We Crashed our Sprinter and Learned a Lesson - Page 2

wgb1 · 06-11-2011, 06:46 PM

You don't need a tongue weight scale. Here is a method using a bathroom scale.

http://www.etrailer.com/faq-trailertowtips.aspx

Paddler · 06-12-2011, 11:59 AM

Hi Lee,
Sorry to read about your accident but glad everyone walked away alright. How long was your trailer?

LeeMedic · 06-12-2011, 12:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paddler

Hi Lee,
Sorry to read about your accident but glad everyone walked away alright. How long was your trailer?

It is 35' long.

Paddler · 06-12-2011, 01:31 PM

Hi Lee,
35 ft trailer and a tow vehicle with 119" wheelbase....you were an accident waiting to happen. Sorry to be blunt, but the physics were against you from the moment you hitched up.

I've been told the Hensley will allow a short wheelbase vehicle tow a longer trailer...but you are still asking a lot out of that hitch. It will have to make up a wheelbase shortage of nearly 4 feet.

LeeMedic · 06-12-2011, 02:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paddler

Hi Lee,
35 ft trailer and a tow vehicle with 119" wheelbase....you were an accident waiting to happen. Sorry to be blunt, but the physics were against you from the moment you hitched up.

I've been told the Hensley will allow a short wheelbase vehicle tow a longer trailer...but you are still asking a lot out of that hitch. It will have to make up a wheelbase shortage of nearly 4 feet.

Thanks. I will extremely careful when towing from now on.

LeeMedic · 06-12-2011, 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paddler

Hi Lee,
35 ft trailer and a tow vehicle with 119" wheelbase....you were an accident waiting to happen. Sorry to be blunt, but the physics were against you from the moment you hitched up.

I've been told the Hensley will allow a short wheelbase vehicle tow a longer trailer...but you are still asking a lot out of that hitch. It will have to make up a wheelbase shortage of nearly 4 feet.

I found the wheelbase of my Ford Excursion to be 137".

SPECIFICATIONS

MODEL: Ford Excursion Limited
WHEELBASE: 137.0 in.
LENGTH x WIDTH X HEIGHT: 226.7 x 80.0 x 79.7 in.

The Ford Expedition has the 119.0 in wheel base. A much smaller vehicle than my Excursion. The Excursion base weight is 7,000 lbs.

Paddler · 06-12-2011, 04:43 PM

Whoops, even the towing nazi's get it wrong! I thought I looked up the specs for the Excursion on Edmunds.com but it appears I typed in Expedition.

From my experience, towing a 35 footer with a Sierra with 143". You probably could have gotten by with an Equal-i-zer or Reese Dual Cam. However, given your most recent experience, the Hensley will probably give you a more peace of mind.

LeeMedic · 06-13-2011, 05:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paddler

Whoops, even the towing nazi's get it wrong! I thought I looked up the specs for the Excursion on Edmunds.com but it appears I typed in Expedition.

From my experience, towing a 35 footer with a Sierra with 143". You probably could have gotten by with an Equal-i-zer or Reese Dual Cam. However, given your most recent experience, the Hensley will probably give you a more peace of mind.

OK, you've convinced me. I am going to go with the Equal-i-zer 4 point, and upgrade my brake controller from a Draw Tite Activator II to the Prodigy P3 brake controller.

That saves me a bundle, and still I will have the control I need.

Thanks for all the input guys!

gkainz · 06-13-2011, 06:26 AM

Had a similar situation a number of years ago towing a small HiLo trailer behind a Ford Aerostar. Got hit by a microburst on I-25 in WY that started severe sway. I grabbed full brakes on the trailer controller after the second swing but it was already too late. 3rd sway pushed the nose of the van into the median, jack-knifed us, swapped ends and layed us on our side pointing the opposite direction. Nobody was hurt, but the van and trailer were totaled.

We bought a class C and continued to RV for the next 15 years before going back to a towable last fall. Pulling a Laredo 245RL 5er behind a Dodge Ram 2500 CTD now.

Paddler · 06-13-2011, 10:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeeMedic

OK, you've convinced me. I am going to go with the Equal-i-zer 4 point, and upgrade my brake controller from a Draw Tite Activator II to the Prodigy P3 brake controller.

That saves me a bundle, and still I will have the control I need.

Thanks for all the input guys!

Hi Lee,
I'm not really sure I want to convince you not to go with the Hensley. With a wheelbase of 137" you can tow a 27 foot trailer without additional sway control.

I have always looked at the Equal-i-zer (tm) as giving you the ability to tow up to an additional 5 feet of trailer. So in your case that would run you out to 32-33 feet. So....feeling lucky?

Before you answer that I'd really look into the tongue weight of your rig. If it is less than 12-15% and you can't rebalance the load to acheive 12-15%, the Hensley might be your best option.

deadeye · 06-16-2011, 08:13 AM

Usually the best way to stop the sway is to touch only the trailer brakes with the manual control

The Sod Father · 06-16-2011, 08:44 AM

Food for thought before you decide not to go the Hensley route. An Equalizer will dampen sway but will not eliminate it. The mechanics behind the Hensley allow the trailer to move independently from the tow vehicle. I have 3 campering buddies who use a Hensley and have commented on the "different" towing experience they have with the Hensley vs. another hitch. Sway dampening hitches and devices still transmit the sway to the tow vehicle, albeit to a lesser extent because of the dampening. It does not eliminate it. The Hensley does. Ditto for the ProPride.

