DANGERIOUS REESE HITCH

[farmboy]

Just glad my 16k Reese hitch is not built like that one.

[richfaa]

Think of the stress on that hitch.Traveling 35mph towing 13,500lbs plus the truck. That would be 22/23K stopping almost instantly. I w0ould say it held pretty good.

[mlh]

I wonder how much stress was on the hitch. The truck didn't hit a brick wall, it hit a car and shoved it out of the way. Still I suspect it generated tens of thousands of pound of force. If the hitch had not failed the truck frame would have.
I had always wondered what would happen if you hit something while pulling a camper, now I have an idea. Not pretty!
Lynwood

[DQDick]

Definitely a situation to avoid when possible. One of the reasons I only tow at 55. Considering the forces involved, the hitch held together long enough to keep the camper off the truck I would say it did it's job. Makes me feel a lot better about my decision to change my head from 15K to 20K.

[Waynem]

Now I wonder the cause of the accident. Is there a lesson to be learned there?

Did someone pull in front and stop quickly?
Following to close?
Not paying attention/or distracted?
Cell phone? - hope not
Texting? - really hope not

I'm not trying to fish bad things out of the OP, but we can all learn by other people's experiences.

Thanks.

[dpilot]

Just fyi, companion b/w on f-350 4x4 dually with air bags, crew cab towing new 3455... panic stop from 70mph.... no probs, straight and no wobbles... hitch solid !!
after checking the different designs, the companion attachment to frame seemed superior...
Just a thought...

[racerjoe]

panic stopping is one thing, hitting an object at any speed will test the strenth of any hitch. As they say,it's not the fall that kills you,it's the sudden stop!! :-)

[richfaa]

quote:Originally posted by racerjoe

panic stopping is one thing, hitting an object at any speed will test the strength of any hitch. As they say,it's not the fall that kills you,it's the sudden stop!! :-)

This is true. I have seen this only one time several years ago where a 5th wheel was unable to stop and was in a rear end collision. My guess the 5th was going better tha 35MPH but it went right through the hitch, tore it completly off the base and off the truck bed. We have made a couple of panic stops from a high speed (62/65MPH with this 5th wheel wheel annd got it stopped wothout a hitch issue.

[Ozz]

To be fair to kcjolley, both of these pins were on the bottom of the hitch, hidden behind the flange on both ends. you would have had to check the pin placement with an inspection mirror and a flashlight.
I think, from looking at the pictures that the pin worked loose on the end where it is mushroomed, the other pin held it, but the loose end jumped up and down, probably for a hundred, if not thousands of miles, you can see where the hitch pounded it and bent the flange edges around.
This was not an 'event failure' in my semi-professional opinion.

[SlickWillie]

I tend to agree with Ozz. But, preventive maintenance was apparently neglected on the hitch. Anything mechanical can fail. Routine maintenance and inspection probably would have prevented this failure. JMHO

[seahunter]

quote:Originally posted by Waynem

Reinforces what others have stated and what I did when towing a 5'er. Lock the retaining pins into place with a locking system that can be purchased at just about any hitch store. Mine took padlocks. It is so unfortunate that there are people in this world that will say, "Watch this!" and then pull a pin. They don't think of the catastrophic events that can lead up to their prank until it is to late.

I'm with the others. Was this a collision accident, or did it just happen?

People undoing your fifth wheel hitch pins - does this really happen a lot? I can't even imagine someone having to climb in the bed to undo a pin hoping your trailer will eventually fall off. I can't believe what some people will do. We never had a problem with our travel trailer luckily, but I never thought someone could be so malevolent. Has this happened to a lot of you??

Thanks,
Greg