2018 Zinger 18RD towing question

[Roger_Beitzel]

Hello Everyone, First-time trailer owner here. We have tent camped for years and decided we are too old to sleep on the ground any longer. Our tow vehicle is a 2011 Santa Fe with V6 and tow package. Trailer is close to our max tow weight. We have a load equalizer hitch with sway control. Just picked it up from the dealer yesterday. Here's my question: The ride when towing seems to be very choppy and it feels as if there is an ongoing push-pull between the trailer and suv. Are there adjustments we can make to the load equalizer to resolve this issue? Thanks everyone!

[drsteve]

Roger Beitzel wrote:
Considering a 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit, with a towing capacity of 6,200#s, this translates into a 620# tongue weight, correct? Is this adequate? Dry tongue weight of the trailer is 524#s. Thanks for all your help for a total newb!

Towing capacity and tongue weight capacity are completely unrelated.

According to the chart below, this Jeep has a V6, and a cargo capacity of just over 1000 lb. The weight of passengers, driver, cargo, the hitch itself, and the tongue weight of the trailer cannot exceed the cargo capacity of the Jeep. As already mentioned by others, the tongue weight of your trailer will be over 600 lb. A WD hitch weighs about 100 lb.
That leaves little for people and cargo. The Grand Cherokee is not a really good tow vehicle, because of its low cargo capacity.

Jeep Towing Chart

[carringb]

You need to find out your actual tongue weight. Forget the "dry" tongue weight number even exists. It's meaningless, unless you plan on towing your trailer without propane or batteries (and towing without the battery isn't even legal, since it powers the breakaway switch).

[Roger_Beitzel]

Considering a 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit, with a towing capacity of 6,200#s, this translates into a 620# tongue weight, correct? Is this adequate? Dry tongue weight of the trailer is 524#s. Thanks for all your help for a total newb!

[drsteve]

Tow capacity is not the number to look at. Payload and tongue weight are the limits you will hit long before the tow capacity is reached. This is true with any SUV or half ton pickup pulling a travel trailer.

[Roger_Beitzel]

How about something with a 5K# towing capacity, assuming tongue weight is within range?

[Camper_G]

You need a larger TV. 1/2 ton pickup or Large SUV. (Tahoe, expedition, suburban) possibly a newer ford explorer could do it, but I think itd also be pretty maxed out.

Possibly the new Chevy Colorado could do it also? Sorry for the bad news but your trailer will likely be at or north of 4k loaded weight and that's a no go for the Santa fe.

[Roger_Beitzel]

Forgive my naivete, but can the WDH resolve this issue, or do we need to buy a larger TV?

[Roger_Beitzel]

Oi! I knew we were close to max tow weight, so we were careful with how much weight we were adding to the trailer. I failed to take into account the higher tongue weight.

[carringb]

Step 1 is to find all your weights, including:

-Actual trailer weights how it sits now (not how it was built at the factory)
-Trailer static tongue weight
-Front and rear weights of your Sante Fe, with and without the trailer.

It's a lot of work, but only that will tell you if its a potential hitch setup issue, or if you're just simply overloaded.

Choppiness or surging in some cases is caused by a flex in the hitch system (but sometimes just under-damped suspension on either the TV or trailer), so it's important to find out for sure what's going on.

[ppine]

Too much weight always messes up the ride.
Sway control helps the horizontal motion.
For vertical motion you have to look at your towing capacity and the suspension among other things.

[BurbMan]

Congrats on the new trailer and welcome to the forums! Bad news is you are over your ratings on the Santa Fe. Look at page 5-53 in your owners manual, max trailer weight for the V6 is 3500 lbs but max hitch weight is 350 lbs. The Zinger you bought weighs in (according to the brochure) at 3286 dry weight with a hitch weight of 524 lbs. Since it's a smaller trailer you will likely only add 500-600 lbs of camping stuff, but then you're looking at a loaded weight around 3800-3900 lbs. Once you add a battery and fill the propane on the tongue the hitch weight is likely around 625. This is without any water on board.

One guy posted here a few months ago that he bent the rear trailing arms on his Santa Fe towing a popup. I think the issue with the bouncing you are experiencing is not so much the total weight but the weight on the hitch.

If you want to get more precise info, you need to get the loaded trailer to a scale. First take the Santa Fe by itself and get a baseline. Then go back with the loaded trailer and weigh the SUV and trailer together, then the trailer by itself (still hitch to the SUV). Subtract the weight of the trailer by itself from the total combined, then subtract the weight of the just the SUV and your answer will be the amount of weight on the SUV hitch.

Once you have facts and data you can decide what to do about the SUV....but there's not much if anything you can do right now to fix an overloaded condition.

One thing you can do is read the sticky at the top of this forum on how to set up a hitch, many dealers don't do it correctly.

One last point, don't attempt to lighten the hitch weigh by moving cargo to the rear, if the hitch is too light the trailer will sway and the whole caboodle will wind up in the ditch.