Why’s it shaking?

[SalsRam]

2022 Ram Quad cab 5.7 2000 miles. What’s causing my truck to shake upon acceleration. Travel trailer is 6800 lbs dry. Didn’t shake the first time I towed but now shakes pretty bad in the first 2 gears. Seems fine at speed but does feel like it’s struggling a little . Any help will be appreciated .
I’m thinking maybe tire issues.

 

[Loudram]

That's where I would start. Also check out the wheel bearings. If it's struggling they could be going bad and that's causing drag. You should inspect the trailer brakes as well to see if one of them is hanging up.

Maybe look to see if any wheel weights are missing, lug nuts lose, or if one of the rims are bent. Although most of those issues would be worse at speed.

I'm assuming because you posted this in the towing section the truck is fine without your trailer attached.

 

[Dennis Gulau]

"shaking" will mean 100 different things to 100 different people.

If you really want help, you should give a better description of what is going on.

 

[2003F350]

Loudram gives good advice, but Dennis also has a good comment here - 'shaking' could be so many different things.

There's also the possibility that it's the driver. For instance, my PowerWagon handles our 35 ft travel trailer just fine, no issues at all. The only time I've felt it 'shake' on take-off is if I'm trying to take off quickly, in which case everything is seeing more stress than normal. It's hard to describe but I've been able to make any tow vehicle I've ever owned do it when I'm trying to get a LOT of weight moving quickly.

So my question to you becomes: Are you trying to take off quickly, as if you aren't towing, or are you taking off nice and easy?

 

[ramffml]

Little shot in the dark but you can try and go for a 10 minute boot at 50 mph and then stop and check the temperature of your trailer rims/hubs. It should be cool or barely starting to warm up.

 

[SalsRam]

Thanks for the replies. I do take off easy. The next I’ll do is check the trailer brakes.

 

[mtofell]

Towing big trailers is often not exactly smooth. Do you have anything to compare this to or is this your first experience with a similar weight? All of my truck/trailer setups that I've had over the years do things at times that could be explained as "shaking". Taking off from a dead stop is often a bit rough.

 

[GsRAM]

Could be many things, but understand that 6800 dry is likely over 8k loaded trailer weight and your pushing the upper echelon of half ton towing.

If you didn't notice it before, but do now something has changed. I suspect wheel balance issues.

Did you accidentally curb either your truck or trailer tires recently?

 

[crazykid1994]

Can you share a picture of the truck and trailer connected. Trailers tend to be big wind drags too but I may add that depending on the shaking it could be a number of things. Engine overload will cause shaking, bad tire balance, steering alignment off. Bad wheel bearing. If you put the truck on a jack stand you may be able to check for bad bearing but at 2,000 miles that’s a hard one to imagine. Did you do anything to the trailer? Any extra weight on the trailer?