Newbie Towing Questions

Welcome to the forum and to towing a travel trailer. Although some will try, there is no way to troubleshoot your situation without a lot more information. Ratings for the tow vehicle and trailer. GVWR, Payload, etc. Actual weight of the combination. Gross weight, tongue weight, etc. With and without the Weight distribution hitch in play.

It is a numbers game and they are much more valuable than "seat of the pants" guesses. It is time for a trip to the scales.

“(which I think is where it is supposed to be for the max towing capacity)”

When towing I keep my TT tires and rear truck tires at the pressure that gives the max weight carrying ability....but I’ve weighed everything.

1. Ford makes about 5 different GVWR/RAWR packages from a small 6800 gvwr on up to the top at 7850 GVWR and several rar packages. Rawr carries the load. What is your trucks GVWR/RAWR. You really need to weigh the truck front and rear axles separately and use measurement numbers to fine tune the combo.
2. Brake adjustment varies with the combo and brake controller type...wet vs dry pavement....snow on the pavement. I adjust mine for the road conditions.
3. Again angle depends on the truck/trailer combo. There is no generic answer. Like the rest of us you will have to watch and decide for yourself how much angle can be used.
4. I'm guessing you have P tires. When towing a 10k car hauler with the wifes 1500 chevy I air the rears to the max sidewall pressures which is 44 psi. The front changes little if any so I leave them at 38 psi which seems to works best. When not towing I found 32 psi works best for her trucks size and axle load.

Once we find your truclks gvwr/rawr specs and the trailers actual weight I'm sure someone may have the same combo and give more input.

slashnburn wrote:
I finally just picked up our Apex 288BHS last Friday. We also had an Equalizer hitch installed. On the drive home, I had a couple of concerns and was hoping to get some advice here.

First, when driving, it felt as if my truck was kind of jerking forward and back. I tending to notice it a bit more with wind gusts, but it seemed fairly persistent. After doing some research it sounds like it could be because there is actually too little weight on the hitch. It could have potentially been the road bumps, but they weren't significant and again, it was pretty persistent. With that said, we live in a rural area, so the roads are fairly rough anyway. I just wanted some advice on if this is normal and if there is anything I can do to combat it. We are towing with a 19 F150 Lariat Max Trailer.

Second, I am interested in learning more about the proper gain setting for the brake controller. The guy at the dealership said that it should be pretty low. I had it set on 2 on the way home and it seemed to slow everything down, but I don't want to unnecessarily wear out the brakes on the truck. According to the owners manual for the truck, it should be driven and applied by hand until the brakes lock up on the trailer and then go down one setting. Is this the best process, or is it better to keep it low and apply the trailer brakes manually when needed?

Third, how sharp of an angle is safe to back up? Is it as much as I can while still leaving enough room to get back in front of the trailer?

Fourth, should I air up my tires a bit when I am towing? I know all of the stuff about amount of tire that is actually on the road, but wasn't sure how that is related to the actual load on the back tires. The recommended cold pressure is 35 (which I think is where it is supposed to be for the max towing capacity), but I normally keep mine at about 38-40.

I am new to towing, so please pardon the newbie questions. As always, your advice is greatly appreciated.

Congrats on the new trailer!

1. Dry, that trailer is sub 600lb hitch weight, so very little load distribution is required. Actually none, but RVers seem to swear by wdh's. Go drive it without the wdh or loose some weight transfer and see. Could needing tuning in the setup, could be you don't know what to expect while towing.
2.Set the gain where you "feel" like the truck is only stopping itself and not the trailer. 1 step below lockup is umm, bad advice? Not rocekt surgery, just adjust until it feels "right".
3. ??? Don't jackknife the trailer into the truck. Anything else is fine.
4. Air them to the weight you have on the wheels + a little. Stiffer is better when towing. Rears mostly, fronts shouldn't be carrying any more than running bobtail, but slightly stiffer is preferable maybe. Look at a tire load chart if you don't understand. And weigh the setup if you can't reasonably calc what your weights are. Again, not an exact science. Towing with a decent tongue weight and some weight in the truck, I'd run em up to 40+. Maybe more depending on weight.

