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Originally Posted by fcatwo
Not being an engineer I have no technical expertise to offer on the "frameless-vehicle" issue but I was down at our local health club a couple of weeks ago and saw weight lifters throwing around 300-400lbs of iron with no apparent damage to their frames. I'm thinking it would take more than the tongue weights we are dealing with to damage the frame of any vehicle with a 3500lb tow rating.
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Frank -
I am an engineer, and I still have no expertise to offer on the frameless-vehicle issue. However, as was discussed in the thread on the Acura mrfxzpi a couple weeks ago, the bending force applied to the "non-frame" by the weight-distributing hitch could be a problem. The non-frame simply doesn't have as much strength in the bending direction as a steel-rail frame.
When I was in high school, my Dad had one of the early uni-body Dodge cars. Forget the name at the moment, but I remember the day he was driving down the highway not far from our home, and the uni-body simply gave up. As he reported it, it slowly and smoothly began to fold along a crosswise line just aft of the front seat. It sank lower and lower until something noisy happened - either the driveshaft hit the underbody, or the underbody hit the ground, I'm not sure which at this point. He got out, removed the license plates, and hitched a ride home.
Point is, this mid-body bending is just exactly the direction that a WDH stresses a vehicle. Will this particular vehicle bend? Who knows - I certainly don't - but I feel a lot more confident when the WDH is trying to bend a pair of long steel rails.
Bill