Trailer towing, hitch weight

Paul Brubacher

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Location
outside of Toronto, Ont
This winter we bought a tent trailer because my wife decided that she no longer wants to pitch a tent after driving for a day. OK,make that 2 tents because our daughter usually comes with us.
Our trailer is listed as 2180 lb unloaded vehicle weight. The hitch weight is listed at 154 lb, but I measured 300 lb. Maybe the two propane tanks and battery weren't in the spec weight.

The manual states to not load any weight behind the axle. Before our last trip the hitch weight was 400 lb. During the trip there were instances when the wheels spun, both on gravel and pavement. The wheel spin happened when starting on uneven road.
The tow vehicle is a Santa Fe Sport, a compact CUV, not quite an SUV.

Question, what is a good ratio of total weight to hitch weight?

Any hints or tips for successful trailering?
 
Is the vehicle only front wheel drive or all wheel drive? Looks like that trailer might be close to the max tow weight, unless your car is the sport version. If it's only front wheel drive, then you might expect some wheel spinning with the extra hitch weight in the back. might be able to counter the hitch weight by adding some weight at the back of the trailer, or just past the rear of the axle, but no you wouldn't want a lot of extra weight in the back of the trailer. Are two propane tanks needed for the time you're out camping? And any place that the battery could be relocated closer to the axle area?
 
What kind of hitch are you using..based on you post if your 2180 lbs the min you should have is a class II hitch, which will support 3500 lbs and max 300 lb tongue weight. Class I is 2000 lbs max and about 200 lbs tongue wgt. I would not recommend towing what you describe with a class I. Also with a CUV class II is about your max anyways, the wgt of your vehicle won't support a larger hitch (class III or IV) can go 600 lbs on tongue wgt, but I doubt your vehicle would support the extra wgt. even on marginally wet roads you could find your self in a ditch when you loose traction with the front end and start fish tailing around. You also have to consider braking, so you need to look at your vehicle specs find out what hitch you have and what max tow wgt the vehicle can handle according to the manufacturer. My guess is your probably pretty close to max, putting extra wgt in the back of the trailer can be done but poses some stability problems, but they can be mitigated with the addition of some stabilizer bar, some folks call them anti-sway bar, with your vehicle being on the lite side, probably a good idea regardless.
 
Excellent video Vaughn. In the years of towing i have done thats the best quickest make the point video i have seen. No verbal commentary needed.

Paul, i tow a 30ft travel trailer for same reason you bought a trailer.

Let me start by saying, changing from tent to travel trailer has been THE most costly and quarrelsome event in our 20+ year marriage.

So i have a Jeep Commander 5.7l hemi. This is what i started towing with. Its awd all the time.

From its specs, it could just make the grade to tow the trailer, but i was not happy driving it.

It had to have a break controller fitter, we also have a increddible hitch that has both equalization and stabilizing built into it.

But more importantly i forced myself to really get to understand all the issues involved.

Trailer tong weight is only one of them. For that i even shelled out for a trailer tong weight scale. That was after i hauled the trailer back from USA where i purchased it ,all the way to Toronto and getting back with empty trailer had to have new wheel bearings in front.

I then looked into the specs on the trailer. Keep in mind the marketing guys that pitched your trailer. I found many misleading specs related to my trailer. What is important is to know what the axle load capability is and check that the tires are a match. Yeah believe it or not i forced manufacturer to provide 5 new tires on mine.

Then on our first trip my wife now seeing a huge empty trailer had desires to take the "whole house including kitchen sink" (thats just and expression in my culture lol).

So the battle started. I refused point blank to drive unless every item going into the trailer was weighed. Sounds absurd right? Felt that way too.
However, i had taken trailer to the gov weigh scale and established accurate dry weight. Then between knowing max axle load weight i could verify the max gross trailer weight. Subtract dry weight from max gross and boom you have MAX of what you can put in trailer, at this stage never mind where it goes.

