As I was returning from Laguna yesterday, I was pondering whether having a weight distribution/ antisway system allows a person to increase tongue weight. It was a long drive, and allowed me to come up with both a yes and a no answer. Which is right? The obvious answer is no.

 

Check your hitch it will have a rating, with my f350 I can increase t-weight with weight distribution and the addition of dual-cam HP sway control keeps the 30 in place.

 

Hey;

The answer is yes. You can increase the tongue weight quite a bit, as the distribution hitch mitigates that by design. It's like a faux fifth wheel kit, putting the load into the chassis between the wheels, not only aft the rear ones. If your truck is marginally too small for the load, the WD hitch will at least make it manageable, if not exactly ideal. With a big truck, it will make it even better in the extreme.

 

Answer is yes. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, seeing pictures like this of Racquel Welch also increases my tongue weight.

 

^ + 1
Thank you

 

I love her.

 

Thanks for the help. I have an 18' open Featherlite and was towing with a BMW X5. Got the Reese wd hitch w/ antisway for that setup. Worked well, but worried about the tranny so got an 08 Sequoia. Did not even know I had the trailer behind with the new tow vehicle. I knew the setup redistributed the weight (loved where the instructions said not to remove the rear wheels of the vehicle), but thought there were still mechanical forces being applied to the point of attachment of the hitch mechanism to the frame of the vehicle which had to be factored into the tongue weight limit. Hence the confussion on my part.

 

WD yes. Anti-sway no.

IMO, anti-sway is a towing form of narcotic, masking deeper problems. Stay away.

 

The tongue weight does two things:

1) It adds more weight onto the rear wheels.
2) It removes weight from the front wheel.

In theory, to solve problem 1 the tow vehicle's hitch, frame and rear axle can be strenghten, thus allowing an increased tongue weight.

However, that doesn't fix problem 2. If you remove too much weight from the front, you can't safely steer or stop the tow vehicle. The solution to problem 2 is a weight dist hitch. It puts a torque through the tow vehicle's chassis and thus adds weight to front wheels (and takes some weight off the rear).

Without a weight dist hitch, my F-250 has a max tongue weight of 600 lb. With a weight dist hitch, I can go upto 1250 lb.

And regardless of the hitch you use, you shouldn't exceed the Gross Combined Weight Rating (GCWR).

 

I usually agree with the Professor on most things but after having tens of thousands of miles on the Reese WD dual cam antisway control setup, I think that it is the next best thing to a gooseneck. It uses the tongue weight to provide sway control and makes those high speed "adjustments" a little less nerve wracking. It really keeps the trailer from wagging the truck, but you still need to run the proper tongue weight. The friction sway controls are junk.

 

I couldn't agree more. We sell and install lots of Reese dual cam sway control systems w/integrated weight distribution.

FYI, Reese just came out with a few more models of systems with different tongue weights.