robert_roberts•28d agoProlific Poster

PSA: Check your trailer hitch before a long haul, learned this the hard way

Pulled my 18 foot equipment trailer out to a job near Fresno last month, and about 60 miles in I felt this weird wobble on the highway. Pulled over at a rest stop and the ball mount had worked itself loose, just two bolts holding it on by luck. I always check the coupler and chains but never thought to check the actual mount bolts since I installed them last spring. Tightened everything up with a breaker bar and torque wrench, took maybe 20 minutes. Has anyone else had a hitch nearly fail on them mid-trip, and what do you do to make sure it doesn't happen again?

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wesley_fox9226d ago

I read a forum post a while back from a guy who had the whole hitch drop off on I-80 with a loaded car hauler. He said the bolts looked fine when he checked them by hand but it only took a few hundred miles of bouncing to shake them loose. That story stuck with me because it sounds exactly like what you just went through. I started putting a paint mark on every bolt head after I torque them down, that way I can see at a glance if anything has turned even a little bit. Also grab the hitch and try to move it up and down every time you stop for fuel, takes two seconds but catches a lot of problems early. The fact that you caught it before it got real bad is a win, most folks don't get that lucky.