This manufacturer in Iowa (V) appeared a year or two ago making car dollies. They are sold through a number of online source and auto suppliers. The caster is usually advertised as being made of phenolic, which is not the case. Phenolic casters are a more expensive, rock hard compound of a thermoset vs. thermoplastic variety. Our 6" caster on our big Bottoms Up Lifts are phenolic. The material is polyolefin, like ours.
Here is the top view with TireSkate on the left and V on the right. It's a 2" caster vs. everyone else's 3" caster. Of course, the rolling forces are much greater, due to the smaller caster size, as our tests confirmed. Notice the much smaller bearing ring. The rig's material was a 1/32" thinner, also.
V on the left in this picture. I'm not really trying to confuse you by swapping sides! I just wasn't smart enough to be consistant.
The other problem we found was the lack of quality. There were no separators between the caster and plates. The plates were badly scratched, but more from a poor paint job (no primer, apparently) than the contact. Our skates are powdercoated and packed with cardboard between each skate so they arrive in new condition. We feel it is your job to abuse them, not ours. They also don't have the 3rd hole on each end so you can hang them up on the wall if you like. Their V shaped depression takes one less bend operation then ours, but makes for an easier ramp for the tire to roll off the skate.
