horton333 wrote:Yea, thats part of it. I think I first saw it in Popular Mechanics.
Wow, that would have been a fun commercial.
If I put some numbers in for this SUV you would need to hold almost 3,000 pounds in the air - tongue plus half vehicle. The mechanical disadvantage on the bars would be in the order of 3 to one. With a short trailer it still seems you need like 9,000# worth of WD bars. That's a lot of twisting on that 2" hitch, and of course things would get worse if you actually moved. Maybe the hitch would last or maybe I miss something in that calculation ..... but I would not want to be using that setup to work under the car ;-)
Is this the commercial you refer to?
horton333 wrote:Triva, I guess, but Oldsmobile had adds in the late 60's showing the rear wheels removed while towing with a WD hitch. I have personally lifted the tow vehicle wheels off the ground with a WD hitch. Interesting but not practical.totaldla wrote:horton333 wrote:Hmmmm, so if I cranked the WD hitch up till the rear wheels on the tow vehicle are off the ground, where did the tongue weight go?
Typically a trailer axle to rear wheels is going to be longer than front wheels to rear eheels, so reflected weight is less than half the weight transfered to the front wheels which is where my flyer of a 100 pounds is coming from. Sure could be 200 or even more sure, a very short but very heavy front trailer it could be 300.
That would be truly ironic if someone thought more was always better to the point of taking too much weight off the rear wheels with weight distribution, and ending up with worse stability.
Well I don't think you could get it to that extreme a point, you had said you had seen some that may have been near that point (or at least that is what I read, " I've seen WD hitches setup so you could pull a trailer without the rear wheels on a FWD tow vehicle."). Can you put too much forward, ya that possible, and as far as my comment should be taken. In any case the tongue weight is getting distributed between the front wheels and the trailer wheels, with the difference taken off the rear tow vehicle axle.
totaldla wrote:horton333 wrote:Hmmmm, so if I cranked the WD hitch up till the rear wheels on the tow vehicle are off the ground, where did the tongue weight go?
Typically a trailer axle to rear wheels is going to be longer than front wheels to rear eheels, so reflected weight is less than half the weight transfered to the front wheels which is where my flyer of a 100 pounds is coming from. Sure could be 200 or even more sure, a very short but very heavy front trailer it could be 300.
That would be truly ironic if someone thought more was always better to the point of taking too much weight off the rear wheels with weight distribution, and ending up with worse stability.
horton333 wrote:Hmmmm, so if I cranked the WD hitch up till the rear wheels on the tow vehicle are off the ground, where did the tongue weight go?
Typically a trailer axle to rear wheels is going to be longer than front wheels to rear eheels, so reflected weight is less than half the weight transfered to the front wheels which is where my flyer of a 100 pounds is coming from. Sure could be 200 or even more sure, a very short but very heavy front trailer it could be 300.
That would be truly ironic if someone thought more was always better to the point of taking too much weight off the rear wheels with weight distribution, and ending up with worse stability.
horton333 wrote:That's what I was thinking too, although the WD hitch is capable of negating (reflecting) a lot more of the tongue weight than 100lbs. I've seen WD hitches setup so you could pull a trailer without the rear wheels on a FWD tow vehicle.
The 520 tonque weight number may be rather low and not including everything, but that is tongue weight. The weight distribution reflects some weight, like a hundred# anyway on a short trailer, so probably 520 live weight (which is what the tow vehicle sees) is lilely good enough for speculation isn't it?
horton333 wrote:If you go back and reread all of my posts, you will notice that I never said that the Mercury was not capable of towing his TT....Huntindog wrote:horton333 wrote:
You said
"The OP IS new to this. The first thing he needs to know is that the tow ratings are essentially an advertising number. Few vehicles will actually be capable of that rating.". So much for accepting published numbers.
I used the published numbers, and someone else's estimate of hitch weight which seems as good as anything given no one knows the trailer to say
"The numbers say it's ok, easily actually." 7000 is larger than 4500 and 1440 carrying capacity and 800 hitch cspacity being enough for an estimated 520 vertical and leaving a reasonable margin for pasengers. When I point out the real world measurement confirms these published numbers, and in my case more, that is just adding informed observation to counter uninformed speculation about the published numbers that you assume are wrong for whatever unspecified reason.
I'd be happy to have a chat, and then little doubt a joimt chuckle, with the Magna engineers who worked on this about some comments in this thread. Hey they are just 10 minutes up the street from me.....Nah why waste people's time even if it would be so 'Annie Hallish'.
You previously said:horton333 wrote:
There are lots of people who actually have these vehicles who diassagree with your assumption, based on their experience. Yes tow ratings are largely marketing numbers on smaller vehicles, but on smaller vehicles tow ratings tend to be *less* than the vehicle is capable of: to upsell customers to the more profitable, and for many people less useful, trucks.
I would think that you as an engineer would refrain from such remarks.
Just as a professional courtesy if nothing else.
I seriously doubt that you have ANY knowledge just what went into the Mercury's engineers (or any other vehicles) methodology in arriving at the numbers.
As an engineer, I bet you want others to take your profession seriously. Yet you do not want to reciprocate, as you "know" better.
You made a broad smear, saying their specifications are fraudulent and will not be met. Your reasons for ignoring their professional abilities: unspecified. Now that seems like.....well not taking seriuosly the people who published those numbers, at the least.
It is congratulations to the people who published the specifications to observe real world experience confirms their specifications, and indeed exceeded, and can be used with confidence as I did. This congratulations on a job well done you try to spin, with thinly veiled insult once again, as me somehow not taking seriously their professional abilities?? Wow.
Anyway too much time wasted already on distraction from the subject matter.
totaldla wrote:GrandpaKip wrote:With WD hitch?
Remember that if the camper is loaded and weighs 4500 lbs., you are looking at about 520 lbs. of tongue weight. You will need to subtract that from your payload sticker and then figure out the rest of the weight in your vehicle. You may find that you are getting uncomfortably close to max payload.
Get all the numbers for all the weights and do some figuring.
Good luck.
