My Combination is Safe and I Know It

[majorairhead]

I once towed a loaded grain wagon with a John Deere 620, circa 1975.

That one experience told me that tow combination was NOT safe, and I knew it.

[guskmg]

It is all about stability. You need to know and understand the difference between dynamic and static stability. There are three kind of dynamic stability: convergent, neutral, and divergent. And also, understand how these three forms of stability can change drastically with a slight change of center fo gravity (CG), if near a limit. I rode down a mountain with a guy who did not understand or want my opinion of how load his trailer. It was the hairiest trailering trip I have ever experience. I can't recall the number of times we almost went into a ditch or over a steep edge. He new he needed to slow down but the mountains grades were calling the shots. Some how we survived.
guskmg

[ROBERT CROSS]

The web is huge...you might consider wandering there.

AH Bob
🇺🇸

[rbs]

The reason we are confident and feel safe is that we work at it. This includes a trip to JC every year if for no other reason than to have them check our bearings/brakes. The biggest and most obvious problem we see trailers suffer from on the road are blown tires. We see a lot of mismatched or poor setups for the hitch/tow vehicle. We have seen units on their sides, blown motors resulting in fire, trailer tires on fire from over heating, trailer swaying so bad that we hated to watch. We feel we have a safe setup, we maintain all of our running gear and I give an enormous amount of credit to my wife, she keeps a careful watch for literally everything, and has the patience of Job. It is impossible to be too safe, and we have experienced some really close calls, and avoided many by thinking ahead. We have a routine we pretty much stick to, and try to avoid being in a hurry. As a side note, most of the Airstreams we see appear to be set up correctly. One more thing, if you have a ProPride hitch, they do require maintenance, we rebuilt ours this year, good as new, thanks to Sean for a great product and even better customer service.

[lsbrodsky]

Originally Posted by rbs

The reason we are confident and feel safe is that we work at it. This includes a trip to JC every year if for no other reason than to have them check our bearings/brakes. The biggest and most obvious problem we see trailers suffer from on the road are blown tires. We see a lot of mismatched or poor setups for the hitch/tow vehicle. We have seen units on their sides, blown motors resulting in fire, trailer tires on fire from over heating, trailer swaying so bad that we hated to watch. We feel we have a safe setup, we maintain all of our running gear and I give an enormous amount of credit to my wife, she keeps a careful watch for literally everything, and has the patience of Job. It is impossible to be too safe, and we have experienced some really close calls, and avoided many by thinking ahead. We have a routine we pretty much stick to, and try to avoid being in a hurry. As a side note, most of the Airstreams we see appear to be set up correctly. One more thing, if you have a ProPride hitch, they do require maintenance, we rebuilt ours this year, good as new, thanks to Sean for a great product and even better customer service.

You have a 5-year-old trailer and you had to rebuild your ProPride? Why? I believe in safety and maintenance as much as the next guy, but I have not seen anything on my hitch indicating the need to rebuild it? Sean says if it swings freely with no noise, it is fine. Grease in the zircs, annual grease on the ball, chase the rust away seems to work for me at 8 years, so far.
Larry

[uncle_bob]

Originally Posted by ROBERT CROSS

I asked pretty much the same question when any of our new or out-of-state customers would say how dangerous driving was during our WNY Winters. It's only really dangerous if you don't know your vehicles limits and how it will react in an abrupt maneuver.
Find an unplowed lot and test it.

Bob
🇺🇸

Hi

..... or ... grow up / learn to drive there and do so in a number of really cheap cars. That way the damage doesn't bother you as much . Learning by doing is a bit more expensive these days

Bob

[Countryboy59]

Originally Posted by GCinSC2

Is it getting some folks to review their setup and maybe ponder the murky side of these questions.

I think we all know this is a hot button topic.

Also should review driving styles. Towing isn’t for everyone. I know a guy who is on the brakes anytime a deer is within 1/4 mile of the road, and jerks over into the next lane anytime someone merges. I bet him once I could drive from Detroit to Chicago and change lanes a maximum of 5 times, and I won. Smoothest trip he ever had.

