Travel Trailer Maintenance Checklist

A travel trailer is a house that gets driven through a storm at 65 mph. The maintenance list is long because it combines a building’s envelope with a vehicle’s running gear, and the two fail in completely different ways. Organizing it by interval is the only way it gets done.

Water intrusion: the slow leak through a sealant failure on the roof, around a vent, a skylight, a window or the front cap. It is the most expensive failure on a travel trailer because by the time there is a visible stain inside, the damage is in the structure, not the ceiling panel.

Before every trip

1. 01Tire pressure, cold, with a real gauge

   Set to the pressure on the tire sidewall, not a car number. Do it cold, before driving. The PSI guide explains why trailer tires are different.

2. 02Lug nut torque

   Re-torque after any wheel has been off, and check before a long trip. Loose lug nuts are a common and preventable roadside failure.

3. 03Lights, all of them, with someone watching

   Running, brake, turn, and the 7-pin's brake output if you tow with a controller.

4. 04Hitch, chains, breakaway cable

   Coupler latched and pinned, chains crossed, breakaway cable attached to the truck and not to the hitch. The departure checklist covers the full hookup sequence.

5. 05Weight distribution hitch tension

   Bars seated, brackets latched, and the measured fender height restored. The setup guide covers the measurements.

6. 06Roof vents, antenna, steps and awning

   Closed, down, retracted and secured. The expensive version of this mistake is a roof vent lid on the highway.

Monthly, in season

1. 01Tire condition and sidewall cracking

   Look for cracking at the sidewall and between the treads. Trailer tires fail from age and heat, not from wearing out.

2. 02Battery terminals and water level

   Clean terminals, and check electrolyte level if your batteries are serviceable lead-acid rather than sealed.

3. 03Propane connections and leak check

   Soapy water at the fittings. Never a flame. Replace the regulator cover if it is split.

4. 04Water heater and plumbing for drips

   Look under the sink and at the water heater. A weeping relief valve is often a pressure problem — check your regulator setting.

5. 05Smoke, CO and propane alarms

   Press the test button on each. These expire on a date printed on the unit; replace rather than ignore.

6. 06Sewer hose and fittings for splits

   Inspect the helix at crush points. The hose roundup covers replacement.

Twice a year: the seal inspection

This is the job that saves trailers, and it takes an hour. Get on the roof if it is rated to walk on, or use a ladder and look, and inspect every penetration: the front and rear caps, every vent, the skylight, the antenna base, the refrigerator vent, and the full length of both roof-to-sidewall joints. Then do the windows, the door frame and the running lights on the sides.

You are looking for sealant that has cracked, lifted at an edge, gone chalky, or pulled away from a flange. Any of those is a path for water. Catch it at the sealant stage and the repair is a tube of lap sealant or a strip of repair tape; miss it and the repair is structural.

Repair tape is the thing to carry for the version of this you discover on a trip. A 4 in roll of a UV-stable, waterproof repair tape will stop an active leak at a campsite and hold until you can do the job properly, and the roll costs a tiny fraction of one water-damage repair.

Annually

1. 01Wheel bearings repacked or inspected

   Follow your axle maker's stated interval, commonly expressed in miles or years. Dry bearings seize, and a seized bearing at highway speed is a serious failure.

2. 02Brakes inspected and adjusted

   Magnets, shoes and drums. If the trailer brakes feel weak and the controller is set correctly, work the fault tree before assuming the controller.

3. 03Tire age check against the DOT date code

   Four digits on the sidewall give week and year of manufacture. Trailer tires age out on a timeline, not a tread depth — how long trailer tires last. When the set is due, buy by size and load range: ST205/75R15 or ST225/75R15.

4. 04Water system sanitized

   Before the first trip of the season, following your trailer manual’s procedure for its fresh water system. The sanitizer roundup covers the products and the order to do it in — and why the inline filter is not the same job.

5. 05Stabilizer jacks worked through their full travel

   Run each one all the way down and back up, and grease the lead screw. Seized jacks are the usual reason a set gets replaced, and the stabilizer jack roundup covers what to buy when they are past saving.

6. 06Propane system inspected

   Regulator, hoses and appliance connections. Cylinders have their own recertification dates stamped on the collar.

7. 07Suspension, shackles and U-bolts

   Look for elongated shackle holes, cracked leaf springs and loose U-bolts. Cheap to fix and expensive to ignore.

8. 08Covers on for storage

   UV is what ages trailer tires fastest when parked. Tire covers are the cheapest life extension available.

How we built this list

This checklist is organized from the published maintenance intervals and procedures that trailer, axle and appliance makers state in their own documentation, plus the tire age and inflation guidance published by NHTSA. We have not serviced a fleet of trailers and we do not publish specific intervals as though we had measured them: where an interval matters, your own axle, appliance and trailer manuals state it and those documents govern. The three products above are registry picks for the first two jobs on the list; our method is on how we pick.