F150 Towing Sway

"You should get actual weights on truck and trailer. Check the loading sticker, on your drivers door post, for GVWR and cargo carrying capacity (payload) of the truck. If you subtract your driver / passenger / cargo weights from your payload, and find you have insufficient capacity to carry another 1000 lbs from the trailer, you are over weight when hitched up."

GVWR = 7100 LB
Cargo Cap = 1653 LB
driver/passenger/cargo = 1030 LB EST (2 adults, 4 kids, 1 dog, 200 lb added for cargo)
Leaves 623 for trailer

handye9 wrote:
There are several causes / contributors to sway issues. Trailer sway can be caused by just one, or, a combination of two or more contributors.

1. Not enough tongue weight
2. Impropper adjustment of WDH
3. Impropper adjustment or insufficient sway control device
4. Unbalanced tire pressures in truck or trailer
5. Soft suspension on tow vehicle
6. Tire sidewall flex on tow vehicle
7. Unbalanced load in trailer
8. Bad roads
9. Wind
10. Hitch ball set too high. Trailer tows nose up
11. Tow vehicle overloaded

Without seeing the actual specs on your truck, it is possible, you have issues with almost all of the listed causes.

I found these numbers for a Hideout 31BHS

Length 33' 11" (lets just say 34 feet)
unloaded trailer 6780 lbs
unloaded hitch 825 lbs (loaded to gross weight-- this could be 1250+)
cargo capacity 2845
Gross weight 9625 lbs

There are versions of the F150, that are not rated to tow a trailer this big. Some of them, only have 750 lbs of payload, while others have up to 3100 lbs. Payload is your capacity to carry fuel, passengers, cargo, and trailer hitch weight combined.

You should get actual weights on truck and trailer. Check the loading sticker, on your drivers door post, for GVWR and cargo carrying capacity (payload) of the truck. If you subtract your driver / passenger / cargo weights from your payload, and find you have insufficient capacity to carry another 1000 lbs from the trailer, you are over weight when hitched up.