Travel Trailer fishtailed - Hitch problem? - Any advice?

[PatW]

We have a 2010 Expedition that we bought new to tow a new lightweight Lance Travel Trailer. It’s a great SUV. However, on our first (only) trip with the trailer, within the first 70 miles from home we fishtailed twice, extremely and massively, lashing across two lanes of an Interstate. Fortunately, no other vehicles were near, and we - and the Expedition - were able to avoid having an accident. We think that the Hitch was the most likely problem. After that fishtailing, a nearby RV Service Facility installed a Weight Distribution System - but they said it didn’t make the trailer any safer to tow. So we had to leave our trailer in RV Storage and make our trip with just the Expedition. We think that the Hitches were the main problem. We’d like feedback and advice.

Our Ford Expedition:
2010 XL 2WD
5.4 L, V-8, 3.73 axle ratio, Heavy-duty trailer-towing package with trailer sway control
9200 lb GVW for towing, Prodigy Trailer Braking System

Our Lance Travel Trailer:
2010 Lance Ultralight Series Model 1881, with a BAL/Norco frame
Length 22ft 8in, Dry Weight 3242 lbs, GVWR 5200 lbs
Lance Literature states: “A perfect match for Mid-size SUVs & Pickup Trucks”

We’re experienced Rvers, but new with a Travel Trailer (previously had a Dodge Dually 1-ton truck and truck camper, then a 5th wheel). We bought the Expedition to be able to tow a TT and have extra towing capacity - and are very thankful that we had it! The photo we’re using was with the Lance Travel Trailer empty before the trip.

Trailer sway - As we entered the Interstate a short distance from home, the Trailer seemed to sway. We can’t explain why we experienced the uncomfortable driving feeling that the Expedition was not hugging the road and that the Trailer was in control. This was its first trip with camping supplies onboard. We had checked out all the regular RV readiness and we thought that everything was OK, such as tongue weight, air in tires, lug nuts tight, not overloaded, contents evenly distributed, and nothing heavy in the Trailer rear.

Hitch #1 - The two episodes of fishtailing - with a Reese Hitch Reese Hitch, Part #21342, “Max trailer 6,000 pounds, Max Tongue 600 lbs.” One sway bar. (No weight distribution system. Seller RV Dealer (#1) had said we didn’t need it.) They primarily deal with very small trailers, like tent-on-a-box style. We think that possibly this first hitch (even with a sway bar) wasn’t adequate for towing the trailer and that the style hitch he included in the sale only works just right for very small size trailers but probably not for ours. Even moderately loaded, and with one sway bar, it appears that we didn’t have a lot of leeway for our trailer, without a weight distribution system in place, when it probably began to sway before fishtailing.

Hitch #2 - Weight Distribution System Husky Bolt Together Weight Distribution Hitch System #07025 The WDS Hitch has round bars, Part #2165-07-385, “1001 to 1400 lbs.” That is what RV Service Facility (#2) sells for their (heavier) trailers. When mechanics then test-towed our Expedition, they said that the trailer was still uncontrollable, so we had to leave it in RV Storage and go on with the trip without it. It’s in RV Storage now. We had the Expedition checked out right away, and it was fine. We’ve now been told that there’s a warning label sticker somewhere on the Lance’s BAL/Norco frame or tongue (under the LP tank tray?), “Do not use an equalizing load hitch greater than a 1000 lb. rating.” Most owners of such lightweight trailers apparently use no more than a 1000 lb WDS. We don’t know whether this RV Service Facility (#2) followed the Expedition Owners’ Manual recommendation for setting up with an equalizer hitch.

We think we need a WDS - but lighter weight. And probably additional sway control beyond one sway bar. (We don’t know why it swayed.) Does it sound like the hitches were our problem? What WDS and sway control do other Expy owners find works best? Other people tow successfully with Expeditions, so we hope to be able to tow our trailer, but we certainly want a better outcome! Comments? Suggestions? We’d appreciate help on figuring this out to be able to tow our Lance Travel Trailer.

