4runnerguy wrote:
When I was doing some additional research on this subject, I found an interesting definition on the Draw-Tite website:
"(W)eight distributing hitches apply leverage between the towing vehicle and trailer causing the TW to be carried by all axles of the tow vehicle and trailer. When TW is distributed in this way, trailers with greater TWs can be towed, resulting in a more level ride which reduces stress on the rear of the tow vehicle and provides greater steering and brake control." (TW=Tongue Weight)
This definition seems to me to be as good as anything else I've seen and hopefully doesn't cause confusion about decreasing tongue weight.
We're back from a great weekend in the RV and I was sure I'd come back to several more pages of discussion in this thread. Instead, I'm quite impressed to find that it looks like the loop is closing and we're almost finished re-inventing the proverbial wheel. It'll be interesting to see Ron's response to what has transpired since he left.
Being an engineer myself, I'm amused by the picture of some Draw-Tite engineer being approached by a marketing guy with the task of coming up with their company's "official" description. There are definitely a lot of nuances to the WD hitch which if taken literally can be very confusing, yet a concise and simple definition had to be derived. Preferring these guys to be the "hitch experts", I really like the Draw-Tite definition that 4runnerguy found, even though it has the potentially confusing phrase, "TW is distributed". Perhaps us concerned end users could modify it to "TW is distributed
(in effect)
".
