Odd question: what does trailer sway feel like at first?

Yeah, if you'd ever had sway, you would know... for sure! It's like, holy **** that thing is whipping back and forth like crazy! I only experienced it one time, towing a rear-end-heavy 4x8 utility trailer with a Dodge Omni. Scary!!!

I've had trailer sway one time many years ago. My dad and I thought it would be a good idea to lighten the tongue weight of his boat so we could set it on the ball by hand. Worked great to the ramps and back for months. Then we took it out on the interstate. At about 55mph, it started to wag back and forth on it's own. No wind or passing trucks. I slowed down and it stopped. Back to 55 and it started again. Cousin piped up we needed to move the boat back forward. Problem solved.
We towed our current 32.5' TT with no sway control for a year about maybe 5-6k miles. Not even a hint of sway. Occasionally a line of passing trucks would blow us around a little but nothing scary. I saw a barely used Equalizer 4 point 10k hitch on ebay and bought it. It took care of the minor push from passing trucks and crosswinds. No hitch will overcome the forces of an improperly loaded trailer. The forces are too great. With TT's being on the verge of tongue light as it is, our rule is we can load anything we can carry into the trailer as long as it's in front of the axles.

gmw photos wrote:
I've towed a lot of different trailers since 1968. Most of them just on the ball. No WD hitch, no sway control device. Many of them at speeds that the folks here on RV net would claim I am a reckless danger to society.
My experience is, a properly designed trailer, correctly loaded with adequate tongue weight, hitched in a level attitude, on a tow vehicle that is a good match to the trailer, will tow correctly with no sway.

In other words, get the fundamentals correct first, then add things like sway control and weight distribution hitches to fine tune the entire set up. IMO.

Thank You. I agree.

Dick_B wrote:
Usually when a truck passes the front of the tow vehicle will turn toward the truck (all by itself) and the driver has to correct to the right to avoid a collision.
This also depends on which way the wind is blowing...

That is not sway. But normal actions caused by the bow wave of the truck. If it is bad enough to scare you. Then you need to work on your WDH setup.

Great tips -- thanks!! To answer gmw's question, I can see the sides of the trailer in my towing mirrors, and it is rock-steady. But I am pretty sure that any movement would catch my eye -- I am constantly scanning left mirror, front, right mirror, front, left mirror . . . .

I experienced true trailer sway only once in all my years of driving (48 years now???)

It was a Chevy Lumina mini van pulling a Starcraft Venture Pop-up camper. We just had a rear hitch installed on the pop-up and had 4 bicycles hanging off the back. The first time out after installing the hitch, I got up to about 40 mph and the trailer started gyrating back and forth violently. I really did not feel it, but I sure saw it in the rear mirrors. I don't sit and focus on the mirrors, but they are always in my vision and any movement always catches my attention. The pop-up gyrating back and forth was insane. I really thought the trailer was going to flip.

Did I actually "feel" anything while driving. No, not really.

I slowed down immediately and got the trailer under control. The trailer had no brakes as it was under 3000 pounds (not required in Indiana). I then tried increasing my speed again, and again, and again. Every time at about 40 mph it started gyrating, almost bouncing from one wheel to another.

I get my laughs out of those YouTube videos that attempt to show what trailer sway is by the driver swirving left then right very vast, showing the trailer wiggle back and forth. THAT IS NOT SWAY. That is a controlled wiggle!

Sway is totally uncontrollable, and it acts like nothing you could ever force yourself to occur.

How did I proceed on that trip? We took the bicycles, but since we were camping close to home, I simply drove slightly under 40 mph so the trailer was in 100% control.

I've never experienced anything even closely remote to this experience with any of my 3 travel trailers. But then again, I've always towed with 3500 duly's too!

Calling it sway is a bit inaccurate, it covers two different trailer actions. One is the tail wagging, the other the trailer rocking side to side. Which is more accurately called sway. Both actions will affect the tow vehicle's steering if it has inadequate rear suspension.

When I pulled my 4x8 utility trailer loaded with quad and 3 jerry cans across the back,with the Jeep Cherokee things got interesting at highway speeds, I had to slow down to stop the tail wagging. However with the same poorly loaded trailer, I didn't notice the misbehaving on the 1ton.

From my experiences, I would say most, if not all trailers have well enough designed loading that sway, both kinds, that cause unwelcome steering inputs are a fault of an inadequate rear suspension transferring trailer actions.

proxim2020 wrote:
The early stages of sway feel a lot like laying on a bed on a cruise ship or riding on a train. It starts off as small gentle rocking motions. Similar to the little wiggles that you feel in windy conditions. In the early stages it feels awfully benign and could easily be confused with normal conditions. It can be pretty difficult to pick up on the early signs just from feel alone.

You'd probably be able to pick up on the signs visually first. Normally when the trailer wiggles it eventually gets back in line with the TV even if it's only briefly. When sway is occurring the trailer never stops it's back and forth motion. It just keeps going and going.

As the condition becomes worse you'll find that the wave of the rocking starts to become more spread out as the trailer begins to oscillate. You start to feel the desire to make small corrections with the steering wheel, but doing so just makes things worse. Eventually the rocking starts to feel a little more violent and your natural pucker factor starts to set in. Eventually you get to the point where you're just along for the ride.

A+

The early stages of sway feel a lot like laying on a bed on a cruise ship or riding on a train. It starts off as small gentle rocking motions. Similar to the little wiggles that you feel in windy conditions. In the early stages it feels awfully benign and could easily be confused with normal conditions. It can be pretty difficult to pick up on the early signs just from feel alone.

You'd probably be able to pick up on the signs visually first. Normally when the trailer wiggles it eventually gets back in line with the TV even if it's only briefly. When sway is occurring the trailer never stops it's back and forth motion. It just keeps going and going.

As the condition becomes worse you'll find that the wave of the rocking starts to become more spread out as the trailer begins to oscillate. You start to feel the desire to make small corrections with the steering wheel, but doing so just makes things worse. Eventually the rocking starts to feel a little more violent and your natural pucker factor starts to set in. Eventually you get to the point where you're just along for the ride.

More visual at first, by the time you feel sway, it may be too late.