 

[sgtowing]

First, I would say check the tires on the trailer to make sure they are in good shape. Even new tires can have problems. Second, check the wheel bearings on the trailer. If there's play, that would cause sway. Also make sure all the gear in the trailer is in front of the axle(s). More weight behind the axle(s) can cause sway. How are the tires on the truck? Are they in good shape and are they the correct weight rating. This might sound weird but try towing the trailer without the WDS and sway control. If the trailer is to small, they could actually cause sway by not letting the trailer move enough. When it does finally move, its in big quantities that is to much for the system. Also, check alignment on the trailer as well.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk

 

[Dib52]

Hard to tell from your avatar pic, but maybe too little tongue weight causing lift of the rear wheels on the Expy. The condition you're describing, tail wagging the dog, is usually associated with a tongue inbalance.
Another thing to consider, a solid receiver as opposed to the traditional hollowed out reciever. That and a 6000lb ball may help.
As sg noted, check ALL tires and pressures. Expy might not have the right load rated tires on it. I only say that because of the XL trim, usually doesn't get all of the good upgrades.
Here's my set up that I have never had a problem with. Factory hitch, solid receiver, 10,000lb ball(overkill) and no WD bars. My trailer is pushing 6000lbs and stays glued behind my Expy. Surge brakes on the trailer.

Could possible just have a trailer chassis that is skewed just enough to pass quality control at the factory but cause problems going down the road. Something definitely doesn't sound right.

 

[Stoned06]

Assuming everything is mechanically OK with the trailer, as the others have noted it sounds as if the tongue weight is too light, or the gear is centered behind the trailer axles.

 

[dougmcp]

My thoughts:
- The tires on the trailer were low on air
- Not enough weight on the hitch
- Too much weight in the rear of the trailer
- Oversteering the vehicle
- Towing TT is totally different from a truck/camper or 5th wheel

 

[P.Bronner]

The very first thing you need to determine is the true tongue weight of the trailer. It should be around 500 lb. with the trailer loaded as you normally travel. How much does the car squat when you set the trailer down on the ball? I have a very similar Expd. (XLT/4WD-every else the same as you) and tow a boat that goes about 5500 lb. over the road.I have no stability issues whatsoever, and this is with no W/D or anti-sway bars. The trailer is NOT too big for the car. If the tongue weight is excessive, its a simple fix with W/D bars. If its too light, the W/D system will make it worse. If the fresh water tank is under the master bed (common location for this floor plan) try filling it and see if the situation improves. -- P.S. One good anti-sway bar is plenty. I don't think I've ever seen anybody run two.

 

[PatW]

Thank you all for your ideas. I'm analyzing all of the things you brought up. This is REALLY HELPFUL!

I should have identified our Expedition as an XLT (2 WD). When the trip started, we had 6400 miles on it. It was checked out by our selling dealership a couplle of days before we left home, and the air was correct. The tires are P265/70 R17 OWL ON/OFF ROAD.

We're checking about the tongue weight, but we've been told that it is correct (now EMPTY) (around the number quoted in the Lance literature, which is 356 dry hitch weight). (I'll definitely check that out again) I don't believe that the car squated at all with the trailer on the ball.

We will be checking the trailer's wheel bearings, too. The frame is said to be in proper alignment. The trailer was new, and had only been towed (empty) a very few miles. The tires were checked out - and our local Tire and Auto shop had checked for us that there was the proper amount of air in them.

We had about 1/2 tank of water onboard (to be able to use the bathroom and sink as we'd travel).

These are all great thoughts. Thank you for your help! We'd welcome additonal comments, too!

Do most Expy owers use a WDS for an under-5000 lb trailer? Or just a simple hitch like our original one was? Just a single sway bar - or a sway system of some sort (like a Hensley hitch)?

 

[Dib52]

No squat, not enough tongue weight. You should be in the neighborhood of 500 lbs tongue, IMO.
I use just the simple factory set up, no sway control, no WD and I'm pushing the 6000lb mark with the boat in tow.
General rule of thumb, tongue is 10% of max weight(520).