Now you need to look to your vehicle. It will have gross vehicle weight but.......there is a spec to this, take your vehicle across a gov weight scale, but first weigh yourself. The gross vehicle weight assumes only the driver weighing iirc 150 lbs. So if you happen to weigh more then when you weigh your vehicle keep this in mind.

If your vehicle is setup to tow, it should also have a spec for max tow weight.

Realize your tongue weight is adding weight to vehicle so has to come out of vehicle gross vehicle weight.

My wife bless her McGyver soul thought that she would merely put what was left over after hitting max trailer weight, into the vehicle.
Not so fast Josephine. Lol
You need to check what you putting in the car. So it don't mean you can "load up the car honey" with passengers and luggage and forget the gross vehicle weight and that extra passenger at the back called trailer tongue weight.

So what Linda was blown away with was just how little our trailer could take despite being 27ft long. Yeah load up a fridge full of food, few cases of water, blankets, pots and pans, buts and pieces and just like airline baggage it all adds up.

Then comes the issue of stabilization and weight equalization.
On rigs like mine this is where you get to have essentially springs between vehicle and trailer that helps equalize the weight between trailer and vehicle. It has the effect of keeping the front wheels down on the road and takes that dip caused by the trailer tongue weight on rear forcing the suspension in rear to take load, and better distributes that load across both trailer and vehicle.

So where did this leave us, well it then resulted in the purchase of a truck.

Yeah right. I am not a happy chappy about it.

But i custom ordered the truck which thanks to Ford makes it possible. Ordered with tow mirrors , rear camera, integrated brake controller and max tow of 12000 lbs. All this for a trailer. For my part i would have sold trailer years ago. Its like a boat. And all the crap associated with it falls on me. Its nothing but a cause of friction.

But at least today i have truck and trailer balanced, it still has not changed the amount the trailer can take, but the truck can now safely take the overflow including passengers.

Just for record, i started towing at around 22, when i put a catamaran on the back of my ford escort. I had three ford escorts as a youngster.
Last one was the front wheel drive version and that gave me same issues you experiencing.

I also found it near impossible to find anyone in my neck of the woods who really understood the whole loading process.

Whats worse is all storage in our trailer is at rear of axles. Under bed and exterior storage at rear along with spare trailer wheel.

Another thing, if you have a trailer that has a hot water tank as well as cold water tank, make sure to empty them before travelling.
Again, in our trailer both those items are behind the axle.
You be surprised to see how much water weighs. Same for grey and black tanks make sure they empty when travelling.

Best of luck, if anything i have said font make sense just ask and i will try my best to expand.

Best collate all your specs together....gross trailer weight, gross axle weight, gross vehicle weight, max tow weight etc. Let us know what you find.

Oh and please check tire pressures before each tow. On both vehicle and trailer inc spares.
 
hope this doesn't scare you off pulling your trailer Paul...lol..but as you can see there is more to it then just finding the right side ball for your hitch and taking off down the road. I drove big trucks (semi truck) over the road for over 20 yrs, can't tell how many bad setups I have seen driving down the road or how many of travel trailer accident scenes I have passed along the highway, so this is serious business, not to mention 30 or so years pulling my personal stuff, travel trailers, boats, and every thing in between, including about every size u-haul they make..lol..if there is one thing I could pass along as a tip, which seems very minor, but can make a big difference if some thing goes wrong...always make sure sure you have your safety chains hooked up and they need to cross under the ball of the hitch, meaning the chain connected to the right side of the trailer needs to connect to the left side of the hitch, and left side trailer to right side hitch forming a cross under the hitch ball. What this does is form a cradle for the tongue to fall into if all else fails..i.e ball comes off, hitch breaks, locking mechanism breaks etc...and keeps the trailer with you under some what control without dragging on the ground. hooking them up in parallel is more dangerous then not having them at all, and driving over the road can't tell you how many times I have seen this setup a tragic accident in the making, without the chains and hooked up correctly, it will end badly if some thing goes wrong. excellent video Vaughn posted
 
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FWD always chancy for towing. I have towed many types of trailers, a lot. You can help your situation by simply moving some of the front weight to the rear. Not much will be needed as you double the effect by moving something behind the axle. Do get some weight onto the front wheels but still maintain downward pressure on the hitch. No, or not enough traction on the front drive wheels can spell serious trouble. Lifter shocks or springs on the rear may be needed. I have used plenty, good investment, IMHO. Test and practice drive before any trips.
 
