When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
i just bought a 2017 Shasta Oasis 18bh. The tow vehicle is a 2018 F150 STX. I know I’m under the tow capacity, but I don’t know whether I need a weight distribution hitch or not. Any advice?
Look at your hitch. It will tell you what the max is without it. Dry weight includes no propane, no batteries, and no stuff. Your actual hitch weight will be at least a couple hundred more but you won't know an exact unless you take it to the scales and weigh it.
i just bought a 2017 Shasta Oasis 18bh. The tow vehicle is a 2018 F150 STX. I know I’m under the tow capacity, but I don’t know whether I need a weight distribution hitch or not. Any advice?
Ford says you need a weight-distributing (WD) hitch for any trailer with a loaded tongue weight of 500 pounds or more. With a properly-loaded trailer, that's a loaded trailer with 13% tongue weight that weighs less than about 3,850 pounds.
The max weight of your trailer when wet and loaded for the road is 3,830 pounds (3144 dry weight plus 686 payload = 3,830). So you're going to be right on the line of being overloaded per Ford without a WD hitch. That means pay close attention to every pound you load into the trailer, and pay attention to weight distribution in the trailer so you don't exceed 500 pounds tongue weight.
I'm a big fan of using a WD hitch with very good built-in sway control for any tongue weight more than about 250 pounds. That's a wet and loaded trailer that weighs less than 1,700 pounds..
Ignore the hitch weigh in the specs of the trailer. That's for a "dry" trailer with no options, no propane or batteries, nothing in the holding tanks, and nothing you bring along for camping such as food and drinks, linens and clothes, pots and pans, dishes and silverware.
Will this work? I bought a sway control kit from harbor freight so I should be able to use it with this.
That's a very cheap hitch. It will probably work okay for weight distribution. Adding the "sway bar" kit will provide minimal sway control. But I would not want to tow any TT with that hitch and sway control. I want much better sway control that you get with the more expensive hitches that have built-in sway control, not sway bars. Plus that hitch is a "round bar" hitch, with the spring bars coming out below the hitch head, which reduces ground clearance and will result in frequent dragging of the spring bars on the ground when crossing the drainage depression between the street and the convenience store or parkin lot.
I would choose one of these:
1] Reese Strait-Line with trunnion bars. The trunnion bars (spring bars) come straight back out of the head of the hitch, and thus don't reduce ground clearance. https://www.etrailer.com/Weight-Dist...e/RP66072.html
Blue Ox and Equal-I-Zer do not make cheap hitches, so any WD hitch by Blue Ox or Equal-I-Zer is a good choice. But Reese makes all sorts of cheap and medium-priced hitches, so if you like the Reese brand, be sure it is a Strait-Line and not one of their less-expensive hitches.
I tow my 6k TT with a 25 year old trunnion bar hitch and an added on Curt friction sway bar, which is the same as the HF. I have no complaints of the set up behind my outdated half ton truck.
02-18-2019, 07:55 PM
Do I need a WDH?