 

[sgtowing]

I agree with Dib.

 

[PatW]

Thanks for your thoughts and comments! We’ll definitely check the tongue weight. I still really don’t think we had squat, but wasn’t looking specifically for it. So we’ll be sure to check that out. I still think that the trailer was very lightly loaded, with nothing heavy in the rear compartment. But we will check out that issue, too.

We’ve been reading up about Tongue Weight. How could we increase the tongue weight, if that turns out to be what is needed? Decrease it? Even though the trailer is now empty, we still have 2 full 5-gallon propane tanks and two heavy-duty batteries on it.

Here’s another curious thing about our hitch, maybe of some significance. We didn’t use grease at first on the ball, just spray RV lubricant (as RV Dealer had recommended). A while before our problem trip, we had hooked up the empty trailer at our RV storage and brought it home. When we went to separate the car and the trailer, we couldn’t get them apart. After lots of neighborhood kibitzing didn’t help (lots of ideas were passed around), we finally called the Dealer and - with the hitch raised - he had us put the car in gear (no gas), first in drive, then in reverse, and try to separate the ball and the coupler. Since that didn’t work, finally we were told one of us had to jump on the car’s rear bumper, to force them apart. That worked.

After that we switched over to using GREASE on the ball. But we still had a little problem with un-coupling (trailer was empty all that time, except for 2 propane tanks and 2 batteries). We had to do the jump on the bumper again. We bought a two-foot-long pry-bar to use for getting the coupler off of the ball. But since our Trip began so badly with the fishtailing, we never found out if we’d have still needed the pry-bar with the Trailer loaded (not empty).

Pat

 

[Dib52]

Silly question, is the trailer set up for an 1 7/8 ball and you're using a 2 inch? That would create the inability to uncouple.
As far as adjusting tongue weight, the tongue should have additional holes to slide forward or back. If not, the trailer axels could always be moved if its set up with adjustment holes.

 

[Stoned06]

Sounds as if your coupler ball latch may be set too tight. Try loosening the nut on it a quarter turn and see if that helps unhooking it.

As far as increasing the tongue weight, just load more gear toward the front of the trailer (in front of the axle). More in the back will decrease it. First you want to determine what the tongue weight actually is. Go to a scale and weigh the Expy with the trailer hitched, then weigh it without. The difference is your tongue weight.

 

[DF5.4]

When you say trailer sway control, is that the sway control on the Expedition or is it an extra mechanical setup on the hitch? All WD hitches do is it distributes the tongue weight to both axles on the truck. It does nothing to control sway.

When I tow our 30' TT I add air to the tires to bring the pressure up closer to max to handle the extra load. P rated tires have softer sidewalls than the other load rated tires. Honestly I probably should have spent the extra for D rated tires.

Get everything weighed. Do not trust numbers given to you by salespeople. They will be quoting the numbers published in brochures. I've seen trailers with a published tongue weight of 700 lbs have an actual weight of close to 1000 lbs.

 

[PatW]

The ball says 2 5/16”. We had checked this at the Trailer, and that’s the size it calls for.

The Trailer tires were filled to the max listed on their sides for the trip.

The sway control we currently have is a Sway Bar. That sway bar was in place when we started the trip with the simple hitch, and also after the RV Repair Facility switched us to the WDS. Sway was apparently a problem in both situations, even when the mechanics drove the Expy.

For the future we’ve wondered if we should consider some Anti-Sway system. We really think we shouldn’t have to, but if it’s the only way to be able to tow the Trailer with the Expy, we’d probably “bite the bullet” and pay for it. We have friends who have a much heavier trailer that they tow using a Hensley Hitch, with their Tahoe. We hadn’t seriously considered such an Anti-Sway system, but now . . . ? But that would still leave us with the question of Weight Distribution vs. Sway Control.

And it sounds as if something was basically wrong with our setup, since you other Expy owners haven’t experience problems like ours.

