New to towing a Travel Trailer

[Jackpine]

Originally Posted by 408F150

Second, you are going to want either Super Springs or air bags to keep your a$$ from dragging. Super springs run about $375 a set and take about an hour to install (they add 2,000# of spring to help keep your leaf springs from getting over stressed), airbags are I think a tad more.

I agree with everything in your excellent post except this one statement.

The whole point of a weight distributing/load leveling hitch is to transfer the trailer tongue weight to the four wheels of the tow vehicle, without overloading either of the axles. Putting heavy duty suspension components on the rear of the truck will keep if from sagging, so much so that the load leveling hitch will make the truck look fine, even though the rear axle is supporting way too much load. You CAN overstress the rear axle of the Tow Vehicle (TV) this way.

If you look at the instructions for any of the load leveling hitches, they say, "Do not use airbags, springs, etc to compensate for the hitch load".

The hitch itself transfers the load toward the front of the TV so that the weight on both axles is almost equal.

The weight distributing hitch will keep the rear springs of the TV from being overloaded.

And, as you mentioned, I think anti-sway control is good to have too, even if you do make sure the hitch load is 12-15% of the trailer weight (a must).

- Jack