Anybody experience sway or fishtail?

[thewayneo]

After seeing this in another thread, I am really interested to know: Has anybody with a folding TM experienced ANY sway or fishtail? If so, was it with or without anti-sway control? Before I bot my TM I talked to several owners and they all said "no, never". And that's why I decided to go for trailering again. I still really hate the wind.

Quote:
Originally Posted by FujiPedaler View Post
the cross wind across OK and the Panhandle was unbelievable. Once while the wife was at the wheel we began to fishtail and without the extra power of the "8" to pull us out of it when I told her to "step on it" who knows what might have happened.
Norman

First, I'm really surprised that you experienced fishtail that violent. I think you need to look for the cause and fix it before it ever happens again.

Has anybody else had this with a TM? I've been through some brutal side winds and never felt anything, I have WDH with built-in anti-sway. I cringe every time I see the advice "you don't need anti-sway". When Reese and Equilizer come with it built-in I can't see why not! Fuji's post cements my opinion, more safer is better.

Second, I do know "what might have happened". After I found out, I bought a Class C motorhome, then my current TM, solely due to it's good towing reputation.

We were all OK, but I'll never feel safe towing a full upright without a Kenworth for a TV!

wayne

[Riwright]

Never any sway with mine. There is an area near Palm Springs that is so windy they have hundreds of windmills there. I had a stiff sidewind and got hit with the blast from a bus coming by fast. You could definitely feel the rig being pushed sideways. It did not induce sway.

I am disturbed by the man's instructions to his wife to accelarate to stop the trailer from swaying. That's just plain wrong. The faster you go the worse the sway condition becomes. Hard braking is similarly dangerous. If you brake when the trailer is moving to one side it can easily lose traction and jackknife.

From etrailer:

http://www.etrailer.com/faq-trailertowtips.aspx

If for some reason (a gust of wind, a downgrade, a pass by a larger vehicle, etc.) the trailer does begin to sway, the driver needs to assess the situation to determine the proper course of action. Here is a list of Do's and Don'ts to think about.

Do's - Good Towing Practice
Gradually reduce speed
Steady the steering wheel - sudden turns can cause more sway
Apply only the trailer brakes to help reduce trailer sway

Don'ts - NOT Good Towing Practice
Do Not slam on the brakes - jackknifing could occur
Do Not attempt to steer out of a sway situation
Do Not increase speed - Trailer sway increases in faster speeds
Do Not tow a trailer that continues to sway
Look at reloading the trailer or perhaps adding a sway control or a weight distribution system with sway control

I have towed both a 3124 and a 3326, and have never experienced sway or fish tailing, whichever term is desired. This included running away from a cold front with 30-40 mph gusts, and crossing the north causeway out of the Outer Banks in advance of a hurricane, with similar winds or higher.

There are two causes of sway other than a tire failure that I would consider as possibilities. The first is low tongue weight, and is hard to imagine in a TM. Was a heavy generator carried in the back storage area? Was the gray water tank full? Possible but not likely.

The other cause is a bad connection to or in the electric brakes. Hitting the brakes on a vehicle without a corresponding braking in the trailer can cause them to swap ends. That's the whole point of the brake controller. Were the brakes used and not mentioned?

Thought of one more, an uneven road surface. Did they hit a bad patch of road, or momentarily drift too close to the edge and a wheel dropped off the pavement? Happened to me once with a 39 foot toy hauler, and it's not fun but I would not call it sway.

We may not know the cause, but Trailmanors are very resistant to it. I would not be too concerned. Human behaviors, like towing over weight or too fast, are going to be greater factors than trailer design.

[Bill]

My wife and I just finished our 24th cross-country trip towing a 2720SL. Since we like to explore the country a lot, each trip involves at least 3000 miles (the most recent was 4800 miles!), so we have at least 75,000 miles of TM experience. We have a Reese trunnion-style WDH with the quirky little bend in the end of the springbars for dual-cam sway control, but we never bought the kit of dual cam parts, so we have never had sway control.

We have raced tornados converging on us in Indiana. Towering thunderstorms and blinding rain in upstate New York. Cross-wind sandstorms in Arizona. Huge trucks passing much too close, everywhere. Emergency maneuvers involving cars cutting in front of us. Blowouts (MANY blowouts with our old 14" tires). Hard braking on wet roads banked the wrong way - so hard that the ABS came on. Many of these experiences have been scary. But not one has involved the slightest bit of sway or fishtailing. The TM has always behaved like a well-trained dog back there.