Firstly, a bit of forward/backward jerking is quite normal. There is a small amount of play in a couple places that is necessary for you to be able to put things together/take them apart. That play becomes the fore/aft jerking. So quite normal.

Secondly brake controller gain is a matter not amenable to one setting fits all. You will find you have to reset it every time you use the trailer, in part because it is a function of the trailer's exact weight at the time. More weight takes more brakes, so how much food you have aboard, how full your fresh water, gray and black tanks are all makes a difference.

It also makes a difference whether you are on a gravel or asphalt road. The trailer brakes will lock up on gravel at the setting needed for asphalt, and you don't want that. At the start of the trip, on some back road or street, and at low speeds, say, 10 mph or less, you want the trailer brakes to be felt. You do not want to have to be reaching for the controller should an emergency occur calling for a hard stop. You may be busy avoiding a wreck at that moment. You also don't want light pressure on your brake pedal resulting in a panic stop on the part of the trailer brakes. It will take some practice and experience to learn what works best for you.

Thirdly, backup angle is limited by impact of TV and TT corners. Any lesser angle should be ok. Again, experience and careful observation are your friends on that.

Fourthly, tire pressures are a critical detail most people have no idea how much so. You will need to do some math here. On the tire sidewall you will find both a load rating and a maximum tire pressure. You will also find on the TV door pillar a sticker with recommended pressures for the stock tire size. As long as your axle weight is below the tire's load rating and the pressure is below the max, you are golden. The door sticker is recommended based upon the truck makers best guess of the average weight most buyers are expected to be carrying around most of the time. If you make a simple calculation tire's max load divided by tire's max pressure, you will get the number of pounds the tire can carry per psi pressure. While I don't think the relationship is strictly linear, dividing the actual weight by the number of pounds per psi will give you a good first guess as to how much pressure you need in the tire for that load.

(max tire load)/(max tire pressure) = (weight carried per psi)

(weight to be carried)/(weight carried per psi) = (psi needed)


If you have too little air in the tires, the truck will not be directionally stable and will wallow around. If too much, you will get a hard ride. Both also give poor tire wear .


EDIT: Too little weight on the tongue of the trailer will be experienced by directional instability. That is, the trailer will try to wag the TV. Needless to say, a very unpleasant and dangerous situation. It will not affect fore/aft jerking at all.

Hi fellow F150 owner.. Mine is a bit older, and quite a bit different in GVWR, but the axle ratings are probably about the same.. (specs in my sig)

With that said, I've been towing TT's with a couple different F150's since around 2002 and towed all kinds of other stuff since I was a teen.

Anyway, that APEX looks like a nice rig. It's GVWR is the same as my Rockwood (#7000) but it's a tad bit longer 31' compared to my 26'.

Depending on your prior towing experience, going to a heavier, longer trailer will feel a bit different, but should still be 'comfortable'.

The slight bucking feeling can be many different things.. If it was an empty trailer, it'll tow different once you get some weight in it and more tongue weight can help with a lot of that 'sway' kind of feeling.

I run my gain on the OEM controller at about 8. It won't lock the brakes on the trailer even at 10 and I don't really want it to.. At 8 it does a fine job and you can feel it pulling the trailer when applied.

How much you can turn will depend if you have the WD bars on or not.. If you have the Equal-I-Zer brand, those set on L brackets and depending on the setup, they could come off the bracket if turned too sharp. When I was a kid, we had that setup on our TT and Dad turned too sharp and one of the bars slipped off the bracket. It was almost jack knifed and could not be helped, but the bar still came off. (this was back in the late 70's)

I take my WD bars off before I park the trailer at home. I have to twist and turn and at a sharp angle getting up the curb where I park it..

I'd pump up the tires to the max psi on the tire when towing. Sounds like your's are P rated and might be a max of 40 I'd guess. I got 'XL' rated tires which are good for 50 max psi.

I've done some additional suspension mods to help out with towing. Yes, I know they don't add to any payload or weight ratings.. They just help the overall package.



In the end, it takes a bit to "dial in" a new rig and might take several trips to get it all worked out. It'll never feel like "it's not even there" kinda thing, but you can make it so it'll be a comfortable tow in the future.

