Broke My hitch

[Houser]

Houser Here

I guess those factory installed class 3 hitches Arn't as tough as they look. My 24' toy hauler broke mine right off at the mounting bolts. Just tore the mounting ears off. The trailer only weighs 48 hundred empty and around 6k loaded. I guess when the hitch says it rated for 5k thats all it rated for. Just thought i would give the rest of you heavy trailer guys a heads up. .

 

[Scheibins]

The chains were useless too if it broke at frame. Were you cruizing down the down road? Where the trailer go?

 

[Houser]

Houser Here

No. the trailer hitch never hit the ground. I noticed the hitch mounted mud flaps were dragging the ground and stopped to check it out. The hitch was hanging from two bolts no the passanger side and hadn,t completely separated from the frame.

I left the trailer at a friends house while I had a new class 5 hitch

installed.

 

[Brand-X]

Recall on my 99

My 99 has a recall I asked about it when the lift pump was replaced and there is no way the dealer is going to weld anything even near my truck as it is they broke a trany cooler line while changing the lift pump. maybe now I better add the brackets to the rear of the hitch... . George

 

[rblomquist]

Did you say the hitch on your 02 is only rated for 5k? The factory one on my 99 is rated for 10k; seems like it wouldn't make any sense for DC to put that light of a duty hitch on a HD diesel truck rated to pull 10k +... ...



Also, if you haven't done so yet it'd be cool for you to put that trailer on a scale (detached from your truck). Have it fully loaded and drop the tounge on 1 pad and the axles on the other(s). Most toyboxes are heli tounge heavy. I suspect you may have overloaded your hitch for tounge weight.



Let us know if you ever get that data, it'd be interesting to figure out what the deal was.

 

[ata]

Last year I was looking at the hitch on my 97 and it was cracked on both sides at the frame rail flange at the rear. Went to the dealer no recall and to bad answer. So I put on a Class 5.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

rblomquist - your factory hitch is only rated to 10,000/1,000 if you have a weight distributing setup on it. If you are just towing on a ball (which I assume Houser was doing) it's only rated to 5,000/500. My trucks hitch had broken before I bought the truck (it was the only thing that came up on the VIN # search for warranty work at the dealer). When the recall came out I looked at it and didn't like their solution (drill a couple more holes in the frame and add a couple brackets) so I put a class V draw-tite on. It's WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY more beefy than the stock hitch.

 

[scotmartin]

I moved this thread to the RV/Towing forum. Thought that it might be more appropriate here.



Scot

 

[crobertson1]

Anybody have any idea how good the factory hitches are on the new trucks?

 

[Houser]

Houser again

I dont think My hitch was defective. I probabally just over loaded it thinking it was tougher than it was. The tung weight on the trailer is 575 empty. the hitch is rated @ 500 undistributed. loaded my tung weight is probablly closer to 850/900 my truck sags 2 to 3" with the trailer hooked up. Distributed means with trailer wiskers I think. I dont have those. What I do now have is a spanky new calss 5 hitch that better not break or I will think it's defective.

Happy towing

Mike

 

[jwinnie]

What is the weight rating of a class V hitch ?

 

[Paychk]

http://www.putnamhitch.com/Trailer Hitches/hitchclass.htm

 

[bombero]

A really good friend of mine has a 96 CTD. He has a 36ft custom made TT. his tongue weight is 1475lbs. We were camping in Ft Bragg, No. Cal, and several of us were ragging on him about his hitch being overloaded. His aug. was the welds on the trailer would brake before the hitch. Wrong, so when we pulled out he didn't get 5 miles before his broke. Thank God that there was a wide spot that he could pull over in and no one got hurt. Anyway checking the hitch is just as important as the brakes or any other safety stuff.

 

[OTRPU]

I have a friend that races, hauls a 40 footer full of car and parts and shop. Totally destroyed his Class V Reese. He was looking for a warranty and maybe a suit, cept he found out he was a few hundred pounds over the rated capacity. I've been lucky a few times. Have had the ball shaft nut work off, felt alittle slop when a startin and a stoppin. Checked it and had another nut from another ball. One time I got up in the mornin and took a dumb pill, went to the factory and hooked a big ball trailer to a 2in ball. Thought I felt alittle slop but ignored it. Trailer rode dam near to destination till I missed my turn and decided to flip a u through a bank parking lot. Leaving the lot was a pretty deep dip and the trailer bounced right off the ball. So there I am dragging a tag trailer down the main street by the safety chains. Course when the trailer dropped it unplugged the power cord so no trailer brakes to help either. Just gradually coasted to a stop, just jacked it back on the little ball and drove immediately to a parking lot where I changed out the tow bar with larger ball. Throwed the bottle of dumb pills away, won't make that mistake again. Now I make a habit of checking everything involved twice, it's easy to make careless mistakes when too familiar with a task you do everyday. Engage brain before putting anything into gear comes to mind.

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Cheers,

Steve J