To those interested in trailers/hitches/towing.
I tow a 20 ft. Carson Racer enclosed trailer with my '96 Tahoe 4 door/4WD. I
don't use a load distributing hitch, just a regular hitch on the factory
Tahoe receiver. In total I tow about 5,000 lbs and have had favorable
results with this setup. Tongue weight is right around the max at 750 lbs.
I get a little more sway than I did when I used the LD hitch, but not enough
to warrant the extra weight/trouble for me.
But I did have an unusal experience and problem you might watch for.
One day, I was towing the trailer EMPTY, except for some of my tools/supplies
I keep in there. I came upon a railroad grade crossing, followed by a dip
prior to joining another road. I was only going about 25MPH, but didn't
notice the dip. I hit it harder than I would have liked and felt the Tahoe
rear suspension bottom (I have airbags, but they were only lightly inflated
due to the empty load). I didn't think much of it until I got to my
destination and noticed the trailer sitting low. When I looked at the
hitch/receiver, it was pointing down at a 45 degree angle! The bump had
ripped the frame rails on the Tahoe right at the rear where the hitch is
attached about an inch on each side and allowed the back of the receiver to
droop. Further up the frame, it bent it further where the front of the hitch
attached. Needless to say, this was a challenging repair. We had to remove
the bumper, receiver, etc., straighten the frame, and then strengthen it with
some custom fabricated inserts to spread the load.
What was VERY interesting, was the fact that the thickness of the frame rails
was only about 1/2 that of the receiver, so the frame would easily fail
first. Further, I have seen other receiver designs that used more bolts to
spread the load where they attach to the frame. This one used 3 on each
side. In our redesign, we went to 4.
With the trend toward lighter frames and trucks, its not surprising that the
frame seemed under-engineered when compared to the receiver itself.
Has anyone else experienced frame failures, stress fatigue, etc? FYI, this
truck has 150K miles on it, with quite a few towing trips. Perhaps that
helped take its toll on it. But, with this in mind, I was thinking of
downsizing to a smaller SUV. But now, I seriously doubt that anything
smaller than a Tahoe would be a wise choice.
Regards,
Myles H. Kitchen
1965 Lotus Cortina Mk1 #128
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