Sway bar

[Pete Dumbleton]

Sometimes I cringe when I recall some of the towing I used to do, basically in ignorance of it all despite an engineering background.

I was towing a large boat and trailer with a small car and didn't consider balance (or even know about tongue weight) until I had a bad sway incident on a narrow two-lane bridge (fortunately no one in the on-coming lane). I "instinctively" knew it was a yaw-inertia/polar-momentum problem and move the boat and axles further back on the trailer to reduce the effect on the car. Looking back, I was fortunate that I had enough tongue weight.

BTW, one of these threads was talking about Four Wheel Drive. Contrary to first thought, 4WD generally does NOT improve tow ratings, in fact it usually reduces them by the weight of the gear (same vehicle, more machinery). More drive traction does not help with heat, braking or control in general.

However, where 4WD can be important is if you have 4WheelLowRange and the 'granny' first gear -- That allows one to start the trailer moving when maneuvering in rough or slippery terrain or in reverse, situations that often call for clutch slipping or auto trans heating.

[Benny K]

Anyone towing with a Nissan Quest?......am considering getting a 2006/2007 and apparently have a 3500 lb. tow rating......hopefully can get rid of my truck and use the Nissan as only vehicle......Benny

[Pete Dumbleton]

It occurred to me, reading some posts on another RV group, that any wondering about towing with a particular vehicle (after getting the GXXX numbers out of the way, of course), should spend some time Googleing the vehicle plus some key words like tow towing transmission problems and so on. On the other group, someone was asking about towing popups with one particular vehicle and someone posted that they had read on a boat group about transmission problems, so it's wise to spread your search pattern.

[John Adrienne]

I am considering what type of sway device to put on my 16' Scamp and was reading this thread. I too had a rather scary incident on one of my last trips, that was indeed my fault. It was when we where on our way home from our outting, and like others I am sure we basically threw all of our crap in the the trailer not really caring where it was as we were planning to clean it and deal with the mess when we got home. The layout of our Scamp has the rear table/bed and we left it in bed form which without thinking a whole lot about it, got piled pretty good with our gear. Let me just say we didn't make it far, like maybe 2-3 miles when we hit about 35-40 miles an hour and the trailer started to sway very fast and out of control. I saw what it was doing immediately and began to slow down. Had I been going any faster, I have no doubt that the situation would have been UGLY. I was pretty darn close to putting it in a ditch, to the point I told my wife, "Hold on we are going to crash". Scary. It was a pain at the time but we redistributed the contents of the trailer and made it home without any other issues, but also drove well under the speed limits out of fear of that happening again. I did not have a trailer brake controler, only had the 4-pin connector and the ball was on the bumper, not sure if that makes a difference or not.

I do not want to see something like this happen again. We have a different tow vehicle now and have a trailer brake controller installed. The controller has a manual feature so I can apply the brakes with the flip of a lever now if needed.

I am now looking to add some sort of anit-sway device. The local truck shop here was trying to sell me a friction type like the Reese shock absorber type, which is fairly cheap and looks like it would be easy to install.

I was wondering if anyone can post some pictures of the Reese Dual Cam setup, I am having a little trouble visualizing how that style works. It sounds from the Reese website like it would work better than the friction type, according to the description.

I know that 99.99% was due to the way it was loaded. And trust me, I LEARNED MY LESSON. I am just looking for a little bit more protection IF it ever gets ugly like that again.

[Pete Dumbleton]

I'm confused -- You KNOW the problem was incorrect loading yet you want to fix it by putting on a questionable piece of hardware (disconnect under slippery conditions)...

[Byron Kinnaman]

I hate to think what would have happened if you would have had a friction anti-sway bar on. The problem masked until you get up to speed, then break loose.

[John Adrienne]

I'm confused -- You KNOW the problem was incorrect loading yet you want to fix it by putting on a questionable piece of hardware (disconnect under slippery conditions)...

Yes, I am 99% sure it was caused by the way it was loaded. I do not want that kind of incident to happen again, and am trying to avoid it if at all possible. The local truck/trailer store said that the friction type of sway controler would help prevent they type of thing from happening. I already have brake control over the trailer, but I am looking for other preventative measures just incase I encounter this problem again at some point.

It was scary when it happened, and although I think that I can say that it was the way it was loaded, I don't mind dropping a couple hundred bucks for a little more piece of mind.

So I guess I want to know if the friction sway controlers should be the next item I purchase or is another style like the dual cam going to serve my purpose better?

thanks

[Steve L.]

The Casita 16's are, I believe, more prone to sway issues than, say, the 17 footer. I believe it's because the axle is too close to the center of the trailer on the 16. The Casita 17 has the axle closer to the rear. People rarely report sway problems on the 17, many reporting they don't use an antisway bar. (WDH's are important to some of them.) I suspect that the Scamp 16 has it's axle in nearly the same position as the Casita 16 and is probably sensitive too.

John didn't mention what his old and new tow vehicles are. I'd be curious but it's not critical to this thread I suppose. The shortest vehicle I towed my Casita with was a two door Explorer (shorter wheelbase than the 4 door Explore) and even with the antisway bar I felt the trailer sway in the tow vehicle. The best vehicle I've had is my current F150. The trailer still occasionally wants to sway but I don't feel it twitching the tow vehicle.

