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The WDH is NOT part of the trailer tongue weight. Not to be used for determining the percentage of trailer weight.
Better to add the weight of the WDH (because some of it goes to the truck), weigh, then add more gear if you've got spare capacity. As getting a new trailer has a lot of tongue weight uncertainty, and many of us don't weigh anything until after purchasing a combo, calculating in the WDH adds a bit of breathing room that all too often newbs need as much of as they can get, and some of us not so newbs need as well.
Technically, you can split the weight of a WDH. It's something half complicated that involves the weight shift on the tow vehicle and the weight added to the trailer axles, blah, blah, blah... better understood by people that can calculate multiple combined leverage point loads. However, the issue of not being able to do calculations until you have wet and loaded loaded trailer and truck gets in the way of figuring these things out before making a purchase.
If you can't envision where a WDH's weight goes, imagine you have two of them, one weighs 100lb, the other weighs 1000lb. Will the truck show the same load on it's axles with both WDH? Having a heavier WDH is just adding weight... if you jump onto the WDH of your all setup and ready to roll combo, does all your weight go only to the trailer axles? The answer is no, because that would be magic, and human use of magic is banned on earth.
I've seen that. Can you trust guys selling trailer parts any more than you can trust the people that sell you trailers?
Actually, you can, the eTrailer people are pretty good, but there are mistakes in their answers and one should still confirm through their own research.
In this case, I'm going with the answer from an engineer I speak with directly on the regular that works with leveraging and loading over a parts guy that sent an email to a mfg that got answered by a customer service employee that may have just turned to the employee beside them to try to figure it out.
Of course, I already provided a means by which anyone can physically check this without having to do any calculations or even having a solid grasp of the forces in play, but NBD if there are those that don't wanna.
The WDH is NOT part of the trailer tongue weight. Not to be used for determining the percentage of trailer weight. Definitely not to count against itself in its capacity ratings. A WDH is part of the tow vehicle’s load capacity. So he’s 70# over or just under 10% over. Chance of light bending, little chance of snapping. Never heard of a bar snapping.
Only other place where a WDH’s weight MIGHT be considered is in the weight it places on the hitch in the hitch receivers carrying capacity. Say at 1160# rated with a WDH, the 100# WDH might be considered to eat into that allowing only 1060# for trailer tongue weight. But that’s questionable.
It doesn't count against the hitch rating. The rating is specifically for weight applied at the trailer coupler. If you go through the testing requirements for V-5 it becomes obvious they are assuming a WDH of typical length and weight.
However, if I was going to add a hitch such as a ProPride or Hensley that is unusually heavy or of atypical configuration I might make some allowances.
03-03-2021, 01:09 PM
