HITCHES | WELDING | TRUCK ACCESSORIES

What Are Weight Distribution Hitches?

Weight distribution hitches help create a stable ride for your trailer or tow vehicle. These hitches help ensure a level and smoother ride along with maximizing your towing capacity for standard hitches. These hitches also help improve steering, stopping, and correct sag between the trailer and the towing vehicle. Some models also help to keep the potential sway of a trailer under control, this is called sway control.

Weight When Towing

When you hook up your trailer or boat to a standard read mounted hitch the weight is transferred to the real axle of your truck. This means that he back end of the vehicle can be pushed down and the front end of your truck and lift. This puts all of your truck’s weight and the weight of the trailer directly on the rear axle.

With less pressure on your front wheels that do the steering of the vehicle you might experience a loss of performance in steering, stopping, or traction. This also leads to greater trailer sway, which is when the trailer tries to wander and fish tail behind you. Clearly there needs to be a way to level the vehicle out, prevent sway, and keep steering solid and reliable.

Weight Distributing Hitches Level Your Truck

The way the sag between the truck and trailer is corrected with a standard read hitch is a weight distributing hitch which uses spring bards to help level the truck back out. The springs are on both sides of the hitch and apply leverage to both sides. This helps transfer the weight back to the front axle of your tow vehicle. It also helps level out the pressure applied to the axles and tires of the trailer. This makes for better steering, less sway, and safer towing.

How Do I Know If I Need A Weight Distributing Hitch?

If you have towed a trailer, boat, or anything behind your truck and have felt a loss in steering or have seen the rig sagging at the hitch.  The following is a list to keep in mind, if you have any of these factors in your towing rig you should consider a weight distributing hitch.

• You want to maximize your read end trailer hitch capacity
• The trailer’s weight is greater than 50% of your vehicle’s weight
• There is diminished braking or steering of your rig
• If you experience any sway of the trailer you are towing
• If your headlights light more of the sky and less of the road
• If you see that you have sag at the back end of your truck and front of your trailer

How To Beat Sway Control

There are a few causes of sway in trailers. It is the side-ward swinging tracking of the trailer behind the tow vehicle. It can cause unsafe towing conditions and put excessive torsion on the hitch. Crosswinds, the absence of spring tension bars or even poor trailer loading can cause or amplify trailer sway. While simply adding a weight distributing hitch does help correct for disproportionate weight distribution that causes sway it does nothing for to help correct for crosswinds.

Many weight distributing hitches have options for sway control features. There are different designs of sway control that can be added to improve handling and increase your ability to safely tow your trailers and other recreational toys.   Talk to your local trailer hitch installation experts to choose the best sway control system for your trailer and your vehicle.