When you finally settle on the trailer you are considering, check the stats for the trailer and get the tongue weight. Say the tongue weight is 500 pounds. Now, go out and purchase 500 pounds of water softener salt in 50 pound bags and put them in the truck of the car and drive around. OK if you have kids, get 500 pounds of play sand and make a sand box for them.
What happens to the performance of your Lexus? How does it handle now? With 500 pounds of weight in the trunk, the front steering is going to be compromised because the weight in the trunk is pushing on the rear tires making the front light. This makes for a very dangerous driving situation, especially on wet roads.
If you attach a trailer with a tongue weight of 500 pounds, the exact thing will happen. Not to mention, your headlights will be angled into the trees and not on the road.
Weight distribution does exactly what the name implies. It distributes that weight on the hitch (which by the way extends a few inches beyond the bumper, giving that 500 pounds even more leverage than just 500 pounds in the trunk). The weight is distributed evenly to all tires on the tow vehicle AND back to the trailer. So that 500 pounds is equally divided to all your tires. (in a simplified fashion ... this is what weight distribution does).
So before purchasing, if you think you don't need weight distribution, please try the water softener weight in your trunk first, then drive around a while. If you are OK with this.... then by all means ... you don't need the weight distribution.
My brother-in-law lives near Dallas, Texas and has owned Lexus autos for years and years. He also once owned a speed boat with trailer. He towed the boat and trailer with his Lexus. He had to install air bags on the car because the boat caused the rear to squat so bad, the tail pipe was dragging the asphalt.
In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, they drive like insane idiots. My brother-in-law was no exception. He towed the boat for several years, driving like a crazy man keeping up with traffic. He was successful for years until one day...
The boat went into a very bad sway (at 70 or 80 mph) and he attempted to correct it. In so doing the boat started to flip over, but flipped into a 3500 dually and bounced back to the road, but the boat flipped off the trailer and went flying down the road in another direction. At that same time, the trailer then jack knifed forward on the other side and slammed into the side of their own car. This of course tore the trailer to h***. The side of the car looked like it went through an auto junk yard where they crush cars into little square cubes. To say the least, the car, the trailer, and the boat were 100% loss. Not to mention the damage done to the 3500 dually the boat flipped into.
Weight distribution? Yea ... would have helped him a lot .... plus driving a lot slower.
Go ahead friend if you want. It's your life. If you want to skip on the Weight Distribution, sway control, and any other feature, as long as you are hitched legally, go for it! But if you want to arrive at your destination, I suggest you get some kind of weight distribution and sway ... especially if your tow vehicle is a Lexus.
