WDH opinions plz
I pull a boat on a tandem trailer approximately 24 to 25 feet long and only use the standard slide in hitch etc. I have never experienced any sway issues all the years I've been pulling my boats. a...
Forum Discussion
TomG2 wrote:
What excess wear would towing a trailer with 500 pounds of tongue weight cause on a tow vehicle designed for 1,000 pounds of tongue weight?
More comfortable? Not unless something is wrong or out of balance.
Safer? The manufacturers know what is safe and state their requirements clearly. Hitches are not the way to cure an ill handling unbalanced trailer.
Cost? Not a factor at all. If you need one, you need one. If you think that any hitch is going to turn an underpowered undersprung tow vehicle into a super towing machine, you will be disappointed.
Read some of the many weight distributing threads on here and you will discover that no hitch is perfect and none will cure all towing problems.
i did make some assumptions about a hypothetical TV that may not be fair but i don't know of a realistic tow vehicle that has a non WDH rating that can handle 1k pd tongue weight... even an f450 can only handle 850.
there definiltey are vehicles that could handle a tongue wieght of 500 pds without a WDH but for a lot of the TV's out there that's the max they can carry without "needing" a WDH but also the Minimum of needing one. like APT said, tongue weight not only adds weight to the rear axle but also takes wieght off the front axle which is also carried by the rear axle. i think it's fair to say that even with the 500pd tongue weight, your rear axle and suspension would wear less if you could get some of the weight off that axle. it may be negligable but still increase wear.
as far as comfort, i may have used the wrong word there and really meant to add that to safty but a well balanced properly loaded trailer can still be a victim of sway and sway is always uncomfortable to me but in fairness i have never owned a WDH that didn't also control sway so to me when i hear WDH i think of what i had.
i'm not trying to be a jerk or argumentitive... my post made assumptions that maybe i shouldn't have and they represent my general feelings towards a WDH. i think by saying that since the manufaturer doesn't require it at X weight doesn't mean that it wouldn't benefit from it at x weight.
