New truck, New trailer, TONS of sway!

Mwolfe450 wrote:
Wow. Thanks for all of the input. I haven't had time to mess with the setup, I am hoping to do so soon. I understand I am at or above the limits of the truck once the trailer is loaded. I towed it home empty, with nothing in it. So I towed an 8k trailer with a 950lb tongue weight trailer and it was bad. I understand weight capacities are glorified on trucks, especially 1/2 tons. I have towed 10k with the truck and had no complaints, but that was an open trailer, much different than a 32ft sail. I also feel some people have responded thinking the truck had no suspension left with the trailer. In fact, I felt it had way to much travel left for being at capacity. When I took some resistance out of the bars it certainly helped. Not sure of tires on the truck but they're oem goodyears definitely not e rated, I'll guess lt tires. Payload on the truck is 2060lbs. Yes that's including passengers which is less than 550lbs. So I have 1500lb carrying capacity being conservative in the truck. The trailer would generally be towed fairly light for small weekend trips and full hookup sites. The dealers setup had the trailer level to slightly nose up. I will set the hitch up according to instructions and nose the trailer slightly and re try it. Then I will add tongue weight and try again. Lastly I will hitch it up to a v10 250 and see how that is. will the 250 pull it better, absolutely. If I'm still not comfortable in the f150 I will get a different trailer. I guess my original question in my first post was what might make it so squirrelly empty? Would prowler sell such an unbalanced trailer? Or can a poorly set up hitch cause that much sway?

Just like you, I bought a new F150. These trucks are light so they will get thrown around by an out of control trailer. I'm surprised the electronic sway control didn't help. You do have the Ford factory brake controller?

Your trailer nose should never be high. That's likely your sway problem. You'll likely need to readjust the hitch so that trailer is slightly nose down.

You may also have oversized WDH bars. With the Sway Pro, you need to have the bars bending to control sway and they won't if the bars are to large for your trailer.

Plus that trailer is so heavy dry, you'll be very close to the truck's hitch receiver rating when loaded. Be very careful with a trailer that heavy, and a truck this light. You need to have the hitch adjusted so it's spot on since you have no room for error as you found out.

Good luck.