Bumper Pull vs GN 5er Debate

Doesn’t change the fact that ALL trailers can experience sway. Tag, gooseneck, or fifth wheel. I’ve owned all 3 and felt it on all 3. If you think you can’t experience sway just because you own a gooseneck, you’re just not educating yourself on the subject.

I don't believe for a second that you've owned a GN or at least more than an 18' GN if you are even trying to compare one with a 30'/14k loaded tag trailer. Having towed literally both of those across the country I've got to say there is no comparison...Shawn is right, sway control for a trailer connected above your axle doesn't exist because it isn't needed.
 
I don't believe for a second that you've owned a GN or at least more than an 18' GN if you are even trying to compare one with a 30'/14k loaded tag trailer. Having towed literally both of those across the country I've got to say there is no comparison...Shawn is right, sway control for a trailer connected above your axle doesn't exist because it isn't needed.

I don’t believe for a second that you know anything about me. I don’t know you! I don’t pretend to know you or @shawn which is why I haven’t called either of you out personally. My original comment is that ALL trailers can sway. This ain’t about how long, how you hooked them up, or how far you’ve towed one across this great country.
 
I don’t believe for a second that you know anything about me. I don’t know you! I don’t pretend to know you or @shawn which is why I haven’t called either of you out personally. My original comment is that ALL trailers can sway. This ain’t about how long, how you hooked them up, or how far you’ve towed one across this great country.

You're having a straw man argument with yourself.
 
You're having a straw man argument with yourself.
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Feel free to post pictures of your gooseneck sway controllers any time. No hurry.
 
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Scroll back and read about which point you’re arguing. The question now is; how will you manage sway with a gooseneck? I have options and adjustability. Or is your argument “My gooseneck can’t sway”? @shawn
 
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@BigSouth @shawn @ronburgundy For the sake of being on the same page, let's define sway.
 
Not saying it can't happen but I've never had my gooseneck sway like illustrated in that link.

It’s my understanding that sway in a gooseneck is only dampened by the tow vehicle. Your trailer and load determines whether you run 3/4 ton SRW, dually, or start stepping on up the line into 4500 and 5500 trucks. The load on my trailer can vary from farm equipment to crawlers to a pop up and a crawler so I went with a setup that I can adjust. My “tow vehicle” is a known factor and I don’t have the luxury of owning a different truck for everything I might pull.
 
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Scroll back and read about which point you’re arguing. The question now is; how will you manage sway with a gooseneck? I have options and adjustability. Or is your argument “My gooseneck can’t sway”? @shawn

Again with the straw man? Quote the post where I said they "don't" sway.

Goosenecks just have to use a different style of sway control.

I'll wait for you to post the "different style" of gooseneck sway controllers.
 
Again with the straw man? Quote the post where I said they "don't" sway.



I'll wait for you to post the "different style" of gooseneck sway controllers.

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I think you just admitted that your gooseneck will sway. Choose your controller.
 
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@BigSouth I'm trying to learn and understand your argument.
Is ti your position that under certain circumstances a same size and loaded trailer will experience mores way forces in a GN or 5er configuration than an identical length and loaded tag a long?

I think tat is the missing component here. No doubt external factors can induce sway on a load, but in every imaginable situation a mid mount will outperform a tag due to distance force application multiplication.

Sure you can use sway control devices on a tag along but their only purpose is to move the load center forward on the tow vehicle, hopefully close to where it would be in a GN or 5er configuration.


Now if you want to compare a 20,000lb GN to a 1,200 lb tag or a 30' to a 15' then all bets are off.

I use to have a little 4x8 utility trailer that was built quite shitty. It weighed like maybe 150 lbs. maybe. it was built shitty. anything over 45mph unloaded it would dance all over the road behind any truck. But you didnt care becayse it would pull to a point and then the truck would snatch it back in line.
 
@BigSouth I'm trying to learn and understand your argument.
Is ti your position that under certain circumstances a same size and loaded trailer will experience mores way forces in a GN or 5er configuration than an identical length and loaded tag a long?

I think tat is the missing component here. No doubt external factors can induce sway on a load, but in every imaginable situation a mid mount will outperform a tag due to distance force application multiplication.

Sure you can use sway control devices on a tag along but their only purpose is to move the load center forward on the tow vehicle, hopefully close to where it would be in a GN or 5er configuration.


Now if you want to compare a 20,000lb GN to a 1,200 lb tag or a 30' to a 15' then all bets are off.

I use to have a little 4x8 utility trailer that was built quite shitty. It weighed like maybe 150 lbs. maybe. it was built shitty. anything over 45mph unloaded it would dance all over the road behind any truck. But you didnt care becayse it would pull to a point and then the truck would snatch it back in line.

Not trying to argue one is better or worse. I know the advantages of GN over tag along when it comes to tongue weight. That’s where my weight distribution comes in. Compensates for the trailer having more leverage at the rear of my truck. Sway is a whole nother subject. Granted, there is less of an effect on a GN setup, but the effect is still there. The market offers me options to control that sway and some even guarantee ZERO sway. With a GN the only control available is the rear suspension of your truck. More tires on a dually, lower center of gravity, etc. My truck is a fixed factor of this equation. I chose my setup for 3/4 ton truck because I don’t want a dually to drive daily.
 
With a GN the only control available is the rear suspension of your truck. More tires on a dually, lower center of gravity, etc. My truck is a fixed factor of this equation. I chose my setup for 3/4 ton truck because I don’t want a dually to drive daily.