So... you may ask why I do not have a Hensley. Good question. I've experienced truck suck on a number of occasions with my Equalizer and have tried to fine tune the problem. After the last adjustment, I noticed considerably less play and "truck suck". Now with that said, I am still not 100% confident in the whole lash up. I am upgrading tow vehicles later this year and will most likely also upgrade my hitch to a Hensley. A $25k trailer and a $40k truck is a lot to gamble with. The safety of my family is something I refuse to gamble with.

LeeMedic · 06-17-2011, 11:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Sod Father

Food for thought before you decide not to go the Hensley route. An Equalizer will dampen sway but will not eliminate it. The mechanics behind the Hensley allow the trailer to move independently from the tow vehicle. I have 3 campering buddies who use a Hensley and have commented on the "different" towing experience they have with the Hensley vs. another hitch. Sway dampening hitches and devices still transmit the sway to the tow vehicle, albeit to a lesser extent because of the dampening. It does not eliminate it. The Hensley does. Ditto for the ProPride.

So... you may ask why I do not have a Hensley. Good question. I've experienced truck suck on a number of occasions with my Equalizer and have tried to fine tune the problem. After the last adjustment, I noticed considerably less play and "truck suck". Now with that said, I am still not 100% confident in the whole lash up. I am upgrading tow vehicles later this year and will most likely also upgrade my hitch to a Hensley. A $25k trailer and a $40k truck is a lot to gamble with. The safety of my family is something I refuse to gamble with.

Sir,

I think you are on to something here. I just towed our new replacement Sprinter from Mississippi to Florida and used an "Equal-I-zer" hitch. It was significantly better than my previous setup, but still had some sway with large trucks, and even smaller vehicles.

For safety purposes I will be purchasing the Hensley or Propride and selling my Equal-I-zer with only 850 miles on it.

One last thing, on our way home from Mississippi today, we saw on I-75 not far from where we had our accident another RV Trailer on it's side. That really got us thinking. My heart went out to those campers because 2 weeks earlier we were there.

LeeMedic · 06-17-2011, 01:09 PM

Well we picked up our replacement Sprinter 300KBS. We found one just like the one destroyed in our accident. I still miss our last one. Oh well, life goes on.

Me.Bikes.Dogs · 06-17-2011, 01:20 PM

Congrats on the new trailer!

I guess you can always flop it on its side if you want to reminisce.

cumminsdad08 · 06-17-2011, 02:14 PM

FWIW, it looks a lot better on the wheel's. good luck to ya and the new trailer

Adam · 06-17-2011, 06:52 PM

Very nice looking rig, but one thing I find puzzling is the length and how close they still set the axles on the Sprinter. When we purchased our Passport 300BH one of the selling points was the new spread Axel concept. Our rig has almost 19" between the tires. Our Keystone dealer who also sells Cougar's mentioned to me that on many occasions he speaks with Keystone about adding wider axle stances on the Cougar lines, jokingly he even suggested they speak with their delivery owner operators these drivers tow all sorts of Keystone trailers from the factory to their final destinations and would provide some great feedback. I also thought the whole story about towing the new spread axel trailers was a little embellished until I happen to bump into one of the guys first hand while at my dealership for service on my already owned Passport. Although, I think this driver was a nut, as he joked how they find it almost impossible to get a spread axle trailer to sway or even swerve

Last season, I was towing my 300BH Passport with a Durango and never had any issues, in fact this spring three of us headed home after camping for the weekend in 50-60mph gust, one buddy was towing a 26ft spread axel Bullet with Mercury Mountaineer, and another buddy with F-250 in tow with 35ft Jayco Eagle. The two of us had no issues and followed each other for two hours at 55-60mph, our other buddy with the Jayco called in and told us he crawled home and was ready to park his trailer for good after that experience.

Good Luck, and really enjoy the new rig, she looks sweet!

Freebirdusa · 06-18-2011, 05:34 AM

Hi KenBob,
You asked how to avoid the situation. I have been driving a tractor trailer for 27 years now. The best advice I can think of is always be aware of your surroundings. Big trucks get the air push also when other trucks pass them. Just anticipate being pushed to the side when you see them coming up on you and accelerate a little when they pass if possible. That keeps your truck pulling the camper helping it stay in a straight line. Im sure most of us have already figured that out. It just takes a little on the road experience. After a while it just comes natural.

The Sod Father · 06-18-2011, 06:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam

.... our other buddy with the Jayco called in and told us he crawled home and was ready to park his trailer for good after that experience.

C'mon Adam. you know his REAL reason. He just doesn't want to pay for gas.

The Sod Father · 07-06-2011, 08:28 AM

So, after thinking about LeeMedic's situation and experiencing more sway during our last trip, I have concluded that no matter how I tweak my Equalizer, adjust the load in the trailer, improve the Expedition's suspension, etc. I am still dealing with a 35' trailer that is trying to wag the dog. So last Friday I order a Hensley Arrow. Santa in the brown suit is delivering it today. I get to put it to the test next weekend.

Honestly, seeing what happened to LeeMedic reminded me that I am fairly risk adverse. And as a dear friend (and Hensley owner) has noted on several occasions, "why risk destroying a trailer, tow vehicle or, more importantly, harming your loved ones?".

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