New Tilt Bed Car Hauler?

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Tom Hoffman

Tom Hoffman

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Just bought an aluminum tilt bed trailer to haul my wife's Miata wt. 2000 lbs.  The trailer weighs 675 lbs.  Would the 10% weight on the ball apply our should I go a little higher or lower.  I want the trailer to pull as close to level as I can get it I would think.

Any help will be appreciated.
 
Personally I would do 12% of the gross weight, and I would adjust it first time at a weight scale.  The car will vary with gas as well. Also consider if you will store some of your extra supplies in car while traveling.  I agree with trying to get level, but can't you play with that with the drop down receiver?
 
SpencerPJ said:
I agree with trying to get level, but can't you play with that with the drop down receiver?
Click to expand...


Agree. You shouldn't use tongue weight adjustments to level the trailer. First get the tongue weight right, mark the trailer for next time, then adjust the hitch to get the trailer level
 
I would agree that sitting level is best you will want as much hitch weight as you can I suppose you can adjust the position of the car to vary the hitch weight.
 
The main point is to keep the trailer's center of gravity ahead of the axle centerpoint, i.e. make sure the trailer has positive hitch weight at all times.  This is where the 10%-15% hitch weight comes into play.

Letting the center of gravity fall behind the axles causes sway and other handling problems.  Here's a short exerpt from a U-Haul training video that dramatically demonstrates this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2fkOVHAC8Q

Is your Sunnybrook trailer a bumper pull or 5th wheel?  If it's a bumper pull adding another trailer behind it is a recipe for disaster and illegal in most states (states that allow double towing usually require the first trailer to be a 5th wheel).  Look up "crack the whip effect" to see what happens to a second trailer during a fast maneuver.

 
Might or might not be obvious, but hitch weight number based on trailer plus load.  so, 675 + 2000. 2675, hitch weight 10-15% of that number.

Just in case.
 
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