That's impressive. At 65mph, I haven't even had an empty soda can fly out of my bed...much less a 4lb steel ratchet strap!

 

Yeah, I've just got that kind of luck!

 

i went to pick up a car with a blown trans for a neighbor with the old car trailer.
hooked up, drove 15 miles to the car. dropped the ramps, and started winching the car up. front wheels hit the deck, and BANG!!! tongue of the trailer into the dropped tailgate.
when the neighbor hooked up the trailer after backing me in, he never hit the hitch lock, which went through the tailgate skin leaving a nice 2 inch slash in the middle of the tailgate.

that was the last time i ever let anyone hook me up without double checking everything

 

Hey guys, late to the party but have a good one. Previous truck and TT. The wife wanted to bring along family on the trip. Was a bit stressed having a full house. The morning of departure the fam hit the road and I was ready to get home ASAP. While hooking up I noticed the ball was showing some wear as I hadn't greased it. Had about 1100 tongue weight, so it was wearing in pretty good. I decided it was a good idea to just give the ball a shot of WD40 before hooking up and I'd give it a proper greasing when I got home. Fast forward 300 miles and we back in to our driveway. Wife starts unloading and I start unhooking. As I take weight off the ball I notice the ball is loose in the shank. VERY LOOSE. I look under at the nut holding it on and it's only caught by a few threads. The only reason it's still there at all is the safety cotter pin through the shaft of the threads! Holy god was that close I think. It must have been the WD40 that seeped down the ball and into the threads loosening the nut. As I gasp at my luck in keeping 36 feet and 10k of trailer behind the truck I happen to notice something else..... In my haste to get home, I also neglected to hook up my safety chains or my brake breakaway cable. OMFG.... Been "a bit" more vigilant since...

 

The dumbest thing I have done with a trailer was forgot to plug in the trailer to the truck. I had the truck coupled, spring bars on, sway control, safety chains and even the break away switch. The reasoning why it was not plugged in, I was briefly distracted by my father's questions about hook up of his trailer to my Explorer. I had checked his work and forgot to go over mine when I hopped into the truck. Luckily, I figured out something was wrong about 2 miles from my starting point when I turned to my wife and said, " I think the brakes on the trailer just failed." I turned on the park lights to only notice the clearance lights did not come on. I pulled the truck over at the next clearing on the road. Plugged in the trailer. Everything was OK after that.

 

I had bought a camper from my brother. Hooked up, double checked everything, good to go. He warned me to be careful of the light pole at the end of the drive so I gave it plenty of clearance on the turn. I cleared the pole by a good margin, but not the guy wire anchoring it. Caught the guy wire with the left front corner of the camper and raked it down half the length, taking out some of the roof and the vent for the refrigerator. I had driven less than 100 yards on my first tow of anything larger than a boat.

 

I back our trailer through a 10' wide gate into our storage spot next to the house. My wife left the entry steps down and I dragged them through the gate. Didn't damage the steps, and after I spent some time repairing the gate so I could close it again, we headed out on our trip.

But that was the wife's fault. I wouldn't do something like that.

 

I'm hearing Paul Harvey say right now upstairs...

"We forgot to tell you that the tailgate was missing."

And, now you've heard, the rrrrrrest of the story!

 

NOW! I got it!! LOLOLOLOLOL

 

Worst was loading my Wagoneer onto the trailer behind my first van. It didn't run, so we rolled it down the drive and had the trailer on the hill too. I figured it would hop up there fast enough to not worry, nope it shoved that van right out into the road. Luckily nobody was coming, and the trailer just put a small dent in the bumper. Ironically it matched the small dent on the other side that it came with-
All my trailers get chocked before loading/unloading now, and/or have ramps with feet that keep it from lifting the tow vehicle.
There's also the two times that brake failures caused wheel bearing grease fires, the shorted wire that caused me to lose headlights at 3am, and the time I got a trailer so stuck in my yard it had to sit there for six months. Even with chains on my truck and the 4x4 Explorer yanking on it it would not budge.

 

I guess I have been a little fortunate in not having all of these kinds of mishaps, but give me time...

I recall a friend of mine went to move his 32' fiver with his twin screw Freightliner about thirty miles and broke the frame of the trailer. I guess all that bouncing from the HD truck springs was too much for the trailer to take.

 

I have heard of some fifth wheel frame failures in units that were 5-10 years old. Actually the failures manifested themselves as cracking in the part of the frame that meets the fifth-wheel overhang. Steve RVTech probably knows more. I think Lippert came out with a bulletin for some rigs and a procedure to repair or prevent it from happening.

 

That's kinda bizarre - it points to fifth wheels being built to be towed with soft suspensions, or a laxity on the manufacturers part in ensuring that the frames of trailers are strong enough to be towed...

But trailers like that are not extraordinarily heavy unless they are loaded with too much stuff.


I dunno. Should the frame of the trailer be a major selling point? That it should be the first item considered by a serious buyer? It isn't as if most owners are planning to tow a D-9 Caterpiller dozer on that frame

 

I have been towing since 95 with no real issues or problems but have been pretty methodical with double and triple checking everything. This summer rushing to get my boat out of storage I rushed and was a little stressed but got it out of a closed space and stopped on the way home and noticed the tongue lock wasn't engaged and I just got off a crowded expressway. Luckily it didn't come off and let the trailer get squirrely possibly causing damage to surrounding vehicles because the boat's beam is wider than the trailer. I now stop and check everything at least twice again and count my good luck that time.


This is the day (probably should have been checking instead of taking pics)

 

When towing commercially you are told to check your load a lot.