congrats on the keystone, we recently traded in our old 99 jayco for an 08 jayco and all I have to say is don't walk from the jayco RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN from it.
Our 31 rks is a poorly designed $20,000 flimsy piece of crap. When we walked into this TT at the dealer we fell in love with the floor plan and since we had such great luck with our 99 we decided to stick with jayco. But it seems since 99 quality control is non existent at the Jayco plant. Things fall apart and break if you look at it wrong. The welds on the tongue and frame fail even the lowest inspections (my bride to be is a Certified Welding Inspector)
heh yeah I wont be getting a free t-shirt either but if they did give me one id just burn it as im SURE it too is a piece of crap.
But on the bright side I'm sure you will enjoy your keystone and have many years of memories with it! KEYSTONE ALL THE WAY!
Me 27, Class A CDL Freight Relocation Specialist
Wife 23, Nuclear power plant quality control inspector
146.52 Listening while on the move!
2002 F-350 CC SRW 7.3 Powerstroke
2008 Jayco G2 31RKS
slowryde45 wrote: Okay, that's what I thought might be causing it. Now, next question, with the Pro Series WD hitch, how do you adjust them? Right now, everything seems to be pretty equal in height. Maybe I just need to pack all our stuff in the TT to see if that makes a difference. And here all the time I was wondering if we were over our weight limit, it turns out we are too light?
Sorry for the newbie questions, but there were no instructions with them. At least with the Strait Line hitch, it is just a matter of moving the chains, right? I guess I can wait until I bring it back to the dealership for all the fixes they will be doing. After reading up on the issues with the Voyager controller, I guess I will be upgrading to the Prodigy, too.
Thanks again for all the help.
Slo
Is it just a WD hitch or does it have sway control? I would seriously consider returning both the hitch and the brake controller, getting your money back on those and upgrading on your own to the Equalizer and Prodigy through RVWholesalers.com. You can easily install both yourself (we did and we'd never used a WD hitch before). A much better combo and a much easier tow!
I'm almost wishing I could just return everything about now....just kidding. It's just the rookie frustration of trying to get it all figured out. The hitch says it is designed for tongue weights of 600 to 1100 pounds and a GTW of 11K pounds. Is that too HD for what I have? The trailer has a hitch weight of 325, and empty of 4100 with a carrying capacity of 1825. So even fully loaded it is only 5925. But my problem seems to be coming from not enough weight on it. So is my WD hitch TOO heavy duty for what I have or is it just re-adjusting the angle of the hitch to take some of the tension off the bars?
slowryde45 wrote: I'm almost wishing I could just return everything about now....just kidding. It's just the rookie frustration of trying to get it all figured out. The hitch says it is designed for tongue weights of 600 to 1100 pounds and a GTW of 11K pounds. Is that too HD for what I have? The trailer has a hitch weight of 325, and empty of 4100 with a carrying capacity of 1825. So even fully loaded it is only 5925. But my problem seems to be coming from not enough weight on it. So is my WD hitch TOO heavy duty for what I have or is it just re-adjusting the angle of the hitch to take some of the tension off the bars?
Slo
First of all, empty weights are someone's dream weights! Unless you've actually weighed it and those are the numbers, they can be much and will be much higher. Plus that weight does not count full propane tanks and batteries mounted onto the front of the tongue. Then you add all the kitchen stuff, clothes, food, pots and pans etc and the average family can add anywhere from 800#'s to 1000#'s or more.
With that scenario, you want to make sure that you have a tongue weight of 13% of the fully loaded TT's weight. This means you need to load it for a trip and take it to the scale and have it weighed. Then make sure your tongue weight is 13% of that.
For some rough numbers - let's say empty w/propane tanks and battery you weight 4500#'s dry. Add 800#'s of stuff, you are now at 5300#'s. 13% of that is 689#'s. This is what your tongue should weigh for optimum tow and no sway. I went light on the numbers and even doing so, your within range of the hitch. You'll be surprised at how quickly your hitch weight goes up and how much stuff ends of weighing!
However, i'm guessing as you don't have accurate numbers (brochure #'s and sticker #'s mean nothing and are very rarely accurate).