I have one of those nice tongue weight scales and I've moved things around the trailer to get the tongue weight up but my sense is that sway is something I will always have to struggle with with this trailer.

That being the case, I've taken input from the board to heart and I'm much quicker to loosen the friction settings on the sway bar in wet weather

[Bill MacDermod]

from everybody, it has been particularly interesting because I just got rid of my 01 Tundra which had none of the above on it and never had any regrets, both my wife and I loved the vehicle except for the mileage and bought an 05 ody which I equipped to the teeth with wdh and a friction sway bar that came with the casita when I bought it 5-6 years ago but never used. I have been towing trailers since the 50's and never heard of anti sway bars till I bought the Casita and joined these forums. When I thought I might hook it up to the Tundra it was then that I read on the side of the friction device "loosen up in oily or wet conditions", then someone mentioned that you should take it off when backing up, I began having doubts about something that was supposed to be a safety factor having so many "ifs" and I decided not to use it with the Tundra and never felt it necessary in over 35,000 miles of towing. I have it hooked up now with the Ody but may try it without. I will continue with the wdh as it does seem to ride better and certainly is easier on the suspension.

Comparing the Tundra to the Ody I have noticed real quick that loading is different in more ways than one, we have to make sure the bugs are out and off of everything we're taking before loading up the ody. (been slapping at a lot of ants, we didn't have to worry about that with the truck, but the Ody is a lot easier to load without having to crawl into the back of the truck.

Mileage: The Tundra, I had to really pay attention to keep the mileage up and it seemed like in cruise I rarley used as it always did a lot of hunting usually got about 12-14.5 mpg but it had power to spare. we uaually kept the speed between 65-70

The Ody, more money to buy, more money to set up for towing, but on flatter ground the cruise is surprising. we just came to Richmond from Sarasota 865 miles and the mpg up from FL- S.C. was 15.5 mpg and the next tank because of the hillier terrain dropped to 14.5 and into Va. it looks like we'll see another drop we tried to keep the speed at 60- 62 mph.

We love the Ody but upon reflection we could have bought a lot of gas for the difference in what they gave us for the Tundra and what we paid for the Ody

[John Adrienne]

The Casita 16's are, I believe, more prone to sway issues than, say, the 17 footer. I believe it's because the axle is too close to the center of the trailer on the 16. The Casita 17 has the axle closer to the rear. People rarely report sway problems on the 17, many reporting they don't use an antisway bar. (WDH's are important to some of them.) I suspect that the Scamp 16 has it's axle in nearly the same position as the Casita 16 and is probably sensitive too.

John didn't mention what his old and new tow vehicles are. I'd be curious but it's not critical to this thread I suppose. The shortest vehicle I towed my Casita with was a two door Explorer (shorter wheelbase than the 4 door Explore) and even with the antisway bar I felt the trailer sway in the tow vehicle. The best vehicle I've had is my current F150. The trailer still occasionally wants to sway but I don't feel it twitching the tow vehicle.

I was noticing the axle placement on my Scamp compared to other trailers that I have seen in pictures and I believe you are correct about the axle being very near the center of the trailer compared to 17' trailers.

My old tow vehicle was a Ford Explorer Sport, the 2-door one like you mentioned. I never liked to tow with it, always feeling like the explorer was rather squirrelly being such a short wheelbase. It did not have trailer brakes, just the 4-pin and I was using the bumper to tow it. I have only own the trailer for 1 year at this point and have been out with it about 6-7 times mostly within about 45 minutes from home. We plan on getting more use out of it, thus the new truck which is a 08 Toyota Tacoma access cab. When we bought the truck it DID NOT have a tow package so we added a hitch, 7-pin connector and trailer brakes. The wheelbase on the Tacoma is literally close to 3' longer than the Explorer, its wheelbase was very short. So far we have only towed around town but it already seems like it follows the TV much easier and the brakes are nice as well.

I am just looking for more preventative measures...

[Pete Dumbleton]

Yes, I am 99% sure it was caused by the way it was loaded. I do not want that kind of incident to happen again, and am trying to avoid it if at all possible. The local truck/trailer store said that the friction type of sway controler would help prevent they type of thing from happening. I already have brake control over the trailer, but I am looking for other preventative measures just incase I encounter this problem again at some point.

It was scary when it happened, and although I think that I can say that it was the way it was loaded, I don't mind dropping a couple hundred bucks for a little more piece of mind.

So I guess I want to know if the friction sway controlers should be the next item I purchase or is another style like the dual cam going to serve my purpose better?

thanks

The rub is that if the sway you encounter is not enough to make the bar slip, then the bar will handle the sway -- However, if the bar slips, an equal force must be input to make it slip back and let the trailer track the TV -- So, unless you know ahead of time that your sway will be insignificant, you don't know if the bar will make things better or worse...

Dual -cam is not something that one buys alone; it can be added as a option to a Reese WDH.

Yes, indeed, the longer ball to trailer axle distance on longer trailers tend to help control fundamental sway.

[Darwin Maring]

I had a Reese Dual Cam on a 37ft and it was a mystry to me out how it worked. It was used with the Reese Weight Distributing Hitch System.

I personally think that the WDS and Dual Cam is way over kill for an egg.

I think proper loading of the egg and TV will solve the sway problem.

I will sell a new, in the box, valley friction sway control for $50 plus shipping.

For great pricing on all the above try www.jcw.com