Towing difficulty

[campingdiva2013]

I am new to towing a large camper. We bought a Nissan Armada to tow with and have an older 27 foot camper. We have been told that this is a great towing vehicle and that we should not have problems towing this camper with this vehicle but we are. When we are driving it will suddenly slide side ways, car and all. The camper is not swaying but the whole thing moves side ways. It sheared off the tread on the car tires during the last long trip we took. We are considering buying a different camper but I'm not sure the camper is the problem. Any one encounter this?

[Mike_Up]

It sounds to me like inexperience and an improperly adjusted Weight Distribution hitch.

P tires will allow rocking while towing in high winds. Its the wind pushing on the side of you and the softer sidewall tires flexing back and forth.

Sliding could be because of a weight distribution hitch being over adjusted, taking to much weight off of the rear tires, causing them to slip and slide from not enough traction. Add that to the P-tires and side winds and it could be a very scary experience.

Don't know if you want LT tires. Don't get me wrong, it will make the truck tow better but will give it a hard, hard ride for daily driving. I've seen others not happy with the ride quality from LT tires and go back to P-tires.

Now you said you had no sway, so I won't second quess you, but with the Armadas short wheelbase, you should at least have a Reese Strait-Line system (WDH and Dual Cam HP sway control system), Equalizer 'brand' hitch for sway control, or even an older style Blue Ox Sway Pro hitch. The add on bars are questionable with a short wheelbase as yours.

Also maintain that Armada. I had a Titan and it just didn't hold up so take the extra steps in making sure differential fluid, transfer case fluid and transmission fluid is good and at the correct level.

[anaro]

ok, there are differences in the armada depending on what year you have. Some have load leveling suspension, some don't. Some have a higher payload than others. Many on here are well versed in the issues I had towing my 7000 lb 30' TT with my 04 armada (it had load leveling suspension). We spent a lot of time and money trying to correct my issues. in the end I upgraded to an F250 and couldn't be happier. Let me tell you what my issues were. I would tow down a highway and be pushed all over the road by passing vehicles of any size. I am also talking about the unit moving as one like you describe. I had a lot of tail wagging the dog type problems and was constantly white knuckle driving. my engine would scream and try to overheat the tranny towing up a 7% grade no matter how much I downshifted to help it out. I would be crawling by the top, one time I was even down to 25 mph by the top of the mountain. coming down the mountain was no picnic. I tried every trick learned in 20 yrs of towing and still had to use my brakes more than I wanted resulting in overheated brakes because the engine wasn't strong enough to hold the TT back. I was done, I upgraded but before I hit that point I had switched to E rated tires, put a prodigy P3 on as a brake controller, spent countless hours and posts on getting the wdh dialed in (Reese dual cam). What I learned at the cat scales was eye opening. I was way under overall stated tow capacity of 9100 lbs but way over on payload. I had an available payload of 810 lbs after accounting for 2 adults, 1 small child and a 70 lb dog. plus full tank of fuel. My loaded tongue weight is close to 1000 lbs. I was over and it mattered. others have towed similar weights and lengths with newer armadas and done ok. some of them are towing with a Hensley arrow.

Also, if you ave the load leveling suspension, the set up process is harder but not impossible. You have to drop the TT on the ball, shut the truck off before the load leveling suspension kicks in, finish hooking up, do your measurements before letting that kick in. Then go to the scale and check the axle weights to see where it stands. If you have never weighed it, I strongly suggest doing this. Weigh your armada loaded ready to camp with all passengers, pets and gear you intend to have in it when towing plus a full tank of fuel. Then weigh it with the TT attached (same requirements as above). www.catscale.com Once weighed, subtract the armadas scaled weight from its gvwr, this is your available payload. your loaded tongue weight needs to be less than this (typical tongue weight is 13-15% of loaded TT weight). When hooked to the TT, have the TT on 1 pad, the TV front axle on one pad and the tow vehicle rear axle on one pad. add together the TV axle weights for TV loaded weight with TT tongue weight included.... are you over on gvw? is your rear axle weight over the armadas max rear gawr? If you are within weight ratings, you can also use the scale to help adjust the wdh. you want the wdh adjusted to have the front axle as close to unloaded weight as possible without going over.

A big help to figuring this out for you is for you to tell us about your armada and your TT. what year armada, is it LE, se, engine, rear axle ratio, etc. What year make model is your TT, what does it weigh loaded. if you don't know this, what is the dry weight on the little sticker inside the TT and what is the gvwr of the TT?

[Terryallan]

Really don't think you can blame it on the tires. Unless they were dry rotted. The tires only have to carry the TV, and the tongue weight of the trailer. NOT all of the trailer weight. "Most" P tires are rated to 2271 LBs at 44lbs. Which comes to 8684l bs. Think you loaded your TV to 8681 lbs? I seriously doubt it, and I also doubt you loaded the rear end to 4442 lbs.
You need to look at the hitch, and trailer balance.

However it could be thet your tires were dry rotted, IF the trailer pulled the tread off.

[PopsRacer]

Your hitch is not setup right. I'd also venture to guess that you have nothing for anti-sway so it's swaying like a banshee. I would also suspect that the Rear End of the Armada likely needs to be aligned, the Independent Rear Suspension on the Armada can be quite squirrelly if it's never had an alignment done. Seeing a picture or two of the hitch setup would be helpful.

