Re: Equalizers and Sway Bars
A couple of months ago my wife and I took our 3124KS on a weekend trip to Watsonville, near the coast. We tow our trailer with a Reese load-leveling hitch but without any sway control. While searching for the turnoff from the freeway to the trailer park, we came around a bend and suddenly spotted it. I quickly turned off but was suddenly confronted with the off-ramp road ending in a "T" intersection (it was a temporary detour instead of a regular off-ramp). I hit the brakes and our tires all squealed but both truck and trailer came to a panic stop halfway into the intersection. Our trailer stopped in line with the truck, without any jackknifing.
Several months ago, on another trip in Northern California, while pulling our trailer without the load-leveling hitch, we had a Carlisle trailer tire blow out while coming around a curve on Highway 101. I braked truck and trailer to a stop without any problems - our trailer remained straight and came to a stop completely aligned with our truck.
If our TM trailer is typical of all TMs, they can be safely towed without sway controls and may not even need load-leveling or equalizing hitches. I prefer to use our load-leveling hitch because I dislike scraping the bottom of the hitch when descending driveways or turning on to the highway from a service station. 8)
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