bucking/chucking with a TT?

An adequate tow vehicle and a good balance on the travel trailer makes towing as easy as a fifth wheel trailer. You don't need a $2,000-$3,000 hitch. There are an abundance of hitch salesmen on here who insist you do. The rest of us get along fine as long as we are aware of the weights and ratings involved.

we spend about 3 months and 5,000 miles/year on the road. Bought an airsafe air hitch after we got the trailer. Makes a huge difference in ride comfort on roads with frost heaves or concrete road expansion joints. I can watch the trailer slowly move up and down over stuff as the truck stays steady. Doesn't eliminate everything, it can't completely decouple the trailer from the truck. the only downsides are (1) cost, and (2) the weight. About 100lbs and not inexpensive so probably doesn't make sense unless you travel a lot and over long distances.

goducks10 wrote:

wmoses wrote:
...A fifth wheel arrangement would not have this problem to anywhere close to the same degree due to the location of the load point on the truck.

I tend to disagree with you last sentence. 5ers do chuck. That's why they make air hitches, MoreRyde and Trailair type king pins. Our 5er chucks some. Less since we installed a MoreRyde. Just the nature of the towing game.

Look at my last sentence again. Never said that it does not have any sort of "out-of-sync" motion ("chucking"). Just that it would not have the porpoising effect (or even chucking) to the same degree as with a tow hitch connection, as in the case of a travel trailer. Any articulated RV could have some degree of bucking / chucking.

wmoses wrote:

cruz-in wrote:
bucking and chucking may not have been the best words....I am referring to being bounced around (via porpoising, etc.) when, for instance, driving on rough concrete interstates, etc....

If you have a TT, ANY hitch setup will result in porpoising when the speed of the rig and the road surface (and of course hitch load) are just right for those conditions - don't let anyone fool you. It is the physics of the articulating arrangement on a truck-trailer combination. As "Passin' Thru" mentioned, LA and MS roads can be expecially inducive to this down in the south. If you have a smooth surface that is not providing a repeating pattern of perturbations then there would be no porpoising with any hitch setup. Given this is the case, the most practicable solution is to immediately slow down until the road surface improves.

A fifth wheel arrangement would not have this problem to anywhere close to the same degree due to the location of the load point on the truck.

I tend to disagree with you last sentence. 5ers do chuck. That's why they make air hitches, MoreRyde and Trailair type king pins. Our 5er chucks some. Less since we installed a MoreRyde. Just the nature of the towing game.

The only time I noticed any sway or bounce was when another driver and I were merging into the same lane. I took a hard steer to the right. The truck and TT dampened out after one rebound.

I never have any sway of bounce issues from wind are semi buffets, the TT recovers immediately. Bumpy roads are bumpy roads; so I slow down or get off.

I am only pulling a 26 ft. TT at 60 mph but the Blue Ox hitch works well with my F-150.

cruz-in wrote:
bucking and chucking may not have been the best words....I am referring to being bounced around (via porpoising, etc.) when, for instance, driving on rough concrete interstates, etc....

If you have a TT, ANY hitch setup will result in porpoising when the speed of the rig and the road surface (and of course hitch load) are just right for those conditions - don't let anyone fool you. It is the physics of the articulating arrangement on a truck-trailer combination. As "Passin' Thru" mentioned, LA and MS roads can be expecially inducive to this down in the south. If you have a smooth surface that is not providing a repeating pattern of perturbations then there would be no porpoising with any hitch setup. Given this is the case, the most practicable solution is to immediately slow down until the road surface improves.

A fifth wheel arrangement would not have this problem to anywhere close to the same degree due to the location of the load point on the truck.

How much a trailer is going to be able to push / bounce around / porpus your tow vehicle is going to depend on your trailer weight / length versus your tow vehicle weight / length. A weight distributing hitch will help control this to some extent and a Hensley is a premium WD hitch.

If you tow your 39' tail hitch toyhauler with a Prius it isn't going to handle well no matter how much you spend on a hitch. I tow my 26' trailer with my crew cab long box 2500 Duramax. I hardly know it is back there. I consider my Duramax overkill for my trailer... but I like it that way!

Bucking like you call it will happen on some awful roads. On normal roads, it's a poor setup. In many cases, it's caused by too little tongue weight, so the trailer and the tow vehicle end up bouncing separately causing the bucking effect. If you watch the trailer a bit in your side view mirror while towing, you'll see that the thing does quite a bit of moving up and down. That's normal if it's in concert with the movement of the car. You typically don't feel that movement in your own vehicle because of the suspension, but watch another car in the lane beside you while driving and you'll see just how much movement happens. The tires and shocks absorb much of it.

Had a 35'TT, now a 40' TT, towed over 90,000 miles, with a standard Reese hitch w/ 1200# torsion bars and a static anti sway. MKost of the time I never knew it was behind me. Of course near LA/X border on I10 you knew it and it wasn't all that good bt then that is likely the worst piece of interstate in the US. I don't think 5ers are fire safe and don't care to give up my pickup bed so I'll stay with my TT. Oh yeah my BIL who drove semi and everything else for a living has the same TT as I.

The only time I have ever had any porpoising is on some bridges. While I feel the expansion joints in the concrete, they don't cause the TT to bounce.