[Valkyrie1]

I had an 06 Armada. Does yours have the self leveling rear suspension? Check it for leaks or a bad air shock,that can mess up the handling big time.

[MuddyLane]

Before doing anything else like replacing tires I would look at your weight ditribution hitch first as all you mention is stabilizer bars which are not necessarily the same thing and with a properly setup hitch you should not be sagging on the rear mcuh more than 1/2". If what you are refering to as stabilizer bars are weight distibution bars then you need to find out what rating they have as there are numerous sizes.

Have a look at the label on your trailer to see what the GVW of the trailer is and that will help determine the size bars you need as the tongue weight should be in the 10-15% range. The best way to confirm the tongue weight is to actually weight the tougue with the trailer loaded and also weight the rear axle of the vehicle loaded and unloaded. Then the weight of the tongue + the additional weight added to the vehicle will give you the exact range the bars should be rated at.

For myself, I have a GVW on the trailer of 10500# and I run 1200# bars on my hitch on an F150 with Max Tow and I have no issues at all. My weight as calculated above is 1050-1100#.

It is well worth the time to get the hitch setup properly as that will solve alot of teh problem along with a good sway control system like Reeses Dual Cam.

[bartlettj]

I also think you are over the rear axle weight rating of your tow vehicle. Load it up for a camping trip, hitch it up, and take it to visit a weigh station (slowly). Weigh each axle, and compare that to the door sticker. I'm guessing you are several hundred pounds over the rating of the rear axle.

[keithinspace]

I was pulling a long-ish (28') camper with my Expedition. I hated the 'pull' of semi's, so I got a Hensley Arrow. Fixed everything except for not having enough power, but that's another thread.

I was having a HECK of a time with the tires that came on my camper. They wore AWFUL on both shoulders. I checked the pressure time and time again. It got to the point that I needed to put on the spare just to get home one trip. When I got home, THAT tire was worn on the shoulders visibly.

Funny thing is that I couldn't find the time to get the trailer aligned (or anyone to do it...), so I got new radial tires before I left on a particularly long trip, hoping they would help/last.

That was 2 years ago. The new tires still have absolutely no visible wear even though they've had probably 5k miles put on them.

Curious: Do you tow with a full water tank? I did that once and it had a significant difference to the rate of wear on my tires (that was the trip where I had to break out the spare).

[campingdiva2013]

Thank you all for the info. It gives me more things to look at. The tires are regular Michelin tires because every tire place I talked to said that regular ones would be fine for occasional towing. I replaced the old tires with new ones and still have that problem. I do not know about the camper tires. I have not replaced those. We do have stabilization bars on it. It seems to occurs when we hit about 55-60mph. It does ride low in the back, however. We have tried fixing that when hooking it up upon the recommendation of the camper dealership with no change. I have talk to two different camper places and they dismiss the problem and don't seem to think it is worth looking at. If it is a weight or size issue I am open to buying something new but wanted more opinions before I spend the money. We are carrying 4 adults and 3 large dogs in the vehicle. A lot of this stuff I can have looked at now that I know more questions to ask.

[DutchmenSport]

Sounds to me like the hitch on the vehicle is not centered, causing a pull in one direction when towing something this heavy.

[Technologiq]

I started doing a little research on the Armadas and here's some conclusions I have made (IMHO).

- The Armada has a pretty short wheelbase for a 27" trailer - this doesn't help your situation
- The Armada has a fairly low payload capacity. I'm going to guess that the sticker on your Armada says somewhere in the realm of 1500lbs for payload. Lets say you have 4 passengers at 150lbs each - that's 600lbs. Lets assume your TT is 7000lbs with a tongue weight of 1050lbs. Thats a combined 1650lbs of payload that is over what your truck is rated for. That doesn't include ANY other gear inside the vehicle.
- I'm willing to bet the rear end sags with that kind of weight which is going to cause some sway
- You haven't mentioned whether or not your using a weight distributing hitch (I really hope you are) that may or may not have sway control on it.

The problem is that someone is going to tell you that your Armada will tow it fine because all they know is that an Armada with the towing package can tow 9000lbs but they aren't taking payload into consideration.

This is just my opinion - there are others on this board with much more knowledge than me but I think you are already at or over your max for that Armada.

Edit: Also, I'd suggest "E" load tires with that setup and when you're towing I'd at least have the rears aired up to their max cold PSI.

[wcjeep]

The first time I towed my Jeep over the mountain pass this happened to me. Very scary. In addition to passenger rated tires check the tongue weight. Too light of tongue weight can be bad. I also had maintenance issues at the time with new to me truck. Before the next trip I took the setup to local weigh station after they were closed and moved things around to figure out the proper tongue weight. Definitely get rid of the car tires. Ask your local trusted tire dealer what they recommend. Probably going to be D rated LT tires.

[TomG2]

Did you talk to a tire expert about what happened? Lots of well meaning folks on here, but we are just guessing. Without being able to inspect the tire or evaluate your situation in person, we can only throw out what "might" work "sometimes". Way too dangerous a situation to leave to folks a thousand miles away who have time and opinions to spare. I hope it was just a bad tire that shifted badly as it failed, but pretty hard to determine that from here.

[dan-nickie]

I had to look up what an Armada was.
Now I see what the problem is. 🙂