Mark090852

Yesterday, my wife and I went to an RV show to begin looking for a travel trailer to tow with our '14 F-150 3.5 L Ecoboost with standard tow package. I've done a lot of reading on here for the last 9 months and feel I am fairly well informed about how to calculate the size and weight of a TT that I could safely tow. A salesman that latched onto us while we were looking tried to tell me that by using a WDH, we did not need to be so concerned about hitch weight and how it relates to payload capacity. I know that is not true, but wanted to know if there was any validity at all to his statement that a WDH will allow me to go significantly over my rated payload capacity. Essentially he was saying that a WDH will reduce the stated hitch weight because it distributes some of the weight back onto the frame of the TT. Can anybody give me a quick and accurate response to statements like this that salesmen repeatedly make?

Dirttracker18

It does put some weight back onto the trailer axles but it is negligible and should not be included in any weight calculations.

Unfortunately most RV salesmen are just that, a salesmen. Most have little actual knowledge about towing, payloads, etc. Worse yet is some that do couldn't care less and are more concerned with the sale

Stick with your payload number and do not forget to include the weight of your family, and stuff in the truck. This needs to come off your payload first before you determine tongue weight.

Ricktwuhk

There is NOTHING you can do to go over your payload capacity. He is a liar. You should not buy from him or his company, and you should report him to his boss.

frieed

BS!!
A WD hitch will transfer some of the load from the back wheels to the front wheels for better steering. It will also do the reverse for the trailer to some degree. It does not remove any significant load from the truck, does not increase the carrying capacity of your tires, nor increase the carrying capacity of your axles. If you exceed the specified carrying capacity shown on the yellow sticker on your truck (which is adjusted for factory options) then your rig is overweight. You will run out of carrying capacity long before you exceed your trailer weight rating. Remember, all people in the truck and that load of crap in the bed and that tonneau cover and that bed liner take away from the capacity shown on the yellow door sticker.
Can you run your rig overweight?, sure, many thousands do.
Your engine will easily pull far more trailer and stuff than your truck is rated to tow.

Mark090852

Thanks, everyone, for the comments. That is exactly what I thought. I will not even considering going higher than what all these calculations would say is safe.

mike243

The bars for the hitch come in 2 weights as a rule of thumb, I have 1200lbs bars for mine and suspect it could handle that amount of tongue weight but without putting on scales I would be afraid to say how much it transfers,the hitch has a sticker on it that tells the tow rating with a bar system and with out 1. they do work well. I tow a 5K dry weight 28' with no problems

5.0GN tow

I think and Smokey will step in if I am wrong I am sure, but there is a nugget of truth in what he is trying to say. You can't go over the rated weight of the truck, but the hitch will reduce by 10 to 20%, the weighed load on the truck, so if the standing static hitch load with no bars is 600lbs. Almost all of that is on the rear axle of the truck in WC configuration. With the bars hooked up you will see about 100 or so moved to the front axle of the truck(still counts as payload), and a similar amount shifted to the trailer(no longer on payload calculation).

brulaz

Last time I weighed, my trailer had 1080# tongue weight.
When I attached the WDH bars, the weight on the trailer axles increased by 160#.

Measurable, but not that important.

smokeywren

Your WD hitch could use a bit of fine tuning by changing the angle of the hitch head. Ideal distribution is 20% to 25% of tongue weight to the trailer axles. Your current setup is distributing 14.8% (160/1080).

brulaz

Agree. Originally I was getting ~20% transfer to the trailer axles, but not any more.

The problem is that my hitch receiver is wearing out and getting very sloppy (Guess that's expected after 25K miles or so of towing with 1000-1200# tongue weight). And the vertical play in the receiver lessens the tension on the bars. At the end of the bars where they attach to the frame, there's over an inch of play.

When we get home from Florida in a month, I'll have to either replace the hitch receiver, or more likely, trade-in the truck as I really need a 4x4 with this heavy a trailer (too easy to get stuck on wet grass, mud or sand ).

Since that last weigh, I've started putting a thick, ~2" wide spatula into the top of the receiver. It actually works, and hopefully will last until we get back to Ontario. All the welds in the receiver still look good, the problem is just wear and stretching as far as can tell.