Andersen WD hitch thoughts?

What problem are you trying to fix?

nickthehunter wrote:
What problem are you trying to fix?

"The hitch head is heavy, have to store the bars, etc."

The Anderson uses chains instead of bars and the hitch head is like a standard drop hitch, except it has the extra stuff for the sway control built in.

I don't have any experience with them, so can't comment on that part. I'm just a WD bar type of hitch, so just deal with the bars and the hitch head..

Mitch

I had one, and for my 34', 8000lb 850# tongue trailer, it didn't work. BUT -
the trailer was way too light on the tongue, so prone to sway easily. Not enough TW on the friction cup to counteract the sway. Also a very long tail wagging the dog. I had no issue setting the WD to recover all the front rise of my truck. Loved the ease of setup and use.
With a shorter, lighter trailer that has proper tongue weight it may work well. At a guess, the OP's trailer might be at the very top of the range for it. Too bad there is no "try it for 30 days".
Rather than accumulate slightly used hitches in my garage, I just bit the bullet and got the very expensive, very heavy ProPride. Which definitively fixed the sway issue.
Sold it to a fellow with a trailer same length and a bit lighter than mine, at a steep discount. He got rid of it soon after, also.

What you said is largely contradictory.
Not enough tongue weight but trying to recover front end rise?

Seems as if tongue weight could be enough to squat the rear of the tow vehicle but still not be enough (% of trailer) to let the trailer tow well. :h

Grit dog wrote:

What you said is largely contradictory.
Not enough tongue weight but trying to recover front end rise?

Not at all.
1. The hitch depends on TW pressing the ball of the hitch down into a silicon friction cup, that then dampens sway. Not enough TW, not enough friction, and if prone to it, sway could start.
2. ALL hitches make the front end of the tow vehicle rise, due to the weight on the back end. The WD system (whatever kind) acts as a reverse lever to bring the front end of the vehicle back down. Some have bars that can be hard to set. This has chains that are easy to tighten, and for me, were robust enough to bring the front of the vehicle back to its original height.
So, 850# on the hitch was way more than enough to get the front of the vehicle to rise, but not enough to generate the needed friction to dampen sway. Can't say what my now proper 950# TW would have on it all....

shelbyfv wrote:
Seems as if tongue weight could be enough to squat the rear of the tow vehicle but still not be enough (% of trailer) to let the trailer tow well. :h

And that’s what springs are made to do, is squat. And if the OP is correct in his trailer weights he doesn’t need to transfer tongue weight.
Typical “need a wdh” when one quite likely is not only unnecessary but may be causing problems that wouldn’t be present if the truck just carried the hitch weight on the hitch.

Flapper wrote:

Grit dog wrote:

Flapper wrote:
I had one, and for my 34', 8000lb 850# tongue trailer, it didn't work. BUT -
the trailer was way too light on the tongue, so prone to sway easily. Not enough TW on the friction cup to counteract the sway. Also a very long tail wagging the dog. I had no issue setting the WD to recover all the front rise of my truck. Loved the ease of setup and use.
With a shorter, lighter trailer that has proper tongue weight it may work well. At a guess, the OP's trailer might be at the very top of the range for it. Too bad there is no "try it for 30 days".
Rather than accumulate slightly used hitches in my garage, I just bit the bullet and got the very expensive, very heavy ProPride. Which definitively fixed the sway issue.
Sold it to a fellow with a trailer same length and a bit lighter than mine, at a steep discount. He got rid of it soon after, also.

What you said is largely contradictory.
Not enough tongue weight but trying to recover front end rise?

Not at all.
1. The hitch depends on TW pressing the ball of the hitch down into a silicon friction cup, that then dampens sway. Not enough TW, not enough friction, and if prone to it, sway could start.
2. ALL hitches make the front end of the tow vehicle rise, due to the weight on the back end. The WD system (whatever kind) acts as a reverse lever to bring the front end of the vehicle back down. Some have bars that can be hard to set. This has chains that are easy to tighten, and for me, were robust enough to bring the front of the vehicle back to its original height.
So, 850# on the hitch was way more than enough to get the front of the vehicle to rise, but not enough to generate the needed friction to dampen sway. Can't say what my now proper 950# TW would have on it all....

Ok, I can see having an extra large tail wagging the lightweight dog exaggerating sway issues. So makes sense in your case where the Anderson design may not have been enough to counteract a poor towing trailer design.
But what are you calling “sway”. The little wiggles while towing at high speed or a bit of exaggerated push when passing a semi? Or actual sway that increases with speed and becomes hard to control or uncontrollable at certain speeds?

Funny, on other forums I lecture others about the difference! Yes, full on real sway. Where it starts by one seeing the rear corner of the trailer peeking out on one side mirror, then over in the other, back and forth - and quickly progressing to much more... Luckily for me, a couple of scary times but not enough to loose control. Foot off the gas and applying the trailer brakes calmed it. I became hyper vigilant though watching for the corners appearing/disappearing in my mirrors!

BTW - weight on the ball makes the rear of the truck squat AND the "teeter-totter" effect of the rear axel takes weight off of the front wheels. With enough weight off, a full on "wheelie" with no contact of the front on the road at all. Of course, that is extreme....hence the WD system that moves that effect to both the front of the tow vehicle, and to a lesser extent to the axels of the trailer. Hence "restoring" some of the weight to the front end. The overall load doesn't change, so the vehicle still squats, just not all in the back. Saying that WD isn't needed in that situation is ill advised, as anyone that has overloaded in the rear can attest when they find their steering becomes marginal. (I'm thinking of my poor Chevy Nova from decades ago that had a load of bricks in the hatchback - almost NO steering at all in the trip home from the building supply....)

The Andersen isn’t a WDH. It’s “maybe” effective with the very lightest trailers (and not much compared to the most basic EAZ-LIFT).