Be sure to read the Sway Control tutorial in the technical library.

In the sway department, I am a happy camper.

Bill

None.
Can't say that I have encountered any of the challenging issues that Bill has, but I'd say his mileage and situations covers a lot of ground...

[scrubjaysnest]

None for us either, our typical towing is between 12,000 and 20,000 miles per year. Have been through a lot of high winds in OK and Nm. We do watch our loading very carefully. Had to move one cooler once about a foot forward on a pup that started to sway, slowed down and gently applied the trail brakes only. Once things were back in control we pulled off the road and went looking for the loading problem.

[davlin]

We may not have the miles that Bill does (unfortunately, we've never really kept track) but we're on a our second TM and are on our 16th year of "happy camping."

We did have one experience with trailer sway on our 1995 3326:

We were westbound on I-10, just East of Fort Stockton, Texas. I was towing with a 1998 Ford F150 with 4.6L V8. I was not using the spring bars of our WDH, but was using the anti-sway bar.

I was driving 65 mph. Ahead of us was a fifth-wheel rig, traveling about 60 mph. After a long chase, I pulled into the left lane (there was virtually no other traffic on the interstate), and accelerated to my "passing speed" of 70 mph. Won't drive any faster than that with trailer tires, but I also wanted to get by him so we wouldn't be occupying both lanes for a long time.

Just as my front bumper pulled about even with the landing legs on his trailer, an ice chest flew out of the back of his TV, heading right for my windshield! In the micro-second of time that I had, I reacted the way most folks would have; I jammed on the brakes and yanked the steering wheel to the left. There's no thinking in a situation like that. It's all reaction. The good news was that the cooler missed the windshield. The bad news was that I set up trailer sway in the 3326 that was almost uncontrollable. Things I did right: immediately got off the gas and brakes. Kept the TV in the left lane traveling in as straight a line as the TM would allow. Thing I did wrong: never had the presence of mind in those "10 seconds of terror" to think about hitting the trailer brakes. I'm convinced if I had done that, the sway would have stopped almost instantly.

So Wayne, I'm sorry to report that you CAN make (at least) a TM 3326 sway, but it takes some extra help!

Dave

[Bill]

Originally Posted by davlin

I was not using the spring bars of our WDH, but was using the anti-sway bar.
Dave

Let me guess. Friction sway bar?

http://www.trailmanorowners.com/foru...ead.php?t=2923

Bill

Originally Posted by Bill

Let me guess. Friction sway bar?

http://www.trailmanorowners.com/foru...ead.php?t=2923

Bill

Have been doing some reading on rv.net about WDHs and sway control, and Ron Gratz, the engineer who has the sticky there on the physics of WDH, claims that even the Reese Dual-Cam controls sway primarily through metal-on-metal friction in the cam area of the hitch.

The big difference is that it's asymmetric. There's less resistance when the trailer returns to centre. Whereas, sway control like in the Equal-i-zer 4 point, or the addon friction sway bars, has the same resistance as the trailer sways out and back in. He and others are not convinced that Dual-Cam's asymmetry is a good thing.

But most people report good results with any of these if they are properly set up (that's the hard part).

As for davlin's experience, I too wouldn't have hit the trailer brakes. But the truck might have done it for me. If its internal sensors detect much yaw/sway, they are supposed to do just that.

[davlin]

Originally Posted by brulaz

Have been doing some reading on rv.net about WDHs and sway control, and Ron Gratz, the engineer who has the sticky there on the physics of WDH, claims that even the Reese Dual-Cam controls sway primarily through metal-on-metal friction in the cam area of the hitch.

The big difference is that it's asymmetric. There's less resistance when the trailer returns to centre. Whereas, sway control like in the Equal-i-zer 4 point, or the addon friction sway bars, has the same resistance as the trailer sways out and back in. He and others are not convinced that Dual-Cam's asymmetry is a good thing.

But most people report good results with any of these if they are properly set up (that's the hard part).

As for davlin's experience, I too wouldn't have hit the trailer brakes. But the truck might have done it for me. If its internal sensors detect much yaw/sway, they are supposed to do just that.

Bruce,

That's enough to make me read up on integrated brake controllers! It should be noted that the location of where my "non-integrated" controller is in my 2004 F150 is so low on the dash that it's completely out of sight; and therefore out of mind. Like the on board stability control systems that most new cars have, an integrated brake controller that can apply just the trailer brakes in an emergency situation is a game changer, for sure.

Dave