How to Reduce Tongue Weight on a Trailer?

If you have some idea about towing and tongue weight then you’d already know how an overloaded tongue causes trouble. Too much weight presses down the rear of the tow vehicle and lifts weight off the front wheels.

That's how a tongue with too much weight feels: lighter steering, weaker braking and a sagging rear end. Too little tongue weight is just as risky, because it makes the trailer prone to sway. And also, this whole thing is a huge gamble you’d play with your overall safety. So, knowing how to reduce tongue weight on a trailer is clearly very important.

Here’s Everything About How to Reduce Tongue Weight on a Trailer.

A trailer’s tongue weight is the downward force the trailer tongue puts on your tow vehicle’s hitch ball. Before getting into the ways or thoughts behind reducing the overall tongue weight of a trailer, there are a few things you need to be aware of.

First of all, for a conventional ball-hitch trailer, Mazda's towing guide says tongue load must be 10% to 15% of the total trailer load, meaning the trailer plus its cargo. Your own vehicle's owner's manual has the limits that apply to you. Also, remember that the whole weight capacity decreasing issue is actually a straightforward trying of overall weight redistribution or cargo adjustments.

The “60% Goes to Front” Rule.

When you are trying to load cargo, follow the common 60/40 strategy, which the same guide gives as about 60% toward the front and 40% toward the rear. This is simply meaning you need to bring the cargo to trailer’s front half while making it centered evenly. And this should be roughly 60% weight of the whole load. Let’s assume you have a trailer of 3000 pounds. And it needs to load 1500 pounds of cargo. In such a case, you need to roughly place 3/5 of the overall cargo weight in your trailer’s front half. This means around 900 pounds.

Hitch Ball’s Height

Set the hitch ball height so the trailer rides level when hitched. Ball height won't change the weight much on its own, but a level trailer keeps the load split between its axles as intended.

If you can't get it perfectly level, aim for slightly nose-down rather than nose-up, since a nose-up trailer shifts weight toward the rear.

Never Miss with The Weight Capacity Rating.

Your vehicle, hitch receiver, ball mount and ball each have their own rating, and the lowest one sets your limit. A CURT receiver, for example, lists separate gross trailer and tongue weight ratings, with higher figures only when a weight distribution system is used, and warns never to exceed the vehicle maker's towing capacity. Also make sure you know how to put a hitch on a car properly.

Some owners find that their hitch, not their vehicle, is the weak link. In that case, a higher-rated hitch can let you use more of the vehicle's rated capacity.

But a stronger hitch never raises the vehicle's own tongue weight or towing limit. If the tongue is over the vehicle's rating, you still need to reduce or move the load.

Adding Accessories of Sway Control.

There are some travel trailer hitch accessories meant for sway control. Adding these can be a huge solution for tackling such issues. And you don’t even have to move your cargo with such a solution. Sometimes that’s the situation, you actually cannot move cargo for balancing overall weight.

Now one thing to keep in mind about weight-distribution hitches is that they don’t change the tongue weight itself. They spread that load across the tow vehicle's and trailer's axles, which improves handling, and the vehicle's towing limit still applies.

Moving the Cargo

This is helpful for both situations of less or more weight with a travel trailer tongue. And that’s about redistributing the whole weight. It may take you more than a few attempts to move things into its right place that makes whole weight management properly done.

Usually, you need to follow a very basic rule of thumb here. To reduce tongue weight, move some cargo rearward, toward or just behind the trailer's axle. To increase it, move cargo forward. Keep heavy items low and centered, and don't load the rear more heavily than the front.

Wrap Up

And that’s quite everything about how to reduce tongue weight on a trailer. Hopefully, it will help you to get the problems solved. And the overall weight will reduce as it should. The whole safety of your transportation will be at risk if such weight consideration is not a thing that you really care about. So be concerned about it and make sure you’re not dealing with any errors.

Sources

• Trailer Towing (U.S.A. and Canada), Mazda CX-50 Owner's Manual
• Installation Manual 13470, CURT Manufacturing