ScaryTowing!

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vtwin

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I know that road, it's situated in the Palm Springs valley. There is a mountain range to the North and one to the South. The 2 mountain ranges act like a wind tunnel funneling winds to the west. That road runs north and south, perfectly perpendicular to the winds. The way the terrain is set up is why you see so many windmills in the Palm Springs area. It is normal to have 25 to 30 mph running across that road every day with wind gusts easily hitting 50mph. When pulling my TT I have driven hours out of the way to avoid the 4 or 5 mile stretch of road. Once my wife and I rode through there on our motorcycle. Been riding for decades and it is the scariest time I spent on a motorcycle. So it is not surprising to see a trailer flipping on that road, sure it happens all of the time.
 

bldnbob

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Is that an F250? It should have no problem controlling that sized trailer. He may not have had a WDH (or used it correctly), or he might have had a blowout, or he might have loaded that trailer too much in the rear. Number of possibilites, but I'm surprised he did that with a 3/4 ton.
 

Randy Grant

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I know that road, it's situated in the Palm Springs valley. There is a mountain range to the North and one to the South. The 2 mountain ranges act like a wind tunnel funneling winds to the west. That road runs north and south, perfectly perpendicular to the winds. The way the terrain is set up is why you see so many windmills in the Palm Springs area. It is normal to have 25 to 30 mph running across that road every day with wind gusts easily hitting 50mph. When pulling my TT I have driven hours out of the way to avoid the 4 or 5 mile stretch of road. Once my wife and I rode through there on our motorcycle. Been riding for decades and it is the scariest time I spent on a motorcycle. So it is not surprising to see a trailer flipping on that road, sure it happens all of the time.
Dust wasn't blowing, so no wind. Just a bad driver and/or bad setup.
 

Farmer Fran

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That window is really nice, and I like that the slide out(s) are not on the door side. I assume a rear kitchen? We had that in our last 5th wheel and it was perfect. And lastly, no goofy (to me) outdoor kitchen under the bunk that I would never use and just wish for storage space instead. That almost looks like a third axle would fit nicely there, but how does it tow overall?
Dutchmen Denali 289RK. Yes, rear kitchen. Very well laid out trailer. Towed it 1000s of miles, never had an issue. Thunderstorms, wind, snow, Interstate, back roads, trucks passing me, me passing trucks...you name it. The "scariest" thing was making sure I could get gas. Getting in and out of stations. But even that was a non-issue.
 

CaptOchs

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Has anyone ever had a wreck or nearly wrecked like this guy?

I had a close call on my first camper like 20 years ago. I had had some towing experience beforehand but I was still pretty new. I had a '92 Suburban towing a '76 Carriage 32 ft. I didn't set the torsion right on the bars. Got into a situation where I decided to pass a slow moving car. I was right at the lower end of overdrive so my transmission was going crazy. It would bog down and drop to next lower gear, then it would speed up and hit O/D again. I speed up to like 70 and I started getting sway. I slowed down a bit, but then I was stuck basically paralleling this car in the left lane for a couple miles. I bumped up speed again and the sway came back. It quickly amplified and got much worse. In an instant the trailer jumped from side to side having only two (of four) wheels on the pavement. Again this was a 32 footer! I took my foot off the gas and hit the trailer brakes. That stopped the sway so I could pull off onto the left shoulder. I quickly readjusted the torsion on the bars and got moving again. I stopped at the next rest area. I had the silverware drawer pop out but otherwise the trailer seemed fine. Ever since then I marked the chain links with zip ties. That way I know for certain which chain link to be on.
 

Gussers

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I think he was noting the windmills to imply it may have been a windy area, not that they were somehow creating wind.
 

GTyankee

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Palm Springs Wind Farm, the wind is channeled into valley, with a mountain on each side

This is on Interstate 10, at times your pickup will feel like you are being pushed sideways, without towing anything
 

NH RAM

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I always wondered how people balance a toy hauler travel trailer, there's less tongue weight, so I would think that having the weight of an atv or sxs in the back would be a pain to setup right.

I saw a near-miss similar to that with an F250/F350 hauling an emergency bunkhouse shelter before a hurricane last year. I was towing my 5w comfortably at about 65 mph and a Ford Super Duty passed with a couple other heavy duty trucks pulling at about 75 mph without sway control or wdh. They were all pulling the bumper pull emergency bunkhouses and all were at about 75 mph. One was a Ram dually, one was a Super Duty dually, and the srw Ford had the near miss. Right after he passed me, the trailer swayed three or four times well outside of the lane markers but the driver miraculously recovered it- I thought for sure he was going over. He slowed down but I don't think he maxed out the trailer brakes to straighten it out because it was still swaying quite a bit until he scrubbed off a fair bit of speed.
 
OP
OP
Irishthreeper

Irishthreeper

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I’ll say it once more, I made this post to give a heads up to all trailer towers. Set it up properly and slow your *** down…We did 65-ish across country this past summer and will probably do 60-ish this year. Please be safe!
 

dhay13

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I always wondered how people balance a toy hauler travel trailer, there's less tongue weight, so I would think that having the weight of an atv or sxs in the back would be a pain to setup right.

I saw a near-miss similar to that with an F250/F350 hauling an emergency bunkhouse shelter before a hurricane last year. I was towing my 5w comfortably at about 65 mph and a Ford Super Duty passed with a couple other heavy duty trucks pulling at about 75 mph without sway control or wdh. They were all pulling the bumper pull emergency bunkhouses and all were at about 75 mph. One was a Ram dually, one was a Super Duty dually, and the srw Ford had the near miss. Right after he passed me, the trailer swayed three or four times well outside of the lane markers but the driver miraculously recovered it- I thought for sure he was going over. He slowed down but I don't think he maxed out the trailer brakes to straighten it out because it was still swaying quite a bit until he scrubbed off a fair bit of speed.
Same with boats. Only about 7% tongue weight on a typical boat. My 9000lb boat has about 680lbs tongue weight but it tows perfectly. Even towed great with my 2013 1500. No WDH. Can't use one with surge brakes
 

crash68

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I always wondered how people balance a toy hauler travel trailer, there's less tongue weight, so I would think that having the weight of an atv or sxs in the back would be a pain to setup right.
Toy haulers trailers are typically tongue heavy when unloaded in anticipation of weight behind the axles.
As for adjusting the tongue weight, a trip to a CAT scale makes this fairly easy as the load (atv/sxs) is on wheels.
 

tron67j

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I always wondered how people balance a toy hauler travel trailer, there's less tongue weight, so I would think that having the weight of an atv or sxs in the back would be a pain to setup right.

I saw a near-miss similar to that with an F250/F350 hauling an emergency bunkhouse shelter before a hurricane last year. I was towing my 5w comfortably at about 65 mph and a Ford Super Duty passed with a couple other heavy duty trucks pulling at about 75 mph without sway control or wdh. They were all pulling the bumper pull emergency bunkhouses and all were at about 75 mph. One was a Ram dually, one was a Super Duty dually, and the srw Ford had the near miss. Right after he passed me, the trailer swayed three or four times well outside of the lane markers but the driver miraculously recovered it- I thought for sure he was going over. He slowed down but I don't think he maxed out the trailer brakes to straighten it out because it was still swaying quite a bit until he scrubbed off a fair bit of speed.
You hit the nail on the head, tongue weight must be correct. Just because the trailer is a toy hauler does not mean a bunch of 4-wheelers and generators can be thrown there.
 
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