Trailer Disasters and Near Disasters

You may find it hard to believe that some of these things actually happened, but they did. The surprising thing is, it is often easier to see the problem after an accident occurs and people say, "I should have checked the weight. I just didn't think about it." With a SHERLINE scale you can not only think about it, you can actually do something about it. Don't let anything like this happed to you:

• A race car owner loaded his enclosed trailer with the race car carefully balanced over the axles, but with all the tools and spare parts toward the front, severely overloading the hitch on the motorhome tow vehicle to the point welds start to crack. (The race car owner was the owner of this company, and that near accident led to the development of the SHERLINE scale.)
• A farmer loaded a 4-horse equestrian 5th wheel trailer starting from the front with bags of feed from floor to ceiling until the gooseneck actually snapped off!
• A small cargo trailer rated for 3000 pounds was loaded with asphalt roofing shingles until the tongue bent, the tires flatted and the owner complained to the manufacturer that the trailer failed when it was only "half full". (The load was later measured at 13,000 pounds!)
• The owner of a small travel trailer loaded a number of 5-gallon drinking water bottles in the very back where they will be "out of the way" during a trip. After speeding up to pass a truck, he pulled back into his lane and the trailer went into an uncontrollable oscillation. His family was terrified as the car and trailer pitched from one shoulder to the other, and he was very lucky to regain control before the rig went over or went head-on into another vehicle.
• The owner of a new cargo trailer from a major manufacturer thought his truck sagged a bit too much when he lowered the trailer tongue onto the hitch. He checked out the tongue weight and found that it was over 800 pounds--with the trailer empty! The axles had to be moved forward to balance the trailer before it could even be loaded. Imagine what could have happened if he had loaded and used it.

Just because it "came that way from the factory" doesn't mean it is always set up right. Also just because the dealer hooked it up and said "no problem" doesn't mean it's safe. (My father's motorhome tracked crooked down the highway for a year until a mechanic discovered that one of the rear springs had been installed backward at the factory and the rear axle wasn't perpendicular to the frame. It wasn't a major safety hazard, but it makes you wonder about the rest of the systems. --Craig) The best way to be sure is to check the tongue weight yourself before each trip, especially on trailers where cargo has been loaded or moved around.

If you're a dealer or shop, give yourself maximum protection against liability by checking every trailer before it leaves your lot. Encourage your customers to bring their trailers by your lot to be checked before their next trip or better yet, encourage them to buy a SHERLINE scale of their own.

If you have stories about trailer loading and handling disasters, send them to Sherline and we will add them to the above list in hopes of saving someone from sharing the unpleasant experience.

Return to the SHERLINE SCALES page.

Return to Sherline's home page.