Andersen Hitch Failure

agesilaus wrote:
OK I've finally solidified the reason I have never liked the AUH. Traditional hitches, like bridges, are OVER designed. I have no doubt that the hitch shown below could take a sudden 25,000 pound force load and shake it off with no problem.



Look at it, massive steel plates. It uses triangles for strength. And the load is distributed across that big steel plate on top. Now look at this example:



This is NOT a massively over designed device. I'd say someone calculated the loads and sized these small tubes to hold just that load plus a little bit more. I don't think that if you overloaded it by 150% that it would do so well as the traditional hitch. Furthermore the load instead of being distributed across the large steel plate on the traditional hitch is concentrated on a small steel ball.

Furthermore the AUH design is in danger of small dents and such that a traditional hitch would not even notice.

If you want to trust something like that, go ahead, but I'll stick to the over designed type myself. Afterall, what is the advantage of the AUH? Weight is the only thing I can think of and my Pullrite breaks into 2, easily handleable pieces, in less than a minute. I'm certain my truck can handle the extra 100 pounds with no problem.

Now that's some solid engineering evaluation right there...
"Traditional hitches, like bridges, are OVER designed. I have no doubt that the hitch shown below could take a sudden 25,000 pound force load and shake it off with no problem...Look at it, massive steel plates."
You do realize that the "traditional hitch" can fail if only a single bolt or pin shears off? All that steel and the pretty paint don't mean much if one of the high-tension bolts was over-torqued at the factory...or if it was torqued then loosened then torqued again.

The AUH has only about 3 places that could fail. The traditional hitch has more potential failure points than I have fingers.

"It uses triangles for strength."
You say that in defense of the traditional hitch, but that's the absolute principal behind the design strength of the AUH. It too uses triangles.

I'm not ever saying that the AUH is better than any other hitch out there. I've never said that. But I just don't understand how so many people have nothing better to do than find fault with it.