Another Reese 20K Hitch Failure
This post may comes a little late for one posted last April (see post from davidkelm "Dropped Trailer on Bed Rails Today") http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/27647785.cfm but ...
Forum Discussion
There must have been numerous issues with older Reese hitches. Mine is only a couple of years old (slider) and I have had zero issues. It is pretty easy to tell if the jaws are locked (you notice I didn't just say "closed") plus I always to the pull test.
I have only been full time for two years. In those two years we have only visited a little over 26 states. I have only witnessed two folks drop their fivers on their beds, and neither hitch was a Reese.
Now in another two years I may be re-writing this, but right now, based on what I have actually observed with my own eyes and not what I have read on a forum, is that in 100% of the cases the jaws were not locked and the trailer came off the hitch. It is as simple as that. Who knows if it was "high hitched" or "not hitched", in each of the cases I observed it was simple user error.
That is not to say that in the original OP's case something did not break on his hitch. Anything man made can fail or break. But either he was high hitched to begin with or his hitch is broken. If it was me I would have a service center inspect the hitch. If it failed then have it fixed or buy some wonderful non-Reese hitch. If it checks out and it is not broke, then admit that you are lucky after high-hitching your rig and pulling it down the road that it didn't come off and kill someone.
I have only been full time for two years. In those two years we have only visited a little over 26 states. I have only witnessed two folks drop their fivers on their beds, and neither hitch was a Reese.
Now in another two years I may be re-writing this, but right now, based on what I have actually observed with my own eyes and not what I have read on a forum, is that in 100% of the cases the jaws were not locked and the trailer came off the hitch. It is as simple as that. Who knows if it was "high hitched" or "not hitched", in each of the cases I observed it was simple user error.
That is not to say that in the original OP's case something did not break on his hitch. Anything man made can fail or break. But either he was high hitched to begin with or his hitch is broken. If it was me I would have a service center inspect the hitch. If it failed then have it fixed or buy some wonderful non-Reese hitch. If it checks out and it is not broke, then admit that you are lucky after high-hitching your rig and pulling it down the road that it didn't come off and kill someone.