[rbs]

Originally Posted by lsbrodsky

You have a 5-year-old trailer and you had to rebuild your ProPride? Why? I believe in safety and maintenance as much as the next guy, but I have not seen anything on my hitch indicating the need to rebuild it? Sean says if it swings freely with no noise, it is fine. Grease in the zircs, annual grease on the ball, chase the rust away seems to work for me at 8 years, so far.
Larry

I can tell you that I am meticulous about maintenance, and felt the same as you. I did notice that my hitch was at a little more angle than original and I was noticing a little more "sloop" when moving from a stop. I pulled the top dust covers and discovered rust, decided I wanted to tear it down and check it out. One set of bearings was totally shot, the rest were in need of replacing. Subtle changes were all that I noticed, nothing glaring, but it did need rebuilt. It's not a hard job, just heavy. I used a floor jack to remove and to reinstall. Maybe a better prospective as opposed to 5 years is that we are approaching 100,000 miles on this trailer, its been coast to coast 5 times, would've been 6 except for the covid, is on the road more than 1/2 the year, and not stored indoors.

[majorairhead]

I used to back up a hay wagon, hitched to a baler, hitched to a tractor. So, lefty, righty, lefty, was how it worked, or vica versa, depending on what the endgame was.

Of course, I could have unhitched both, then re-hitched the wagon, but to do that would take quite a bit of time, so I learned to back up the whole mess. It took some time.

So what's that have to do with the price of rice in China?

And furthermore, what is the difference between an orange?

[BayouBiker]

Originally Posted by SYC2Vette

Regarding "safe" I was interested to see that the accident rate for RV including travel trailers is actually markedly lower overall than for passenger vehicles. Probably obvious that there are a lot of factors involved in that like: average age of drivers, credit scores, probability of driving impaired, likely licensed, etc. Interesting nonetheless and helps explain why insurance rates are not affected on tow vehicle coverage.

The data reveals quite a bit about driver personality and manners. You are correct, that very few of those towing do so drunk. High speed is also much more rare as is reckless and careless causation. Most common is driver error. Next are the two issues many who tow sem to discount and that is instability due mostly to owners not understanding vehicle limits. Most who lose control swear the combination “always handled so well” up to the point it didn’t

[Bill M.]

I have no idea if my rig is safe. But...after 12 years and about 100,000 miles towing and 250,000 on the truck I still sorta worry about it. But not so much. I have only done one emergency lane change while breaking that I recollect in all that and it worked. I was damn lucky I had a space in the next lane to go to. Never really worried about g forces and jacknifing until I started reading this forum.

What I do worry about is has something broken or changed? And it does with wear. My trailer brakes go out frequently it seems. They used to come unplugged. I corrected that. Now the wires to the brakes break or corrode.

[ROBERT CROSS]

Originally Posted by uncle_bob

Hi

..... or ... grow up / learn to drive there and do so in a number of really cheap cars. That way the damage doesn't bother you as much . Learning by doing is a bit more expensive these days

Bob

ahhh yes, I remember it well, the $300 "WNY Winter Car". Most of us had one back in the 'day'. Some still do, but not needed as much with the improvements in auto build quality.
Plus it's now a $2000 Winter Beater,😖
Bob
🇺🇸

[uncle_bob]

Originally Posted by ROBERT CROSS

ahhh yes, I remember it well, the $300 "WNY Winter Car". Most of us had one back in the 'day'. Some still do, but not needed as much with the improvements in auto build quality.
Plus it's now a $2000 Winter Beater,😖
Bob
🇺🇸

Hi

Well, back in the day, that was the most expensive car my summer job would buy me. None of them seemed to last past the next summer job

Bob

[Flathead1984]

This subject always brings a flood of responses.

As someone who spent time dealing with safety in my work place, I developed the opinion that the most important safety item is between my ears.

I do not drive in high winds, I do not drive at the speed limit, I do not drive more than 6 hours in a day, I do not rush, I keep everything well maintained.

I could be towing with a Sherman Tank, and it would not save me for bad decisions.

However, the opinions on this Forum have been a great help. So, keep it up.

[jwgreen]

I have towed AS 34ft. triple axle trailers since 1995. Original TV was a '95 Chevy crew cab 3500 dually with a 454 gas engine. Next TV was a '96 Dodge RAM 2500 with the 8.0L V-10 gas engine. Traded it for a 2005 Dodge RAM 3500 2WD dually in 2005. Traded it in 2011 for a 2011 3500 4WD long bed crew cab dually that I still have with 119K on the clock. My current AS is a 2007 34ft. Classic with a slide out I bought in 2015. Within 6 mo., I went to Dan's Hitch Service in Elkhart, IN. I had the Hensley hitch removed and replaced with a Reese dual cam WD hitch with 1000 # spring bars. They had the truck all day and the last item was for Dan to take us for a drive towing the trailer. He headed north toward Michigan and, with no warning, made a quick right and took his hands off the steering wheel. The truck and trailer then quickly straightened out. A few seconds later, same maneuver except this time to the left and the same thing happened. What an excellent demo. Dan's business installs most of the hitches for the trailer delivery companies who deliver new trailers. There were several trucks in his shop having hitches installed. The stability of the dually, the proper hitch installation, weight of the truck all contribute to a safe towing setup. It was even better when Hensley paid me $500 for the old hitch and sent custom shipping boxes for the return. It pays to have a shop that knows hitch installation to have a safe and satisfying towing experience.

