looking at buying a new 24 ft trailer soon. we have noticed that a couple brands come with full-size escape doors. are there any reasons why i don't want one on an aluminum trailer? thanks, rich

you need either an escape door or a winch with a door car, chose one. I had my previous trailer built with an escape door, worked great...open escape door, open car door in escape door opening, enter car from outside the trailer, close car door and drive car out of trailer. But if your escape door isn't located properly, located to where the car will be loaded in the trailer, it's useless.

My current trailer has a winch because I was not able to locate the escape door without loading both cars in first.

Agree and check the height of the bottom of your door to make sure it will clear the trailer fender and door opening. It will be a huge disappointment if it won't clear and you wouldn't be the first that ran into this issue. You don't want to have 2x12 on the trailer floor.

Ed and Matt's are right on.
We have a escape door in our little 20' trailer and the escape opening is about 3" higher than the inside fender and a little rearward It still helps getting in and out but would be waaaay better if it was fender height and a little further forward.
Height and placement mean everything........

good point about the wheel well height that I forgot. My trailer had the "show car" option which IIRC, raised the floor 2"

If your car has fiberglass lift off doors, consider making a wall mount in the trailer for the drivers door. This will allow you to step in car and drive in / out.

As others noted about checking wheel well height, the shorter the inside wheel well the taller the floor height. As the floor height gets taller the angle of the open rear door becomes greater. Depending on the clearance of your cars undercarriage it might also be wise to consider a rear beaver-tail to help reduce the door angle (lower front of ramp door) when open.

thanks for the quick replies and good advice. i will bring a tape measure to make sure i can open the car door all the way, as it is an all steel 72 nova. rich

I can get out of mine just fine without extra door, but I do have roll down side windows

all depends on the width of the car, roll bar/cage and more importantly the size of the driver

My S10 I drive in, open the door and get out, might the 2nd best thing I like about it ;-).

I didn't realize how small it was until I drove it in the 26' trailer and parked it behind the golf cart. Everything had about a foot of clearance and this trailer has front counter.

Like mentioned before.
Getting out with out an escape door depends on size of car and girth of the driver!

cool. will probably get the escape door. i'm not real big, 6ft 195, but age and flexibility are the factors.

I love the escape door. I dont use it for getting in or out of the dragster though. Several of my racing friends will tell you that my trailer is 10 to 15 degreee cooler because there is always air moving thru my trailer. I try to park with a little extra room between me and my neighbors for this reason. When its really hot and nasty and you are hanging out in the trailer, just run a fan and let the breeze help cool you off. I just happened to buy a trailer with, now it is a must have.