front of the trailer, locked into a hitch in the bed of the truck. A gooseneck trailer tows from a coupler that sits over a ball. A bumper pull tows from a coupler on the tongue. Please tell us which one yours is when you book — and if it isn’t what your quote request said, let us know.

For a fifth wheel, look at the pin box from underneath and confirm:

• The kingpin is straight, with no bends, deep gouges, or heavy wear, and the plate around it is clean of rust flakes and debris.
• The pin box bolts are tight, with no cracked welds or cracks in the pin box plate.
• Nothing is attached to the pin box that isn’t part of a standard kingpin — no wedge, no slider, no capture plate, no brand-specific hitch adapter.

That last item is the one that catches people out. Some hitch systems ask you to install a plate or adapter on the trailer’s pin box so it will mate with that manufacturer’s hitch. Those parts are built for one brand of hitch. On a standard fifth-wheel hitch they can stop the kingpin from turning freely between the jaws, and the result can be serious damage to the hitch. Often the owner has never had a reason to think of it as anything but part of the trailer. If there’s any such plate on your trailer, remove it before pickup. Not sure what’s under there? Text us a photo of the pin box from underneath and we’ll tell you what we see.

One more that we need to know about early: we can’t tow trailers set up with an Andersen-style (ball-to-kingpin) coupler. If that’s your setup, please tell us right away so we can cancel your move ahead of time rather than discovering it on pickup day. If you’re weighing a fifth wheel versus a bumper pull move, our post on how hitch type affects your transport quote covers what changes.

7. Have These Ready for the Driver

• Every key: entry door, storage compartments, wheel-lock key, hitch lock
• Current registration (or a clear photo of it)
• Any service records for bearings, brakes, tires, or suspension
• Wheel nut torque values from your owner’s manual
• A clear path to hitch up — vehicle moved, slides and awnings in, chocks ready to pull