Okay, so today we learned that you made a huge stink last night for no real reason, and this post indicates that you don't understand how a gooseneck or 5er trailer works. Were you upset over the State of the Union or something?
 
Okay, so today we learned that you made a huge stink last night for no real reason, and this post indicates that you don't understand how a gooseneck or 5er trailer works. Were you upset over the State of the Union or something?

Glad you learned something because I’ve yet to find a single nugget of knowledge in your ramblings. And I couldn’t care less about anything political, but thanks for asking.
 
However @shawn , no hard feelings, I’m willing to call a truce if you’ll clean up our mess on @Croatan_Kid post about tilt vs ramps. I’ll gladly pick up this conversation elsewhere if you like.
 
Glad you learned something because I’ve yet to find a single nugget of knowledge in your ramblings. And I couldn’t care less about anything political, but thanks for asking.

Whether you have a 3/4 ton truck, a 1 ton SRW, or a 1 ton DRW has nothing to do with "sway control". The only thing that has any impact on trailer sway with a gooseneck/5er trailer is the location of the load. Put the load too far back, don't have enough pin weight, get sway. You need to shoot for somewhere between 15-30% of the trailer weight on the pin. Sway control with these trailers simply means putting the COG of the load on or forward of the centerline of the trailer tires. (Takeaway here is they're really pretty tolerant of badly-loaded trailers, but there's a breaking point for everything).

If a torsion axle trailer is nose-low, it will sway, but it's because the front axle(s) is overloaded and the other isn't carrying much weight. Basically, you're shifting the centerline of the rear axles forward, and the result is the same as if you pushed the load rearward. Conversely (and all else being equal) torsion trailers ride better than leafs because they have independent suspension and shock absorption, where solid axle leaf spring trailers don't. (Adding shocks to a leaf spring trailer only fixes one issue, doesn't address the lack of independent tire movement).

Fundamentally, 5th wheels and goosenecks work similarly, with one big exception: 5th wheels often allow very little (or no) differential roll between the truck and trailer. So if the trailer rolls to one side, it twists the tow vehicle through the hitch, and the truck rolls too. That is made worse by the pivot point being a foot or so above the COG of the tow vehicle, creating a lever arm. Dual rear tires make a big difference here, since they add width outboard of the springs (geometry FTW) and additional sidewalls and tire contact patch to counteract roll imparted on the tow vehicle by the trailer. If you've ever watched a tractor with a box trailer navigate a swale at a driveway, you've seen this in action. The trailer twists, the truck frame twists, etc. The same thing happens when a crosswind blows on the top of the trailer, just at a smaller magnitude. Gooseneck balls are located much closer vertically to the COG of the vehicle and allow free movement in all directions, so roll in the trailer doesn't apply significant loads to the tow vehicle. Basically, it's connected with a ball-and-socket joint, and it doesn't have any leverage anyway. Mind you, none of that is "sway".

Tag trailers have problems with pin weight and sway because it's inherent in the design. Not enough pin weight and you get sway, too much pin weight and the trailer wants to go straight and pushes in corners. The pivot point is several feet behind the rear axle of the tow vehicle, which gives the trailer leverage on the tow vehicle both in yaw and in pitch. Torsion bars, little shock absorbers, and all their variations work to counteract the shortcomings of the tag trailer design. The torsion bars use the frame of the trailer to pull up on the ball, forcing load forward on the tow vehicle and aft on the trailer. Likewise, sway controllers use a variety of methods (mostly boiling down to friction) to make it hard for the trailer to turn relative to the tow vehicle. So when a crosswind hits the trailer, the trailer has a 4ft lever arm by which to drag the ass of the tow vehicle sideways. When it recoils, it has a 4ft lever arm to drag the ass the other way. In these circumstances, "sway" has a lot in common with death wobble, head shake, etc. You have a mass (the trailer) acting in response to a positive feedback loop (the ass of the car shifting side to side). Sway controllers combat this by stiffening the pivot, modulating the vehicle brakes to dampen the oscillation, etc. If the pivot point is ahead of the rear axle, there's no leverage, and no positive feedback loop.

If you check your axle weights before and after hitching up a 5th wheel or gooseneck, you'll find that the weight on the front tires goes up when the trailer is attached. How much depends on the weight on the pin and the wheelbase of the vehicle, but 10% of the pin weight is a reasonable guess. On the other hand, dump a bunch of pin weight on a bumper hitch, and the weight on the front tires goes down. Stab the brakes hard from speed, the trailer rolls forward, pushing down harder on the ball, and further unweighting the front tires - it just makes the problem worse. Stab the brakes with a gooseneck trailer, and you might get a bit of nose-diving on the truck, but it's just as likely to be flat throughout the event.

Bottom line: no such thing as a gooseneck sway controller.
 
I haul 10k daily on dual axle 16' trailer with 400 gallons of water splashing around! I've found weight distribution is #1 concern, it alone determines how the tow rig and trailer behave! For original question of Ramps ir tilt I say Ramps even if they are heavy as hell...
 
Just asking here....

But even with a weight distribution hitch, isn't it all still tongue weight? I know it helps and works, but all the weight is still on the receiver and hitch, right?
I've hauled our work trailer 10-11k with a 01 dmax loaded to top with water on 12k drop pin hitch and it didn't have any issues being pushed or swaying I rolled 70mph comfortably! Yes from what I found of weight distributing hitches they help reduce sway and improve handling but will screw you when reversing...
 
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