Sway Control Info

wing_zealot wrote:

myredracer wrote:

troubledwaters wrote:
If a trailer is properly loaded it won't sway.

Ya know, I hear people say that often and I don't quite get it. Just how does one load a trailer "properly"? This isn't aimed at you, I have simply seen that said by others over the years....

Get the tongue weight high enough and it won't sway. The more you load behind the axle the more you need to load in front of the axle. For most tralers 12 percent will work, 13 is even better, 15 would be extra insurance. If it feels like it wants to sway add more tongue weight.

Still not sold on the concept.

We have almost 15 percent and sway was a big problem without the sway control installed. The majority of owners have 12 to 13 percent TW but have sway issues. Some are also limited in TW by their TV capacity and can't go higher even if they wanted to. But again, how do you load a TT to give more TW? Say you had a rear kitchen, would you move a bunch of stuff that belongs in the kitchen to the bedroom for travelling only? Stuff normally gets loaded into a TT where it belongs, you can't move it for towing and then move it back when you get to a CG. What about bikes loaded onto a carrier attached to the rear bumper. Many do it so that is a bad thing to do as far as sway goes?

In a related subject, many say that all the "stuff" you load into a TT for camping adds as much as 3K lbs. I weighed our TT immediately after picking it up from the dealer, after doing some mods and upgrades (some of which were heavy) and after we loaded it up with everything needed for a camping trip for two. The weight of ALL cargo we added (not incl. mods/upgrades) only came to 555 lbs. Even if we tried to shift some cargo towards the front, it would have little effect on the TW. Where would you shift weight to? Put some stuff on top of the bed? Cram stuff into the already full pass-through compartment?