Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Womack
The Suburbans and Tahoes built before 2007 towed the trailers fine without any modification. Its only the 2007 and up that are built for the ride and not towing and load capability.
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The manufacturers have been working hard with their computers to pull weight out of vehicles (mostly steel) for decades and they've also been able to tighten up on specs at the same time. I think this has resulted in vehicles which are better than the older ones for the intended purposes, but it also cuts things closer to more carefully defined objectives. In other words, vehicles more reliably achieve their spec performance, and there isn't as much slop in the specs as there used to be.
The scale numbers tell us that a 500# trailer tongue will put something like an 800# load on the rear axle (multiply the tongue weight by the wheelbase divided by the distance from the rear axle to the hitch ball to get a more precise estimate of the weight that gets put on the rear axle by the trailer tongue).
Air bags and other kinds of stiffer suspensions might help you carry that extra weight on the rear axle, as long as the extra load doesn't get you into trouble with something else, for example warranties, tires, or axles. The WDH will
always help you carry tongue weight by pushing some of it to the trailer axle and putting some of it back on the front where it's useful for stopping and steering. Because of this, the WDH is essential for a significant majority of us.
The best way to know for sure is to put it on the scale, and then you'll have the real answers.
Here's a spreadsheet to help with the calculations:
http://www.trailmanorowners.com/foru...ad.php?t=12552