We realize that towing with an SUV is different than with the truck we had before. But something was basically wrong with our towing situation, because the Service Mgr who sold us the WDS and then said our Trailer was still unsafe to tow is himself the owner of an Expedition which he uses for towing. It definitely felt wrong to him. He said that there was nothing more he could do. That’s when we left the TT in RV Storage and went on with our trip with the Expy. And are now trying to figure it all out. Your thoughts and suggestions are very helpful.

We do know for certain that we WILL be sure to weigh everything before a next trip. (And we hope we will be able to do a NEXT TRIP.)

Pat

 

[PatW]

UPDATE: We’re still working on our TT fishtailing mystery/issue. After we’d had it transported back to our nearby city to another RV repair facility (& still no answers), the Lance Camper Corp. then had it transported out to their factory in California.

The trailer frame manufacturer, BAL/Norco, had their reps inspect the frame completely. The TT was empty. They said that everything checked out OK. They said that there was no indication that the frame components had been deflected or bent beyond their design limitations. They test-towed it on various road and at varied speeds with an SUV, a ½-ton Chevy Suburban, a factory supplied hitch, no equalizer system, and no sway bar. Their conclusion was that “the trailer is in proper towing condition and it has no apparent defect.” We’ve also had our Expedition checked over several times, and it’s fine.

To further unravel our mystery and - hopefully be able to hit the road (Oops, shouldn’t continue to use that expression after our fishtailing scare!) - I mean, resume travel with our TT - we need to see how it functions when it is NOT EMPTY, with contents aboard. Therefore, we plan to drive our Expedition out to the Lance factory later his month, about 600 miles from our home. We’ll be sure to post those Updated Results after it has all been figured out (and we hope to resume travel with it).

To gain more info, we also posted our issue on the Lance Camper Owners’ Forum. None of those TT owners had experienced such fishtailing problems. Their comments centered around the same issues as in this Forum, and suggestions were largely about weight distribution, tires/wheels, and tongue weight imbalance.

In analyzing it, we think certain issues are all answered as OK and did NOT cause our fishtailing incidents: axles, alignment, tires/tire pressure, speed (65 mph at time), road conditions (normal), weather (clear).

Based on your (VERY HELPFUL) posts (and the Lance Trailer posts) these seem to be THE MAJOR ISSUES we will need to be analyzing on our Factory trip and from this point on:

SETUP, HITCHES, TONGUE WEIGHT, WEIGHT DISTRIBUTION/POSITION OF CONTENTS IN TT, WDS (Hitch #2, the WDS, was TOO heavy - we need one rated to about 800 lbs max.) The hitch should be straight for towing, level from front to back, but we should see some “squat” on the rear of our Expy. If there is somewhere to weigh our TT at the Lance factory, we will weigh our loaded TT. (We plan to do that before any future trips. We’ve located the commercial Truck Weighing Station nearest our home.)

WHEN WE GO TO THE LANCE CAMPER FACTORY:

WHEELS/SPINDLES: We had a question about the TT Wheels/Spindles, so we plan to have them take off the wheels and check the Spindles and the bearings.

SET UP: We expect to set up the trailer with our simple hitch and our sway bar. We’ll make sure that we are doing it correctly. (We can’t use our new WDS, since it is too heavy (1,000 - 1,400 lbs), but we will take it with us for them to analyze it at the factory.)

CONTENTS/CARGO: We won’t be able to take the contents of our TT with us to the factory, but we plan to do the next best thing. We’re weighing the bins and items we had with us to try to replicate their weight. The cheapest, easiest way for us to replicate that weight seems to be to buy - near the factory - bags of water softener salt (20, 25, 40 lb bags) and position them in the compartments the way we had our cargo.

TONGUE WEIGHT: The biggest issue most likely to have caused our fishtailing seems to be the trailer tongue weight. We’ve now bought our own Sherline Trailer Tongue Weight Scale. (We’ll remember -10 to 15 % of trailer weight.) (Thanks for that advice and info!!) Thanks to your posts, we decided it was absolutely essential for us to always have a scale with us if we hope to continue trailering safely. We’ll take it with us to the factory, too.

