Hitch Set Up

I towed a friend of mines new 33' Imagine travel trailer with his new Blue Ox and I was really impressed how easy it was to hook up and towed fantastic. I "once" bought one of the Chinese $175.00 W.D. and the head started to crack at the weld. I tossed it and bought a straight up Draw Tite in 2005 with the Friction Sway. Works great. Not trying to dish the foreign manufacturers, but I won't do that again. If I was buying new, I would likely go with either a basic Curt and and Friction or a Blue OX

APT wrote:
7300 pounds sounds weird to me. 2009+ Tahoes should be either in the 6xxx or 8xxx pound range. You should verify your equipment per the Maroney sticker, or even better your RPO sticker in the glove box. You should have GU6 (3.42 axle) and KNP (Heavy Duty Trans cooler) for 8000+ tow rating.

You are correct. It is 8400 lb. my bad.

In that weight range I can't say enough good things about the Andersen hitch. It is clean, quiet, easy on and off AND the ride is much smoother.

7300 pounds sounds weird to me. 2009+ Tahoes should be either in the 6xxx or 8xxx pound range. You should verify your equipment per the Maroney sticker, or even better your RPO sticker in the glove box. You should have GU6 (3.42 axle) and KNP (Heavy Duty Trans cooler) for 8000+ tow rating.

Click here for as good a hitch set up explanation as you will find anywhere. :)
Barney

You need to know what your payload capacity is on the tow vehicle. If it's not on the sticker on the door pillar, go to a scale and subtract it's actual weight from the GVWR. Once you know the payload capacity, you can shop for a TT and not get into trouble as all too many do. Forget about the towing capacity. The payload capacity will be the limiting factor on a TT.

Never go by dry weights of TTs when shopping. Use the GVWR. For an estimated actual tongue weight, take 12-13 percent of the GVWR and see if you have the payload capacity for it. When looking at payload capacity of the tow vehicle, you must include weight of driver, passengers, pets, groceries and camping "stuff" in it as well as the weight of the hitch shank and spring bars. Look at cargo carrying capacity of TTs as some have lots of CCC and some have little. When it's on the low side, it's easier to load up to it's GVWR. In some cases, full holding tank(s) can even put you over the GVWR (not good).

There is an excellent sticky on how to set up a WDH in the towing forum. Just don't let a dealer do the setup. You should learn how to do it. You'll want some sway control and add-on friction bars are popular for TTs on the smaller side.

I bought the same hitch, but with 1200# bars, two months ago. I've put 3,000+ miles on it and it works fine. I don't know if it's my truck and TT, but I'm not using the sway attachment at all because I have zero sway.

My only caution to you is that while the box it's in is fine for a display in the store if you pick it up yourself, it's a very poor box for the way FedEx or UPS treats it during shipping due to the weight in the box. My box had several holes in it and one of the bolt packages fell out during shipment. I called the MFG's customer service and they shipped out another package of bolts the next day. They didn't question it so I think they've had the problem before.

It's a good hitch - also check Amazon for pricing and the free shipping. I looked at several hitches running 6 - $700 and couldn't find why they were worth more than this one. And some were a lot more complicated to set up.

Also notice that this one includes the variable height hitch and 14,000# ball that others don't include in the WD part and make you pay additional money for. This one is everything you need.

Bill

Very similar to mine. Mine has straight spring bars. I've used it with 2 trailers and 4 different tow vehicles.

Etrailer has a good video on how to set it up.

The hitch you linked to is a decent and very basic set up. Trillions of folks use one and it will work for you.

I have HAD that and aN Equal-i-zer and a Reece Dual Cam HP. All of them once set up correctly did a good job. With our new trailer I went with a Blue Ox SwapPro..

For a number of reasons I think it's the best yet.

I used that set up for several years with a 7,500 gross weight trailer. I then bought another similar trailer and used the Reese dual cam which was better. The Equal-i-zer 4 point I have now necessitated by another trailer change is good, too. If current cost is an issue, try it and change it out later, if desired, when funds are available.