[Espresso2go]

I promised my wife we would be safe after an early incident of enormous trailer sway.
When my dealer did not have the information I needed, I had to research. The RVSEF (RV Safety and Education Forum) estimates that 50% of RV trailers exceed the safe towing rating.
The single most important number is the GCWR (Gross Combines Weight Rating), which is the total safe weight of the tow vehicle, trailer, cargo, fluids (water & black/gray tanks), and hitch. I have found this information in the trailering guides of the manufactures. They clearly state that the GCWR should not be exceeded. The trailer towing capacity rating is often bogus. When you add people to the TV, the trailer capacity goes down to keep under the GCWR. The true trailer capacity is 6,800 pounds with my TV compared to the declared weight rating of 8,100 pounds. (See the RVSEF diagram.)
My next most helpful information was a truck scale. (I use CAT Scales.) I needed to repeatedly weigh my TV and trailer to properly adjust my weight distribution hitch to distribute my front and rear axles' weight. (My sway incident above was exacerbated by poor axel weight distribution.)
The other reason the scale is important is to ensure the rear axle weight is not exceeded. Safety, damage, legal liability, and warranties are all at risk if the rating is exceeded. The scale provides the TV front axle, rear axle, and trailer weight (with fluids if loaded).
My TV is on the edge of what trailer I should pull, so I need to be particularly aware. My next TV will have more capacity now that I know more.

[Rfriebele]

It may all be good on paper and properly configured but real life can make that all irrelevant. Experience is the best teacher. Even a properly setup rig can be doomed in the hands of an inexperienced driver who is unaware of what to do in an emergency manuver or situation AND a skilled experienced driver can often avert disaster in an improperly setup rig. Obviously we all want to give ourselves the safest setup, but IMO, it's similar to learning how to drive in snow or ice. Every vehicle is different, proper equipment or not, it's a learned skill. And one reason we see so many semi disasters these days and where I live, cars in the ditch after the first inch of snow. Rookie drivers, not enough training and skill.

[2MileHi]

I find the idea that your best information comes from the manufacturer has, at best, questionable. These are the same manufacturers who not many years ago had engaged in tow ratings one upsmanship from year to year, with Ford beating Dodge by a hundred pounds this year, Dodge overcoming that by a hundred pounds the next year with no real change in the vehicles. Just a wild guess, admittedly, but I would venture that the marketing department had more input into those numbers then did the engineering department. However, if that is going to be your guideline, please, require a 15 to 20% margin on all of your weights. Payload is met much sooner than many anticipate. Manufacturers advertising numbers are not to be considered at all. The only numbers that pertain to your vehicle are listed on the yellow sticker inside the driver's door. Review in advance how to use a CAT scale and then visit one loaded as you will be when traveling. Then you will know what you're dealing with.

[BayouBiker]

If the best information is not from the manufacturer or if it is questionable, then what is the best source of information? The yellow door sticker is printed by and the numbers on it are determined by the manufacturer by the way, and though after visiting the CAT scale you will know what you're dealing with, if not the manufacturers guidance than what are you comparing the CAT numbers to? If it is to a 15-20% reduction from the manufacturer's numbers, what is the basis for that? Why not 10% or 30%?

[BayouBiker]

Originally Posted by Rfriebele

It may all be good on paper and properly configured but real life can make that all irrelevant. Experience is the best teacher. Even a properly setup rig can be doomed in the hands of an inexperienced driver who is unaware of what to do in an emergency manuver or situation AND a skilled experienced driver can often avert disaster in an improperly setup rig. Obviously we all want to give ourselves the safest setup, but IMO, it's similar to learning how to drive in snow or ice. Every vehicle is different, proper equipment or not, it's a learned skill. And one reason we see so many semi disasters these days and where I live, cars in the ditch after the first inch of snow. Rookie drivers, not enough training and skill.

I don't see it as irrelevant. Who walks away from an towing accident saying "I just wish my setup was less stable and less safe so my experience was more of a factor". A safe stable combination helps the experienced and inexperienced alike.