New truck, New trailer, TONS of sway!

Mwolfe450 wrote:
Wow. Thanks for all of the input. I haven't had time to mess with the setup, I am hoping to do so soon. I understand I am at or above the limits of the truck once the trailer is loaded. I towed it home empty, with nothing in it. So I towed an 8k trailer with a 950lb tongue weight trailer and it was bad. I understand weight capacities are glorified on trucks, especially 1/2 tons. I have towed 10k with the truck and had no complaints, but that was an open trailer, much different than a 32ft sail. I also feel some people have responded thinking the truck had no suspension left with the trailer. In fact, I felt it had way to much travel left for being at capacity. When I took some resistance out of the bars it certainly helped. Not sure of tires on the truck but they're oem goodyears definitely not e rated, I'll guess lt tires. Payload on the truck is 2060lbs. Yes that's including passengers which is less than 550lbs. So I have 1500lb carrying capacity being conservative in the truck. The trailer would generally be towed fairly light for small weekend trips and full hookup sites. The dealers setup had the trailer level to slightly nose up. I will set the hitch up according to instructions and nose the trailer slightly and re try it. Then I will add tongue weight and try again. Lastly I will hitch it up to a v10 250 and see how that is. will the 250 pull it better, absolutely. If I'm still not comfortable in the f150 I will get a different trailer. I guess my original question in my first post was what might make it so squirrelly empty? Would prowler sell such an unbalanced trailer? Or can a poorly set up hitch cause that much sway?

But, but but..... it can`t be! so many people say it wont be safe! surely you don`t want to undermine the weight police! :B

seriously, glad you got it figured out. sometimes all it takes is a bit of patience and work to get something right! too many times I see people go out and buy a bigger truck, because they thought or were told that's what they needed! which is scarry, because the majority of those people now have an improperly setup trailer on a bigger truck. at the wrong time they will find out it isn`t setup properly. it took me a good year to get mine to tow perfect. mine had too much tongue weight and maxed out load range "D" (on an 11k+ lb TT!) ST tires. lowering the tongue weight to 1200 from 1400 helped, then the tires (ST LR E`s) were the final cure.

As is seen here, spend some time with your setup and you will see a world of difference. how do you think all the people that show up in a campground with a 1/2 ton and large trailer do it. there are so many, all of them can`t be dangerous!