What's wrong with too much tongue weight?

Hi,

As was stated, if you have more TW than any rated components in the truck, WD hitch or trailer, that is a problem. You can find rating stickers on the GAWR-RR on the truck, the truck reciever, the WD hitch, the trailer ball coupler often has a stamped rating on the top of it. But... your trailers A frame is more complex. Some of the Jayco lighter weight trailers I have seen have an actual sticker on them to not use a WD hitch stronger then 1,000#. They had a certain light weight design they had issues with years back and the sticker then came. That said, I have not yet found another brand to have an A frame ratings sticker. There may be some, just I have not seen them and I have looked at many.

And in some cases, you can try and call the factory who made the camper and they will not tell you either. One company told a friend of mine (not Jayco) to call the WD hitch mfr ???? Jayco I would expect them to try and be helpful, call them. Using a TW and WD bars too strong for the A frame of the camper can be a big issue.

I can say this, if you are feeling an instability in towing, if you have a true 13% loaded TW per GVW of the trailer, then by increasing the TW to say 16% is not going to change the instability, the problem is often some other rig setup issue or issues. Meaning the effect of going from 13 to 16% by itself is not the cause, however if you have a problem in say, truck tires, or axle rating, or truck suspension, WD setup then the extra 3% can make it worse due to the overload of the component problem.

If you want to sort this problem out, you have to start with real axles weights after the WD is setup properly. And the word properly may be hard to figure out and you yourself need to understand what proper is. What do you declare proper WD on the truck to be? And is the trailer level, nose down or nose up and by how much when the WD is set properly?

It will take 3 sets of weights at a truck scale, all axle by axle to tell. And take these only when fully loaded to go camping. This will confirm, actual loaded trailer TW per GVW of the camper without the WD bars on, it will also confirm that the WD on the truck is set correct, and it will confirm the truck axle and GVWR ratings. Before you go to the scale, make sure you research how to weigh the truck and camper to get those 3 sets of weights. If you need help, ask away.

Once you know the weights and the WD on the truck is right, (if not adjust) and that the trailer towing stance is correct, then tire pressure experiments start. The brand, load rating, size and the air pressure in the tires can make or break a rig for towing stable. Again, ask here if you need help on this too.

You have a very good truck and once all towing parameters are setup correct, it will give you a good stable tow. But all parameters have to be optimized not just 1 or 2 parameters.

Hope this helps

John

Toy haulers have high tongue weight. The axles are moved to the back of the trailer to offset weight carried in the back. When not carrying a load you have high tongue weight. This make the trailer very stable at high speeds, more so then my conventional trailer with wheels closer to the center.

Edit- I do use a dual-cam wd hitch and sway control. VERY important to tow level.

Too much weight on your hitch can cause the front of your TV to lift, thus making it unstable. That's where weight distribution comes into play so both the TV and trailer ride level. Nothing wrong with what everyone else said here, it's just plain and simple answer to your original question. Simply put it distributes the excess weight between your TV and trailer so both ride level. That in itself help prevent the trailer swaying. Add the sway bars and you are much more stable.

flintsters wrote:
It's a 2012....dry is about 5800 lbs.

Dry isn't relevant in the context of this discussion ... question is, what is the trailer's average GVW loaded & ready to camp and in that state what is it's average gross tongue weight? Until you have a fix on that you have no idea as to whether you're running the correct percentage of gross tongue weight or whether it should be higher or lower.

I second Ken's question: "Do you know the weight rating of the receiver on your tow vehicle?" I know my Tahoe is 600/1,000. There is a downside to an overloaded receiver of course.

I had too much in my current trailer. I was at 1500 lbs and I had stability issues. Moved some stuff around and got that down to 1200 and it is a very well setup combo. My trailer is 9200lb loaded.

Once it’s weighed you can get the tongue weight down to 12% which is best for towing.

The capability of the TV has a lot to do with it.
An F-250 might not fair so well with a 1800# TW trailer. However a F-350 dually can handle the heavy TW.
Assuming the weight is not excessive enough to cause the trailer to self destruct. Than the tow vehicle will determine when the weight is excessive for a given combo.

It is the old story, numbers do not lie. I have made many guesses, estimates and calculation on tongue weight; only to be surprised by the CAT scales.

Load your rig for the road including dogs, cats and camp gear etc. Weigh the TV and TT. Disconnect the TT and re-weigh the TV. The difference in the combined TV axel weights is the load your TV is seeing when you add the TT.

Now you have the unload truck axel weights, the loaded truck axel weights and the trailer axel weight.

You know that with the WD hitch installed, 1. How much weight was added to the TV axles. 2. The axle weight of the TT.

So, if you add the TT axel weight plus the TV weight gain and divide it into the TV weight gain. It tells you the percentage of load that the WD hitch is transferring to the TV.

It sounds more complicated than it really is and they are the real numbers.

As for sway issues a host of reasons come to mind; suspension, tire pressure, TT nose up or nose down, to name a few.

Good Luck

You will never see a semi with the axles in the middle of a trailer. Most of the weight is over the drive axle, physics. This allows the best handling and stability. In the world of TT this is not always feasible it's a compromise between handling and not overloading the tow vehicle. That's the same reason 5th wheels will always handle better then a TT. More tongue weight will always produce better handling up to the point the tow vehicle is overloaded then it has a negative effect. The laws of physics don't change because you want it to.