Axle weight increase with TW, explain why I'm dumb.

[Totesmygoats]

Someone explain to me why I'm stupid. Trailer tongue weight measured 900lb. Truck on scales, 5klb. Lower trailer fully onto ball, truck only increased by 400lb. AFAIK the full 900lb should have been added to the trucks rear axle, and some of the weight should have transferred from the truck front axle to the rear as well.

Only thing I can think of is the measurements are wrong or the 2 inches lower the tongue was between weighing it to being on the truck ball caused a reduced tongue weight. It's a mild spread axle so sort of possible, but should not be significant, definitely not 500lb significant.

https://imgur.com/a/hcerLE6

 

[pacofortacos]

Being lower will change the readings.

Was truck and trailer on the scales? Or just the truck?

In any case, here is a bump for you.

 

[csuder99]

Agree something is off. Looking at my numbers, my rear axle gains 900 lbs while the front gets 300 lbs lighter. So about 600 lbs total with a QC 4x4 v6 and 5300 lbs trailer.

You're losing 320 lbs on the front while only gaining 700 lbs on the rear axle. Check all the pads with a known weight (e.g. yourself). Also how do the pads react when going over the 1750 lbs limit ? Or maybe the tongue weight measurement is off.

 

[Sir Ram-It]

I would get a baseline weight for both the truck and the trailer separately and an scale weight for the actual trailer tongue. Having worked years ago in the trailer mfr industry, there are tricks they do to not necessarily cheat the scales, but they can get the figures where they want for the certification trailer. The actual line production trailers will weigh differently. Especially if you have added options and depending on how you load your trailer. Want to cheat a bit and pull tongue weight off your loaded trailer, put all your heavy stuff over the trailer axles or just immediately behind will make you more tail heavy and lift weight off the tongue. Just make sure your loads won’t shift and you don’t exceed your max tow limit. Not sure if that helps you or not, but just because the trailer sticker says it’s a 65Lb tongue weight, don’t believe it. Also, use certified weigh scales like CAT, they cost a few bucks but well worth it in the long run. Using a WDH will help also. Hensley hitches are the absolute best, but they are very pricey, but well worth the money, and you’ll never want to tow a tag along without one again.

 

[Travelin Ram]

Scales are sometimes off by that much. Considering they’re built to weigh semis a few hundred pounds of stiction in the mechanism is not significant for them.

I’ve personally weighed combinations that I KNEW the figure was off. Told the scale operator; they re-zeroed the scale and did it again and I got a correct weight.

 

[BossHogg]

I'd run the trailer/truck combo to a CAT scale to verify the one you are using is accurate to its published tolerances. No sense wasting time trying to understand the issue until you can prove-out your scale is providing accurate information.