RedRocket204 wrote:
load up your specific trailer and remeasure the tongue weight to know what you are dealing with.
This is exactly why I bought a Sherline gauge. With the gauge I can design a specific loading scheme for empty as well as for each of my cars. In each case I'll mark the floor for the specific car and specific a specific amount of rear ballast to achieve 12% tongue weight.
While I’m new to towing, my only surprise so far was finding out I had over 30% tongue weight when empty. I stupidly assumed it was 15%, and did my first tow based on that figure. Turns out I was probably in the vicinity of 1500lbs tongue weight (5800lbs total trailer weight). Unfortunately, 1500lbs is 150% over the rated tongue weight of the vehicle/hitch (regardless of WD). Because I have self-leveling rear shocks, it wasn't visually evident that I was so far over the max TW, and it wasn't until I started towing that I noticed the problem.
Anyway, I did about 300 miles (1/2 of it in heavy rain with moderate-strength cross-winds, what we call a Noreaster), over a couple very small mountain passes. At the start of the trip I noticed right away that the front was a bit light. When I tested the brakes, the trailer e-brake setting was good, but I also noticed my front brakes locked up early (ABS kicked in). I had my WD set to 2 links and drove very carefully, much of the time with my thumb ready to hit manual-trailer-brake button. I kept an eagle eye out for the onset of instability, and kept my speed down.
Now that I’ve measured TW, everything sort of makes sense. I’m sure when I get it all weight balanced better it’ll tow a lot nicer. I’m trying to decide what to get for ballast,
I could put a tractor weight bracket in the back and buy 500lbs of tractor weights, or go with the disposable sandbags (in those big Rubbermaid rubber bins). I priced out bags of lead shot, and that’s pretty expensive stuff (75cents/lbs). Sand is only 7 cents/lbs.
