New F-350 has higher capacities than our old F-350 but is towing much worse

Thinking out loud again... some of these are going to sound and/or redundant I think.... and they won't be in any order....

Try towing without WD hitch and with truck's trailer sway turn on...

Did any trailer sway message appear on truck's dashboard when the trailer swayed?...

Use WD and turn truck's trailer sway system off....

60% of trailer weight should be in front of the trailer axels...

Trailer tire pressure....

Hight difference between old truck and new..... trailer should be level and tow ball at the hight of the trailer hitch before hitching....

Did old truck have trailer sway electronics built in?...

Ball angle plays a roll in weight destruction when setting bars...

WD control is separate from sway control....

What are you using for sway control? That Blue Ox hitch doesn't control sway, just WD.

Someone said it - the thing that changed is the truck (and with that, the hight & angle of the hitch set-up.

now I'm just poking in the dark... let us know how things go... I know that sway is pretty unnerving; I never liked that feeling and thought that if I ever go back to a TT I'd be looking a Pro-Pride or Hensley (easy for me to spend your money).
 
The OP's previous truck towed his TT just fine. His new truck doesn't tow nearly as good. IMO a new WDH is not the answer. There's something different on the new truck or it's simply a matter of the new truck not being set up properly. There's no reason an F350 shouldn't tow that TT just fine.
 
I will have to look to see if I have that function.

Did you ever find this setting and try towing with it turned off? Sorry, I didn't go back to read through all of the responses again to see if that was answered.
 
The OP's previous truck towed his TT just fine. His new truck doesn't tow nearly as good. IMO a new WDH is not the answer. There's something different on the new truck or it's simply a matter of the new truck not being set up properly. There's no reason an F350 shouldn't tow that TT just fine.

It was just a suggestion as the OP pointed out in his first post about looking at a different WDH.
 
Thinking out loud again... some of these are going to sound and/or redundant I think.... and they won't be in any order....

Try towing without WD hitch and with truck's trailer sway turn on...

Did any trailer sway message appear on truck's dashboard when the trailer swayed?...

Use WD and turn truck's trailer sway system off....

60% of trailer weight should be in front of the trailer axels...

Trailer tire pressure....

Hight difference between old truck and new..... trailer should be level and tow ball at the hight of the trailer hitch before hitching....

Did old truck have trailer sway electronics built in?...

Ball angle plays a roll in weight destruction when setting bars...

WD control is separate from sway control....

What are you using for sway control? That Blue Ox hitch doesn't control sway, just WD.

Someone said it - the thing that changed is the truck (and with that, the hight & angle of the hitch set-up.

now I'm just poking in the dark... let us know how things go... I know that sway is pretty unnerving; I never liked that feeling and thought that if I ever go back to a TT I'd be looking a Pro-Pride or Hensley (easy for me to spend your money).

The Blue Ox full name is Blue Ox SwayPro and see all the references to sway here: https://www.blueox.com/swaypro-weight-distributing-hitch/?weight=

The front end of the F-350 diesel is very stiff so it takes a lot of load change to make much height difference. I was not able to adjust return load to front very well at all with a tape measure. With CAT scale it was very easy, inexpensive, very accurate and pretty quick to return what I wanted. Without a CAT scale load can easily be way off.

Quite a number of good recommendations in this post though.
 
Last edited:
The Blue Ox full name is Blue Ox SwayPro and see all the references to sway here: https://www.blueox.com/swaypro-weight-distributing-hitch/?weight=

The front end of the F-350 diesel is very stiff so it takes a lot of load change to make much height difference. I was not able to adjust return load to front very well at all with a tape measure. With CAT scale it was very easy, inexpensive, very accurate and pretty quick to return what I wanted. Without a CAT scale load can easily be way off.

Quite a number of good recommendations in this post though.

Interesting (that is also controls sway). thanks. ya learn something every day.

I read up on that hitch and saw this in the FAQs....
[FONT=&quot]Issue: There is excessive sway.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Resolution: Excessive sway may indicate that the trailer is improperly loaded. As a guideline, the tongue weight[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]should be 10-15 percent of gross trailer weight. If it is not, redistribute the weight accordingly. If you[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]encounter continuous sway or swaying that does not dissipate quickly, adjust the load.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Resolution: For all truck models with factory sway control, it is suggested that the sway control be disabled for the[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]best performance of the Blue Ox® SwayPro™.[/FONT]
 
Interesting (that is also controls sway). thanks. ya learn something every day.

I read up on that hitch and saw this in the FAQs....
[FONT=&quot]Issue: There is excessive sway.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Resolution: Excessive sway may indicate that the trailer is improperly loaded. As a guideline, the tongue weight[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]should be 10-15 percent of gross trailer weight. If it is not, redistribute the weight accordingly. If you[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]encounter continuous sway or swaying that does not dissipate quickly, adjust the load.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Resolution: For all truck models with factory sway control, it is suggested that the sway control be disabled for the[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]best performance of the Blue Ox® SwayPro™.[/FONT]

Thanks for the information! I have no sway problems with my F-350 SwayPro TT but I will turn off Ford sway control right away.

There is no doubt if there is major sway going on the Ford brakes are going crazy trying to stableize. It may happen on a very stable truck also, but to a lessor degree.
 
Hi all. We put on quite a few miles over the last week. We ended up moving our hitch up higher than the old truck, and changed the distribution bars to be a little less tight than what we had been using recently. It seems like this has improved things quite a bit. It's still not as good as the old truck but we are heading the right direction.
 
Glad it's better! I would try to have the trailer as level as possible, or hitch slightly high if dead level is not possible. It's always an adventure!
 

Try RV LIFE Pro Free for 7 Days

  • New Ad-Free experience on this RV LIFE Community.
  • Plan the best RV Safe travel with RV LIFE Trip Wizard.
  • Navigate with our RV Safe GPS mobile app.
  • and much more...
Try RV LIFE Pro Today
Back
Top Bottom