Thanks for all of the info. The Santa Fe is a Sport with FWD. The hitch is class 3, rated for 6900 lb. Apparently they no longer install the smaller hitches which had about 1" square tubing.
Finally got out the manual.
With a brake system the max trailer weight is 2000 lb. It goes to 2800 with a trailer package. So I'm just outside of the weight.

The max vertical load (hitch weight) is 280 lb. SO I was way beyond this limit. Interesting that max hitch weight for the 2.0 L turbo is 350 lb. I wonder why this is different?

At the very end of the trailer towing section they mention that the tongue weight should be 10% of the trailer weight. So I was way beyond this.
They also say that the trailer load should be 60% in front of the axle.

There is a brake system, and there is even a special wire that fastens to the tow vehicle with a pin that goes into the brake controller. If the pin gets pulled out, the brakes go on.

I can't remember what the trailer wheel size is but they are big, 19 or 20". The trailer is at the dealers to look at the pages of complaints that I documented.
The large wheels look impressive, but it means the rear view mirrors cannot see over top of the trailer.

I've added trailer mirrors and on the drivers side there is now a good view of the rear corner of the trailer. The extra mirror doesn't help much on the passenger side.

We wouldn't need 2 propane tanks, but it is quite ingenious how the tanks are connected. If one tank runs out, there is a coloured disk in the gas junction that turns from green to red.

I have wondered about moving the battery to a storage bin at the rear of the trailer. I'm sure that I could handle the rewiring. Would it be necessary to provide a sealed box with outside vent? The battery gets charged when AC is connected and I don't know if the fumes would be dangerous inside the trailer.

The max cargo of the trailer is listed at 724 lb. and yes I always empty out the water tank. No hot water heater though, which my wife discovered after turning on the hot water faucet and almost draining the tank waiting for the water to heat.

The towing and backing is pretty good. Trailer axle to hitch is 10', hitch to rear vehicle axis is 46", and rear to front axle is 9'.

I measured the hitch weight by using a bathroom scale with 300 lb max, but using a 2 to 1 lever. I've been wondering if I could extend this concept to being able to measure the weight at the wheels as well, but it would need at least 5 to 1 advantage which would require quite a long lever.
 
I always empty out the water tank

The standard advice is to do that. But, me being me, I don't. I make sure the tank is full and the grey and black water tanks are empty. My reasoning is that when on the road, especially in remote regions, anything can happen. Being stuck is always a bad deal. Being stuck with no drinking water is a very bad deal. With water you can stay in one spot for days safely.
 
Frank, water would be handy not only for drinking but for refilling the radiator. Actually trailering with water in the tank wouldn't increase the hitch weight that much for me because the back of the tank is just in front of the axle.

About the safety chains; my father-in-law was towing for quite a few years, from a 12 footer to finally a 32 foot long trailer with 2 doors, yet none of the chains on his trailers were half as heavy as the one on my tent trailer. Also on his trailers, the chains were fastened on top of the frame where mine is fastened underneath.
With the chains fastened on top it is easy to see if they are properly crossed over.

Is fastening the safety chain underneath now standard procedure? If yes, why and when was it changed?

A couple more weight specs
The draw bar is rated for 5000 lb with hitch wt of 500 lb. The ball is rated at 6000 lb. It has a very thick bolt.
The hitch has 2 ratings, 3500 and 5250 lb. Why are there 2 different ratings? The hitch wt is 525 lb.

