Customer Reviews

Sportsman Series HDTFLATB 36-by-18-Inch 600-Pound-Load-Capacity Steel Flatbed Garden Cart with Pneumatic Wheels

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am usually a person who gives alot of benefit of doubt to someone. Sometimes I end up paying for it. This was the case. I read the previous review, and noted the shortcomings. rust, inferior fit, inadequate hardware, must I go on. I ordered this wagon in hopes that the previous review was a fluke. It wasnt. Many of my parts came with the tailtale signs of beginning rust. In addition, nothing was wrapped in a condition to be shipped. Nothing was packaged or wrapped to protect it from banging around inside. Needless to say, all of the major pieces were scratched up, as if somebody had previously assembled it, used it and returned it to amazon. if that is the case, it wasnt inspected again before it was shipped to me. In the future I shall heed these reviews more carefully. mike

Supplied instructions were useless, fit of parts was poor (required some bending/forcing to get parts to "align"). Some of the "painted" parts arrived with signs of exposed (and painted-over) rust. It is the only steer-able cart we were able to find with pneumatic tires at this (small) size. The removable handle requires some effort to re-install given the geometry of the receiver and the number of spacers at play. Frequent swaps between towing and hand-operated modes would be very cumbersome. The wheels are attached (capped onto the axles) with large PLASTIC acorn nuts. For a 600lb capacity cart, this seemed a bit of a design oversight. The threads on the axles are not a standard machine thread, so we are still looking for a compatible metal nut to replace the plastic ones. For what it's worth, the tires produce an extremely strong/offensive odor, which is a problem for us since we wanted to store it indoors. It does what it was designed to do, but craftsmanship is less than average.

04/18/2010
Important Update: If you use the towing accessory to pull the trailer at any speed other than a crawl; be aware that the plastic acorn nuts may fall off and get lost in the grass. If you are carrying a load at the time, you will risk a catastrophic spill when the wheel runs off the axle. My goal is to re-thread the axle to accept a standard machine thread locknut, but I'm not sure of this will be possible. This is a major weakness for this unit. Before you buy, look for an improved attachment design for the wheels (metal parts, with a cotter-pin, or locknut attachment).

07/26/2010
Yes, I still have this thing and I am still updating my reviews. I recently drilled each axle and added washers and cotter pins as retainers at each wheel in place of the (remaining) plastic nuts. I did the same at 2 other critical mounting points in the steering assembly where plastic nuts were previously installed. The wheels won't be falling off anymore. Plan to do some machining to this thing if you buy one.

All the previous reviews...pay attention. The plastic acorn nuts that hold on the ill-fitted wheels are terrible. Don't purchase this, pay a few dollars more for a tested model.

I bought the cart for my recycle bin. It makes it easy to pull it to the curb on recycle day. Saves my back.
I did have a friend put it together for me one evening. Took about an hour. Very sturdy.