Anyone else terrified to tow?

Bldrinker said:
If you have anxiety towing, you shouldn’t be towing.  
 

Your inner self is telling you that you don’t know what your doing. 
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That’s funny because I have no idea what I’m doing but feel absolutely great about towing my 38’ TH with my ford ranger. 

 
Bldrinker said:
If you have anxiety towing, you shouldn’t be towing.  
 

Your inner self is telling you that you don’t know what your doing. 
Click to expand...
That’s funny because I have no idea what I’m doing but feel absolutely great about towing my 38’ TH with my ford ranger. 

 
NIKAL said:
Interesting. I wonder whats the cost? 
 

In the video they say without the tire band that RV would have swerved and gone off the road and rolled. That’s a bit of a stretch if you ask me.
 

From my personal experience, when my tire blew I felt a weird vibration seconds before, but thought it was the road then boom! At no time did the coach get out of control. I think it’s more human error then the wheel digging in and “Flipping” the RV. It’s the sudden shock of the explosion, 4 inch drop, the tire beating the S#!t out of everything under your feet, and the instinct to get off the road. Some just jerk the wheel and lose control.  
 

I admit when mine blew I was in the second lane as lane one on I-8 can be pretty tire rut grooved. So when mine blew my instinct like everyone else is to get off the road, and luckily no one was next to me, as I was coming over, and looking to signal and get permission was not my first thought! Lol. 
 

In my case the tire coming apart was the biggest factor and the damage was substantial. In that video they did not look to have any damage, which is rare with a tire blowout. 
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Had a family friend blow a front tire ( Firestone when they had all the recalls moons ago ) on his f350. The tire wrapped around the tie rod and yanked the wheel out of his hand. Made a hard right and rolled the truck on its side while towing his 5th wheel. Totaled the truck and the trailer. Crash was so brutal he lost a shoe in the accident. Some bad things can happen when you blow a front tire.

 
Borrowed a friends enclosed trailer for this next VETS trip. The tires look SMALL. Scared? Yes. Peace

 
I don't usually mind towing except going by the Salton Sea. That road with all its dips can get hairy. I pull a fsc3200 with a 2015 Duramax. The first few seasons it felt surprisingly safe and in control even with some decent cross winds. One day I left for Dumont and I couldn't get over 50mph without the trailer wagging all over (no real wind) and toys were loaded as usual. I was sure something broke somewhere, trailer axle, W.D. hitch but nothing. That was a scary trip.

I decided to install airbags. While installing them I find 2 of the main bolts holding the hitch system under the truck were all but backed all the way out on one side. The next trip I moved the kids quads and the buggy further forward thinking I wouldn't be as concerned with the truck squating with the bags. The truck was ALL over the place. I came to the realization that I had so much weight on the tongue that the front end of my truck was super light and dancing all over. Moved everything back and its back to being a pretty melo drive. 

 
NIKAL said:
What is this front blowout system? 
 

Am super anal about my tires. Check air pressure before we head out on a trip, and check them before we head home. Try to change the tires out every 5 years. (Don’t forget about that spare tire), I have!) All this seems to have worked for me & our Motorhome. 
 

Then last year heading out to the desert I got about 12 miles from home on I-8 and we had a front tire blow out at 65 with the buggy trailer in tow. Pretty scary, loud as hell and did $18K in damage and took about 6-7 months to finally get all the parts, and repaired.
 

Also when I put 6 new tires on it, the tread and sidewalls looked fine, but once the tires where dismounted, we saw another tire were the casing was breaking down on the inside. This is most likely what was happening to the front tire that just blew out. It failed from the inside. 
 

One of my upgrades was to add the Safe T Plus steering stabilizer. It’s suppose to help keep you going strait in a blowout or on bad roads. Have not had the chance to see how or if it helps in the wind. Definitely takes some time getting used too, as it changes the feel of the steering. 
 
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Mine is the steer safe. I don't think it's considered "blow out protection", more of a steering stabilizer, but on steroids. 2 super strong springs pulling on both sides of hub/steering knuckle.  I watched a video of it in action and was sold. It really improved wandering with the steering wheel and keeps you tracking straight in the wind with a lot less effort 

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Bldrinker said:
If you have anxiety towing, you shouldn’t be towing.  
 

Your inner self is telling you that you don’t know what your doing. 
Click to expand...
Bullshit, I’ve towed 10’s of thousands of miles and I still will get anxiety depending on the situation.   Redoing the 60 just east of Moreno Valley sure helped a lot!

but coming home Saturday night in the medium wind and driving rain was a real peach, especially when some drunk jackass “merged” in about 4’ from my front bumper…. Then when he couldn’t figure out if he was getting off the next exit or staying in front of me… I think he took out a few delineators on the off-ramp making up his mind.     Defiantly NOT my happy place.  

My weight distribution is almost 20 years old and I’m guessing it has 40k miles on it.  The trunnions are wearing out.  It’s a curt and it doesn’t seem Curt sells just the trunnions without the spring bars so it’s marketing sense to replace the whole thing.  I’m pulling 10K  #’s loaded. Any suggestions?

 
I did as well (& happier for it).  Glamis Dunes Forum is my only Social Media now. 

I had to get my wife to figure out what her password was so that I could log into her account on our home laptop.  & FWIW, Craigslist and offerup were both useless.  there were a few up in the bay area & one in AZ & one in NV, nothing in SD County. 

And to be clear, I drove up to Oceanside & bought it last weekend, so I could move my trailer. not sure how, but I manged to lose my hitch..........  :(  my trailer has the chain mounts welded to the tongue of the trailer, so changing to another style would be a pretty big PITA.

 
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