Bummer, I was going to add some pics, but Add Files did not allow from my pc only the website. Jut a couple of weeks ago it worked OK. How do I get the pics onto the website?
 
...always make sure sure you have your safety chains hooked up and they need to cross under the ball of the hitch, meaning the chain connected to the right side of the trailer needs to connect to the left side of the hitch, and left side trailer to right side hitch forming a cross under the hitch ball. What this does is form a cradle for the tongue to fall into if all else fails..i.e ball comes off, hitch breaks, locking mechanism breaks etc...and keeps the trailer with you under some what control without dragging on the ground. hooking them up in parallel is more dangerous then not having them at all...

I had always learned to not cross the chains (and have even told others the same advice), but your explanation makes sense. Plus, you've got tons (literally) more experience in that field than I do.

When I was a kid I was riding along with my dad while we were towing a 2-horse trailer (with only one horse in it). We were still on the dirt road just outside the gate of our ranch when the trailer became unhitched. (As I recall, he didn't have the locking mechanism fully engaged.) We were traveling slow - probably about 10 mph - so the trailer didn't flip or go off the road. The tow chains kept the trailer behind the truck, but the tongue was dragging in the dirt. I can see how crossing them could have helped. And man, that horse was hard to load in a trailer after that episode, lol.

One more trailer story...back about 25 years ago I was towing a 32' travel trailer from Albuquerque to Gallup, NM with my full-size Ford Bronco. I believe it was the second time I'd ever towed a trailer in my life. I have no idea how heavy the trailer was, but it was an older trailer and built like a brick outhouse. And I had it loaded to the gills, since I was moving it to Gallup to live in it for a few months while I was working on a construction project out there. It had a load equalizer hitch, but no sway bars. About 10 miles outside of Albuquerque, I was going down a relatively steep hill on I-25 into the Rio Puerco canyon. I glance down and saw I was going a bit over the speed limit, so I took my foot off the gas to slow down. (The Bronco had a 5-speed manual tranny.) At that point, the trailer decided it was going to pass me. With the short wheelbase of the Bronco, things got ugly in a flash. Within seconds, the whole rig was pointed northbound in the westbound lanes. I counter-steered and was almost instantly pointed southbound. Then one more time pointed northbound. All the while, I've got eight tires screaming bloody murder and I'm thinking I'm about to learn how it feels to roll a vehicle at highway speed. In a rare moment of clarity, I had the presence of mind to press the trailer brake button on my dash, counter-steer the skid, and step into the accelerator, all at the same time. That got things straightened out real quickly, so I got back in my lane and drove to the bottom of the hill before pulling over to check things out. Before I stopped, a trucker behind me (who'd watched the whole thing) got on the CB radio and asked me if I was alright, then congratulated me on the save. I was kind of surprised that I didn't need to change pants after that.
 
Reese Draw bar.jpg2  to 1 scale lever.jpgDrawTite max gross trailer weight.jpgDrawTite max gross trailer weight.jpgmirror drivers side.jpg
So this is a different method of uploading pictures, but hopefully it works.

How can a hitch have 2 different max trailer weights?

Vaughan, trailer brakes are good. I'm not certain that mine are set correctly yet.

The thing about the chains catching and holding the trailer seems to indicate that the chains should be fastened on top of the frame, but mine are fastened underneath. Is this optimal?
 
Paul Brubacher said:
How can a hitch have 2 different max trailer weights?

The first weight is without a weight distributing hitch. The second weight is with a weight distributing hitch.
Since your hitch is rated well above the specs for your vehicle, you will have disregard them and work within the vehicle specs.
 
Figured out the dual weight rating of the hitch. It depends on the draw bar and draw bar pin. There are 2 holes in the hitch, one 1/2" and the other 5/8".
While looking at safety chains on the web, I figured out that the chain used on my trailer is a class 4. This is definitely overkill for a tent trailer. Guess it goes along with the 6000 lb rating of the ball.

Dual rating trailer hitch.jpg
 
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