Good luck! Mitch

Assuming you are on typical dry pavement, I would generally go more aggressive on the brake controller. You don't want it locking up the trailer brakes on a normal stop but you do want the trailer to be stopping the trailer. The idea of taking it out to a parking lot or unused road and taking it up till it locks the brakes and then back down slightly is a good option.

Once you get it set up, unless conditions change significantly, most people don't mess with the gain on the brake controller. Assuming you have a modern integrated brake controller on the truck, it's proportional, which means it applies the trailer brakes at a similar rate to the truck brakes. In the old days, controllers were much less sophisticated and largely it was an on or off for the brakes, so you had to mess with the settings more.

A little jerkiness is normal but a lot could be indicative of too light of a hitch weight. If you are nervous, better to check it out than hope we can diagnose it from the internet. Spend the $20 to take it to a scale. You weigh with and without the trailer hooked up and you can back calculate the hitch weight to confirm the percentage hitch weight (ideally 12-15% of the trailer weight)

As long as nothing is binding and the corner of the truck doesn't hit the trailer, you can turn as sharp as you like. If you have a Weight Distributing Hitch, you will hear some creaking but that is normal. Also the tires will twist a little, once in place, it's a good idea to pull forward straight forward a few feet and then back...this will take that twist out of the tires.

Generally when towing, up the tires to the max pressure (when cold) unless you know the real load is well under the max load rating.

The trailer should generally stop itself and the truck stop itself also, so you can set the brakes to where the truck feels like it normally does when slowing down, maybe err slightly to the side of the truck doing a hair more braking than normal; doing a little braking for the trailer.

You do not want it to skid ever, and pavement settings might cause the trailer to skid on gravel roads. Not a big deal, just adjust if you are on gravel for a while.

Trailer brakes will go out of adjustment, so need to be adjusted, otherwise one wheels will do more breaking, and might skid, while another wheel might be contributing no braking.
tandem axles require a lot more attention than single axles.

Your bouncing could also be from sloppy receiver connections. The insert can wobble around, and even your trailer tongue can be loose on the ball. Get a spare ball and lock it in the trailer tongue and adjust the nut underneath until it is snug, but in no way binging.
There are U-bolt clamps and other solutions to take the play out of the receiver square insert also. This makes a big difference.

There should be tension on the weight distribution hitch springs (long arms), and the chains should have tension when on flat ground. If too loose then you can get bouncy issues the same as with no WD hitch.

Too much weight behind the axles can also unweight the tongue and make more bounce.

My truck drives smoother than not towing with the WD hitch on and the slop eliminated from the hitch.

Without a WD hitch you would feel pronounced motion of the TT levering the back of the truck up and down as you go over bumps and expansion joints. A properly set up WD hitch will greatly attenuate, but not completely eliminate, this sensation. I'm guessing that is what you are feeling. But if you're feeling the tail wagging the dog or notice the trailer moving back and forth behind you, the hitch may not be set up properly (instructions can be downloaded from Progress Mfg's website and you can check with a measuring tape).

I usually set the controller so the TT brakes, when activated alone at slow speed on pavement, will slowly bring the rig to a halt. If I am on gravel in a campground and the TT brakes lock up, I will temporarily reduce the setting. The times you're on gravel, you're not going fast so stopping help from the TT isn't as critical. That's why I generally set it for pavement, which is what I'm driving on 99% of the time.

Air up rear tires to max sidewall rated PSI. Same thing with TT tires.

Backing up, you could conceivably crimp and damage the A frame of the TT with your rear bumper. Backing up sharply is fine, up to that point where you might hit. With a pickup's big turn radius steering, sometimes the truck cannot pivot as fast as the TT to straighten out, and the angle will increase as you continue backing up; watch out for this. If you bend your A frame you won't be a happy camper.

I tow about 6000 lbs loaded trailer with 2016 F150 with Equalizer hitch.

Just a baseline on my hitch set up. After arriving I have to raise the hitch with the tongue jack about 4" to get the bars to relax off the saddles.

I have my OEM Ford brake controller set at 6.

Good luck