Why Would Weight Distribution Give a Harsh Ride Over Bumps

Published 06/06/2016

Question:

I have a 2008 Toyota Tundra 4WD TRD truck. I tow a 4000lb travel trailer using a Reese WDH. I find the back end of the truck to be very bouncy when going over dips in the road at both low and high speeds. Is it acceptable to use Air Bags in combination with the WDH ? I want to reduce the amount of bounce.

asked by: Vince

Helpful Expert Reply:

The bounciness you described is most likely due to using a system that is rated too high for your loaded tongue weight. You want to go with a WD system that has a tongue weight range that your trailer falls right in the middle of. If you go too low rated the system is ineffective and if you go too high the ride is very harsh.

Air bags are actually very harsh when inflated to higher PSI. I have had them on a couple vehicle and when you put a decent amount of pressure in the bags the suspension gets very bouncy. The reason being that you are adding stiffness to the suspension but not any dampening.

Which Reese system do you have? You most likely could go with lower rated spring bars that would fix the problem you described. I attached a link to a page that has all of the Reese spring bars we carry. You can use the filters on the page to narrow down the available bars to see which would fit and work best.

expert reply by: Jameson C