[ELM-JLM]

Hi All,
Here is an article I found and it relates well with the discussion!

In an interview with one of the Reese Hitch engineers at SEMA. Ideally when loaded the rear of your towing vehicle should only be one inch lower than the front measured inside the wheel well, that is before and after measurements of front fender and rear. On a front wheel drive SUV, you want to reverse that where the front will be an inch lower.
To be precise you may want to weigh your towing vehicle and trailer by axle to get your Gross Axle Weight Rating for the front and rear axles on both tow vehicle and trailer to see how well distributed the weight is.
In your tow vehicle if you look in the right side of the driver’s doorframe you'll see the Truck Safety Compliance Certification Label. On that label is your (GAWR) Gross Axle Weight Rating for you vehicle. A level load will allow all of your brakes, wheel bearings, springs and tires to help with the load. Also get your loaded tongue weight to complete the equation. This can be done by weighing your tow vehicle with the loaded trailer attached but only the tow vehicle on the scale. Then weigh your truck without the trailer. With these numbers you can see how much you need to adjust your spring bars of the WDH as well with the real world driving to tell you how well balanced your rig is and if the trailer pulls with little sway.
The GAWR can't be changed as with all the capacity maximum ratings. They are set by the manufacture and is considered the rule. If the rig pulls well, you are close to balanced. Since the GAWR can't be changed, use the spring bars to move weight between the tow vehicles axles. You can lift the spring bars on your WDH a notch before you weigh it again. Lifting the spring bar (trunion bar) will transfer some weight to the front axle. But if you move to much weight forward you can loose traction on the rear axle. So that's the adjustment you have to fine tune. You can add air shocks, or overload springs etc. if you want more support on the rear axle. None of that will though increase the capacity. But the WDH adjustment is the best thing to do for supporting the weight. Adding springs, shocks, air bags etc. doesn’t change the GAWR or any of the weight ratings. Which is why I believe the WDH is the best trailer tool. The axle ratings on the door tag is the maximum for each axle that you want to be under.
Using the trailer jack to lift up the trailer tongue can help when attaching the spring bars to the trailer tongue chains or brackets. The same thing can help take the pressure off the spring bars when un-hooking
Independent rear suspension on SUV's need WDH
Ford Excursion, 2500 Chevy Suburban, GMC Yukon 2500 XL, older Dodge Dakota and older Ford Explorer's have rear leaf springs like a full size truck. But the trend is the independent rear suspensions coming to SUV's such as late models of Ford Explorers, Expeditions, Mercedes ML320 and above, Lexus etc. They ride great but all that extra movement for the soft ride, will let a trailer move more. The coil spring suspensions found on most SUV's also allow more trailer sway. So I highly recommend using a WDH. The better ones are easy and fast to hook up. Watch the retired gray hairs pulling RV travel trailers. 80% of them will have a WDH. And their cargo doesn’t shift weight from one hoof to the other while swatting flies with it’s tail. Also another SUV that needs unique attention and a well tuned WDH is the Jeep Grand Cherokee. I see this vehicle towing a lot of trailers. It has the power with the V-8 but the short wheelbase and unibody construction makes this tow vehicle need proper setup for safe towing. I was driving next to one on I-70 last winter in a blizzard over Vail pass. It has pulling a 16 ‘ flat bed trailer with crate loaded too far forward. The trailer had a weight distributing hitch, as Cherokee’s need and was still squatting which was partly due to the load being too far forward and partly due to the bridging effect of the WD hitch putting leverage on the unibody of the Cherokee is not as effective as the leverage on a, (body on frame) system from what I see.
There are several good WD hitches available. I like Equal-i-zer because their hitch works as a Weight Distributing Hitch and Anti-sway bar all in one and they are one of the only ones that don't require holes drilled into the trailer hitch and they work with surge brakes like you find on boat trailers and some horse trailers. The Anti-sway system is incorporated into the spring arms as they drag across the L bracket on the trailer end and the hinged trunnions where they bolt to the head. This causes friction and slows down the reaction at the hitch. They hook up easy and fast without holes in the trailer hitch. The friction anti-sway bars that are an option on some WD hitches apply pressure with a sliding plate clamp system that aren't to be used in the rain or snow. During rain and snow you need anti-sway the most. Equal-i-zer WDH are a little over $500 so they aren't the cheapest or the most expensive, you can order direct from the manufacture or a lot of RV and trailer dealers sell them. I use mine on all the different trucks I test from Quadrasteer Suburban to Hummer H2. I'd be in trouble if I had to drill holes in all the trailers I borrow. A lot of bumper pull horse trailers have sheet metal across the V-hitch so you have to cut a small slit in the sheet metal for the brackets. Which is better than most WD hitches that have a wide clamp that is bolted or welded to the trailer frame for the spring bars to attach to with chains. Also instead of corrugated washers to adjust the angle of the head, Equal-i-zer uses a large solid pin with spacer adjustment that can't slip