I might be "THAT guy"...

[jperry5835]

According to that document, anything over 5,000lbs needs a weight distributing hitch. For as long as I can remember, my father in law has towed a 10,000lb boat and trailer on just a regular ball hitch with a 12 year old Ram 2500. Has he been doing it wrong this whole time? Maybe because it's a different truck?

I had the same problem with my last truck. I could pull my boat and my equipment trailer with a 90hp cab tractor with mower all over the state but as soon as I mention a travel trailer at half the weight, the internet weight police were all over me about needing a WD hitch.

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[spectre446]

I had the same problem with my last truck. I could pull my boat and my equipment trailer with a 90hp cab tractor with mower all over the state but as soon as I mention a travel trailer at half the weight, the internet weight police were all over me about needing a WD hitch.

I started reading more into it, it's much more difficult to attach a boat trailer to a weight distributing hitch because of the shape of the boat trailer. It seems like a lot of people don't tow their boat with a WD hitch. I think we should be fine as long as the trailer has the weight properly distributed between the front and rear. Which isn't difficult because the majority of the weight is in the rear of the trailer because of the motors.

 

[Jack in Prescott]

A WDH for towing loads of 5,000# or more is the recognized (if generic) advice these days. Your FIL’s boat tow may work for him because the distance isn’t great, the road isn’t a high speed highway or with big, fast semis blowing past him, he doesn’t tow on high wind days, and so forth. It’s not that the trailer load exceeds the old Ram’s rated tow capacity. It’s about “what if” the tow experiences some challenging or sudden conditions.

Jack

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