Forum Discussion

Roger_Beitzel's avatar
Jul 02, 2018

2018 Zinger 18RD towing question

Hello Everyone, First-time trailer owner here. We have tent camped for years and decided we are too old to sleep on the ground any longer. Our tow vehicle is a 2011 Santa Fe with V6 and tow package. Trailer is close to our max tow weight. We have a load equalizer hitch with sway control. Just picked it up from the dealer yesterday. Here's my question: The ride when towing seems to be very choppy and it feels as if there is an ongoing push-pull between the trailer and suv. Are there adjustments we can make to the load equalizer to resolve this issue? Thanks everyone!
  • Congrats on the new trailer and welcome to the forums! Bad news is you are over your ratings on the Santa Fe. Look at page 5-53 in your owners manual, max trailer weight for the V6 is 3500 lbs but max hitch weight is 350 lbs. The Zinger you bought weighs in (according to the brochure) at 3286 dry weight with a hitch weight of 524 lbs. Since it's a smaller trailer you will likely only add 500-600 lbs of camping stuff, but then you're looking at a loaded weight around 3800-3900 lbs. Once you add a battery and fill the propane on the tongue the hitch weight is likely around 625. This is without any water on board.

    One guy posted here a few months ago that he bent the rear trailing arms on his Santa Fe towing a popup. I think the issue with the bouncing you are experiencing is not so much the total weight but the weight on the hitch.

    If you want to get more precise info, you need to get the loaded trailer to a scale. First take the Santa Fe by itself and get a baseline. Then go back with the loaded trailer and weigh the SUV and trailer together, then the trailer by itself (still hitch to the SUV). Subtract the weight of the trailer by itself from the total combined, then subtract the weight of the just the SUV and your answer will be the amount of weight on the SUV hitch.

    Once you have facts and data you can decide what to do about the SUV....but there's not much if anything you can do right now to fix an overloaded condition.

    One thing you can do is read the sticky at the top of this forum on how to set up a hitch, many dealers don't do it correctly.

    One last point, don't attempt to lighten the hitch weigh by moving cargo to the rear, if the hitch is too light the trailer will sway and the whole caboodle will wind up in the ditch.