Best thing - go weigh the trailer. We use a Sherline Tongue weight scale to keep watch on our tongue weight. We're 6500#'s fully loaded and carry a tongue weight of 850#'s. Both numbers are give and take depending on length of trip, where we're going etc. However, it typically stays balanced at 13% (or a hair over) in general.
You are right, I don't have accurate numbers yet, because this is our first trailer, so we are still stocking up on things for camping. But I see your point about how things could add up very quickly. I guess I was looking at the smaller picture and not taking everything into account. I've downloaded the instructions for the Pro Series WD hitch to see if there are any instructions on how to adjust it for when you aren't fully loaded, but there isn't anything there. I will try to give Reese a call to see if they help. It's a weird feeling having this thing bounce (porpoise) down the road with it's present set up and not loaded down. So if you are just taking it in for any kind of service, what do you do then, throw some kind of ballast in to weigh it down? Just wondering.
slowryde45 wrote: You are right, I don't have accurate numbers yet, because this is our first trailer, so we are still stocking up on things for camping. But I see your point about how things could add up very quickly. I guess I was looking at the smaller picture and not taking everything into account. I've downloaded the instructions for the Pro Series WD hitch to see if there are any instructions on how to adjust it for when you aren't fully loaded, but there isn't anything there. I will try to give Reese a call to see if they help. It's a weird feeling having this thing bounce (porpoise) down the road with it's present set up and not loaded down. So if you are just taking it in for any kind of service, what do you do then, throw some kind of ballast in to weigh it down? Just wondering.
Slo
Well...fortunately, we've had an excellent experience and haven't had to take our trailer back for service. The few small things we took care of ourselves and maintenance we do ourselves as well. Also, only expensive items (tv's, stereos, laptops) should be taken out for service - pots, pans, linens etc. I would just leave in the trailer when taking it for service. I wouldn't empty the whole thing - just take out the expensive stealable stuff.
I don't think you need to adjust it for being empty and then readjust it for being full. Load it up with everything for a camping trip, remeasure and readjust your hitch (If you had the Equalizer i'd be able to help with that, but i'm not familiar with the Reese) and take it to the local scales. There's a lot of them out there - there should be one nearby. You can weight the trailer and truck separately and then get a combined weight. You will then be able (if there not busy to drop the trailer off the truck and weigh the tongue. Do a search on this site - there should be a thread outlining how to weigh your trailer and tongue at the scales.
I think a wise $130.00 investment is the tongue weight scale by Sherline. That way you can keep tabs on the weight of your tongue whenever you change something. I bought one and we re-weighed the tongue after putting in a different, much heavier, mattress and we shifted some stuff around to accomodate it to keep it from going over our 1000# limit of our receiver. It's wise to weigh the tongue from time to time to keep tabs on it if you have a large front storage area (we have the full pas through plus underbed storage all up front). You'll be amazed at how much stuff finds it's way into the trailer!
McMaster Carr has the tongue weight scale if your interested and several forum members own them as well.
Thanks again. I'll have to look into picking up a scale. We do order quite a bit from Mcmaster Carr where I work. Oops...that might have been the wrong thing to say in these trailer forums, as I know quite a few of you are already enjoying the retirement years. We've still got a few to go, to catch up to you all. But we are getting there. So in a way, this trailer is our "on-the-job-training" for when we get to throw the alarm clock away and not have to be somewhere everyday, other than wherever the road takes us. I do look forward to those days. In the meantime, I'm not giving up yet on trying to get this figured out. Everything we've found wrong so far, has been minor. I'd probably fix it myself, except for the fact that we've only had the trailer since Saturday. So anything wrong, they can take care of. In the meantime, we are slowly accumulating more things to weigh it down. Nothing too crazy, mostly necessity items, hoses, fixtures, things like that. And of course the boss is putting the inside together the way she likes it, too. So it's a total team effort, even stepping over and around the mutts to get things done. They seem pretty excited about the whole thing, too. Hopefully I haven't sounded too much like a whiner or rookie at this, because I'm really not trying to. Then again, if it was all easy, it wouldn't be worth it...but it sure would be a heck of alot less frustrating - haha. Thanks again to all for helpful advice, hints, and support. It's much appreciated.
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