drsteve wrote:
rbpru wrote:
The debated comes down to the tongue weight your hitch carries.
Without the WD the full weight of the hitch is on the ball and the rear springs compress.
With the WD hitch some of the weight is transferred from the ball reducing the rear spring compression and reducing the axel weight and increasing the front axel and trailer axle weights.
Either a person believes it or does not. It may make for an interesting discussion but it has little impact on the overall RV community.
A WD hitch does not remove load from the hitch ball. It transfers load from the rear axle to the front axle, but that load is NOT the tongue load. Tongue weight is still right there, on the hitch ball. Ad I said above tongue weight could be zero, and the WD hitch would still move load to the front axle and the TT axles.
Read the sticky. It explains it all.
yup, think of it this way. I stand on a scale and weigh 180lbs. but I don't want to go on a diet. so I push down on the counter and WOW I now only weigh 150!. NOPE NOPE NOPE I still weigh 180lbs but I have exerted 30 lbs of opposing force. WD hitch does the same. It does NOT change tongue weight one bit. It just changes how forces are applied to the axles.
Or another way to think of it. I have a wheelbarrow full of dirt. As I lift up on the wheelbarrow, the force on the rear of the wheelbarrow is transferred to me, I feel it on my feet and in my arms. but overall weights don't change, just the forces on each of the 3 points.
Maybe the confusion would be eliminated if the hitch mfg stated what it really does. It is a FORCE distributing hitch. It doesn't change weights it changes the FORCES on each axle. Some axles get force added(downward additional force) and others gets forces subtracted (upward opposing force)
