Saw an interesting sight on I-95 today.

[Atlee]

We drove back from Florida today. We were in the car, and not pulling anything.

Up ahead of me was a trailer that was swaying like crazy. In fact, when I finally caught up, I moved to the 3rd lane to pass, because I didn't want to be anywhere close to that guy. I was afraid when I was passing he might actually lose control of that thing.

When I passed, I was expecting to see a large TT (it was 30 to 34 ft long) hooked to a too small 1/2 pickup. I was surprised to see a 3/4 ton Ram pickup with the Cummins engine. From other boards, when the debate comes up between towing with a 1/2 ton and SD type truck, some guys will chime in and say all they do is drop the trailer on the 3/4 ton or larger truck, and drive.

The combo today did not have either a WDH or a sway control. At least now I know not all heavy duty trucks can just hitch up to a long heavy trailer and tow away, like nothing was behind them.

[homer1959]

the truck size have very little to do with the pivot point. OK you may be able to handle the sway a bit better but you are still having sway and so no matter what pulls the culprit

[bono]

...and the guy will spread the word over the internet... 3/4 ton truck is too small for towing anything larger than pop up, only 1 ton or go home...

[JeremyFr]

Originally Posted by Atlee

We drove back from Florida today. We were in the car, and not pulling anything.

Up ahead of me was a trailer that was swaying like crazy. In fact, when I finally caught up, I moved to the 3rd lane to pass, because I didn't want to be anywhere close to that guy. I was afraid when I was passing he might actually lose control of that thing.

When I passed, I was expecting to see a large TT (it was 30 to 34 ft long) hooked to a too small 1/2 pickup. I was surprised to see a 3/4 ton Ram pickup with the Cummins engine. From other boards, when the debate comes up between towing with a 1/2 ton and SD type truck, some guys will chime in and say all they do is drop the trailer on the 3/4 ton or larger truck, and drive.

The combo today did not have either a WDH or a sway control. At least now I know not all heavy duty trucks can just hitch up to a long heavy trailer and tow away, like nothing was behind them.

Remind's me of the time I was headed home up here in Washington on I5 It was a fairly breezy day, at the time had our old 2002 V6 F150 pulling our 5500# 23' Jayco. Anyways as we were headed home we came up on a rig with a trailer similar in size to ours, thing was all over the road, TV was a Suburban one of the Extra Long ones. The way their trailer was swaying had me pretty nervous being behind them. The whole time I wasn't having any issues, but I use a 4 point equalizer on my rig. We finally got next to "sir sways alot" they only had a 2 point equalizer so WDH only, made me a believer in having WDH and Sway control. I eventually passed them when it was safe and had an enjoyable safe tow all the way home.

There is not enough that can be said bout having a good hitch that does both WDH and sway control. We now have a 2016 EcoBoost F150 and between being a far superior truck in every way to our old F150 and the same equalizer hitch I sometimes forget I even have the trailer behind me.

Investing in a good hitch that meets your needs is one of if not the best investments you can make.

[Atlee]

Agree, but the point I attempted to make was this. Too many times, the answer some folks to people contemplating using a 1/2 truck is just get a 3/4 ton or larger. And inevitable at least one guy will point out that with his large 3/4 ton truck, all he has to do is put the trailer on the ball, and drive and all is good, but nothing can be good with a 1/2 model.

My contention is, if a properly equipped 1/2 ton truck is mated to a properly sized TT, there is no problem. But even a larger truck, if it's improperly mated, will give problems.

My 1/2 ton F150 w/ HDPP pulling my 2017 23RB pulls very, very well. Yet this guy with a 3/4 ton Ram w/ Cummins diesel was nothing is not a white knuckle affair.

Originally Posted by homer1959

the truck size have very little to do with the pivot point. OK you may be able to handle the sway a bit better but you are still having sway and so no matter what pulls the culprit

[jimp]

The guy with the 3/4T truck may not have had the TT loaded correctly either which could cause the sway.

[shrpshtr]

I agree Atlee. It's so much more than just TT to TV size ratio. Like jimp and Jeremy mentioned, it's all about being properly setup. There will always be internet-DA's that make sensational claims about how they can do this or that, but at the end of the day it's not often the smartest, or safest, way to do things for a given scenario. Theoretically, I can pull my 34' TT with my Polaris Ranger as long as I stay under 20mph and have 2 football fields to stop within. I wouldn't dare try on the highway though because my head's not shoved up my own a$$.

shrp

[Dan]

The truck size/model isn't going to prevent sway, but the ability to "handle" it may certainly be different. In the scenario you saw, perhaps he had some really bad/lopsided tire inflations on top of everything else. Anyway, I used to pull a 30'TT with a one ton truck, but I still used sway bars.

[RogerR]

It isn't the size of the tow vehicle. I saw a semi with a trailer wagging back and forth on I76 in northeastern Colorado. He got it down and pulled off the road. It was gusty but my Andersen hitch seemed to help as I had only a tiny bit of sway.

[Midnightmoon]

Back in late 2005 and early 2006, I had the chance to drag a bunch of FEMA trailers down south after Hurricane Katrina. My tow vehicle was our 2004.5 Ram 2500 Cummins 4x4 short bed. It was by far the worst towing experience I have ever had in all of my years of commercial driving.

Those trailers were very light up front and the first one I picked up I ended up having to stop and adjust the hitch several times just to keep it on the road. About 100 miles in to the trip, I was so frustrated that I pulled in to a farm store and purchased 10 80# tube sand bags (you know the type designed to lay in a truck bed for traction in the snow) and put them on the floor of the trailer as far forward as I could just to gain some tongue weight. Each trailer I would deliver, I would put the sand in the trailer and then back in to the bed of the truck when I would go get another one. It made it manageable, but was a ton of work just to make those big pig trailers pull somewhat decent. I still have those sand bags in our barn as a matter of fact. I think the guys pulling with long wheel base DRW trucks could pretty much hook up and go. But that simply wasn't the case with my short wheel base Ram.

Anyway, the moral of my story is that even a larger tow vehicle, trailer balance and proper loading are essential to keep things safe and comfortable. That balance is unique to each truck and trailer combination and it really takes some fine tuning, some time on the scale, and some road miles to get everything perfect.

[vcbice]

Balance, balance, balance. Sway control will help a little but if the trailer is tail heavy you still still get in trouble.

Combine a balance issue with too much speed and any other various conditions (tires, wind, road camber/ruts, etc) and you have a disaster waiting to happen.