Any Reason To Get A WDH?

rbpru wrote:
I am curious; if you add tongue weight to the back of a vehicle, you increase the weight on the rear axle and reduce the weight on the front axle.

If you add air bags you raise the rear, the vehicle will sit level but do you still have the same amount of weight on the rear axle? We know a WD hitch transfers weight to the front axle and back to the trailer.

So the question is do air assists act like a WD hitch or do they just mask the rear axle overload?

I'd say neither. The air suspension levels out the tow vehicle based on the load. Period. That's all it does. It is incapable of transferring any weight anywhere.

The WDH transfers soem portion of the tongue weight from the rear axle to the front and trailer axles. (The exact proportion varies slightly based on the TV wheelbase, rear overhang, and trailer tongue leigth.) That changes the load on all three (or four) axles and, with a conventional suspension, how much each axle squats.

So the air suspension doesn't really 'mask' anything, it simply adjusts independent of the axle weights. That's where your friendly local CAT scale comes in to help you dial in the setup. :)