We’ll update you after our trip. Any other thoughts? We always welcome your help, advice, comments. And, again, we thank you all!

 

[DF5.4]

See if they can give you actual weights. This will be a good starting point for you before you load it up. Get the weight of the TT and the actual tongue weight. If they can't give it to you find a truck scale on the way home and get them. Then it wouldn't be a bad idea to get the same weights after it's loaded up and ready to go.

Search the RV forum and there should be a procedure people use when getting weights at a truck scale. You can get the total weight, weight on each axle, and tongue weight.

 

[DevonD]

Does the TT have any suspension or are the axles fixed to the frame? If the TT has fixed axles and the tounge of the trailer is not level with the trailer then it could possibly be picking up one of the axles on the trailer causing the tires on one of the axles to not have any weight on them thus causing it to sway. Might need to adjust ball height on expedition. The only other cause like quiet a few people mentioned is tongue weight. You are always better off have more weight on the back of your vehicle. I haul a 8000lb skid loader quiet a bit with my expi and use a car trailer. Between the trailer and skid loader it is a GW of 9500. I have never had any problems with swaying. I always make sure that the back of the expi is squatted down, meaning that there is plenty of weight on the ball. If I only had 500 lbs of tongue weight, I would be in the ditch right away. As far as using a truck scale to get your weights, you would have to weigh every axle with TT and then unhook the TT and get the axle weights off of the expi to figure out what your tongue weight is. Good luck!

 

[PatW]

Thanks, DF5.4 and DevonD. We really appreciate your comments. We're going to check on things you mentioned.

About the suspension - our Lance TT brochure says it has "premium, heavy-duty, rubber torsion-bar suspension axles with EZ-lube wheel bearings."

We're going to check the ball height when we drive to the factory. Good thought.

For the tongue weight, with our new Trailer Tongue Weight Scale, during our upcoming trip to the TT factory I plan to have them help us learn how to use it. We will certainly pay close attention to tongue weight from now on. And we'll be watching for squat.

It's really encouraging to know that others can tow so successfully with Expys! We hope to do the same!

What hitch setup do you use?
Do you use a weight distribution system? If so, what weight, brand?
Do you use a sway bar?

 

[DF5.4]

I'm using the Reese Dual Cam HP WD setup. It's the weight distribution and sway control together.

 

[hautevue]

TT and TV weights and hitch weight

The fact that the TT whips is almost certainly a too-light hitch load. As others noted, you need around 500- 600 pounds on the hitch ball or approx 10% - 15% of the total weight of the trailer.

And the fact that you have to use extraordinary methods to force the Expy (the TV) down to unhitch the trailer says that the trailer is too light on the hitch. The Expy is holding the hitch up in the air, so you have to jump on the bumper, etc., to drive the Expy downward to get it loose. IMHO that's a clear sign that the hitch load is too light on the Expy. To unhitch, one normally has to raise the TT tow socket off the hitch ball.

I recommend a trip (gently!!) to the local professional travel scales. Call ahead and tell them that you need several weights, and when should you come over to use the scales for ~15 minutes? They'll usually be very cooperative. Bring some wood blocks so you can support the TT level when unhitched.

When you get there, measure the total weight of the Expy and TT hooked up. Then unhook the TT, drive the Expy off the scales, and weigh again. That gives you the TT weight. Weigh your Expy alone. Then park the TT with the wheels NOT on the scales, and use the wood blocks to get the TT tongue reasonably level. Now weigh the TT--the weight will be the weight the TT puts on your hitch.

Now you have the data and can know what the problem is. My guess: not enough weight on the hitch.

I'm towing a 29' long Keystone Outback that weighs about 7200 pounds, with my '08 Expy EL. I use a Husky WDH and one sway bar. The rig is solid as a rock when that tractor trailer blows my doors off going 75 or 80. Your Expy and your TT seem to be well within the limits of what the Expy can handle, but check out that actual hitch weight.

Good luck!