WDH and tow ball weight

The weight doesnt and cant reduce it just transfers some of the weight (downward force) towards the front axle.
You will see when u hook it up sags in the middle before hooked up
Sits even after hooking up.
The weight remains the same.
Easiest way to prove it is to take rig to weighbridge and sit car on it and remove the WDH.
If u then weigh each axle you will get different figures depending on whether you have the WDH on or not.
As it says its a weight distributing hitch.
Anyway thats how an engineer I bought my hitch off described it

Hi John, Graham is 100% correct in his answer to your query.
It seems a heavy ball weight for what I assume is a tandem van.
Is it just a coincidence that the 280Kg ball weight is a neat 10% of your van weight.
Cheers

Hi John.
There is a lot of smoke and mirrors used in regards to WDH claims. You are right, the weight doesn’t go anywhere, I doubt that Hayman Reese can defy gravity. The correct term for the device would be “Load Levellers”. They are handy for people who don’t do a lot of towing and don’t want to make permanent changes to their vehicle. Air bags do the same job but are a permanent change more or less. Think about how they work. The back of the vehicle sags due to the weight that the vehicle springs can’t handle, The pivot point is the hitch which hinges down. The WDH passes under this point with torsion bars or springs. The torsion then winds up under the pivot point and straightens the hinge, which is good. But where do the front of torsion bars end?? At the tow bar, so the weight on the draw bar remains the same, the weight on the van axle remains the same. The excess weight is carried in the torsion bars. The vehicle doesn’t know anything about it other that is now travelling in a level attitude, which is good (load levellers). Any weight distribution that occurs is in the fact the vehicle is now level. Air bags do the same thing, upgraded rear springs do the same thing. Sorry about the rant but Hayman Reese get right up my nose with their clap trap advertising. It must be just a shade off misleading.

Regards. CliveG (NZ)

John,

You got it, when you use your WDH, the ball load is now shared between the front and rear axles of the tow vehicle and a certain amount is actually transferred back to the front axle of the van.

But.......I would say you should still count the ball weight in its total as part of the GVM. Also, many new vehicles actually have a reduced GVM based on ball load to compound the problem! Don't think the Cruiser has this issue.

A weigh bridge will take any guess work out. About then you'll probably realise that your GVM is not too far away. Don't forget to include two people sitting in the vehicle, fuel tanks full and whatever gear you'll travel with.

Way I see it, you can either travel light, or do what 95% do- forget about it and hope you never have a major bingle or get pulled up told you're overweight/unroadworthy !!!

Matt

Thanks for all the comments gents - didn't mean to open a can of worms.

I don't have a van yet but it is not too far away. I wanted to get an idea of whether I could tow a van at 280kg tow ball weight legally. From the comments received it seems that regardless of the WDH, the tow ball weight is not reduced as far as the authorities are concerned.

The cruiser went over the weigh bridge before I added all the goodies and will go over again this week to see what I've got to play with. I'm not prepared to run the risk of being overweight - have worked far too long and hard to see it all go down the drain.

regards

John