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I agree with the majority of your post, but not your conclusion. As a former professional driver I've logged hundreds of thousands of miles pulling trailers between 10,000-62,000 lbs with an 18,000 lb road tractor. Nearly a million of these vehicles are on the road today, and they do just fine. Professional drivers understand how their vehicles handle, and the good ones drive accordingly.
It can be done, but conventional trailers are much more finnicky about the setup than fifth wheels because of how the pivot point is behind the rear axle. You can adjust tongue weight as needed by changing the load of the trailer, and yaw inertia would be adjusted accordingly assuming the trailer frame remains intact.
Understand that's my rule for myself, and maybe other average Joes who don't tow often enough to really have a feel for it. And like you say, for bumper tow trailers. Obviously trucks tow things much heavier than the truck itself, but hopefully with a skilled driver behind the wheel.
Also, it's a rule that I'm going to break because the new trailer we're looking at will likely be around 6000lbs loaded up. BUT, it's very compact for that weight and much of the heavy stuff is located at the axles so it should be fine. Hopefully.
We picked up the new TT today, and it tracked just fine driving up 101 (& 85) from Morgan Hill to Saratoga. I briefly took it to 70 MPH, but it was just fine. My wife was certain that a vehicle pulling a trailer is limited to 55 on that stretch, so I compromised at 60. No problems. Then came up highway 9, which is a windy mountain road for about 7 miles. Everything tracked beautifully, but my mileage went from ~~ 19 MPG to ~~ 11 MPG. Even went to 10 for a bit coming up the mountain (climbing from 500' ASL to 2600' ASL).
This is with 3.31 gears. I didn't put the tranny into tow mode until we started climbing the mountain.
We picked up the new TT today, and it tracked just fine driving up 101 (& 85) from Morgan Hill to Saratoga. I briefly took it to 70 MPH, but it was just fine. My wife was certain that a vehicle pulling a trailer is limited to 55 on that stretch, so I compromised at 60. No problems. Then came up highway 9, which is a windy mountain road for about 7 miles. Everything tracked beautifully, but my mileage went from ~~ 19 MPG to ~~ 11 MPG. Even went to 10 for a bit coming up the mountain (climbing from 500' ASL to 2600' ASL).
This is with 3.31 gears. I didn't put the tranny into tow mode until we started climbing the mountain.
Bottom line: no problems.
Did they do anything special when they set up your WD hitch?
Did they do anything special when they set up your WD hitch?
AFAIK, they did a standard installation. I didn't watch every minute, but it looked pretty standard to me.
The truck with the trailer & hitch installed has approximately the same stance as with nothing attached (back end slightly high relative to the front end).
This is a Fastway e2 WD hitch. No chains. It uses a couple of large L brackets instead. The torsion bars rest on top of the L brackets, and have a flat interface between the torsion bars and L bracket. This is an anti-sway hitch to begin with.
Haven't seen one like that before, but it looks simple and sensible. Does the anti-sway come from the friction of the bars and the flat surface of the L-bracket?
Does the anti-sway come from the friction of the bars and the flat surface of the L-bracket?
Yes. That is the way it was explained to me. They said that it would "make some noise" as it wore in. After we've driven it a couple hundred miles, they said we might put a little Vaseline on it to quiet it down, but that it needed to wear in first.
We heard nothing from it on our trip home; it was very quiet.
AFAIK, they did a standard installation. I didn't watch every minute, but it looked pretty standard to me.
The truck with the trailer & hitch installed has approximately the same stance as with nothing attached (back end slightly high relative to the front end).
This is a Fastway e2 WD hitch. No chains. It uses a couple of large L brackets instead. The torsion bars rest on top of the L brackets, and have a flat interface between the torsion bars and L bracket. This is an anti-sway hitch to begin with.
So it looks like the truck settled front and rear the same amount? I set up my hitch temporarily with the front of my truck settling 1/4" and the rear 1" after I hooked up to the trailer. I have not towed with it yet. I will have to tow with it first to see if I need to make any adjustments. My hitch is a Reese SC model 10,000/800. It looks like your hitch but instead of the bars resting on metal L brackets mine rest on friction pads which make no noise. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...EsclsVT-V7Hx4A
The Reese looks real similar functionally, but with the box around the ends of the torsion bars. Same idea I guess. Even though they told us it was going to make some noise, we didn't hear anything coming from it.
The Reese looks real similar functionally, but with the box around the ends of the torsion bars. Same idea I guess. Even though they told us it was going to make some noise, we didn't hear anything coming from it.
Actually the Reese uses the friction pads and according to them they reduce sway 10 times better than the metal to metal design.
07-19-2016, 01:39 PM
