Pulling Trailers

[renrut]

If anyone is or plans to pull a trailer, make sure you find out the specifications on your camper. Make sure it can hall a trailer and find the maximum weight it can pull.

I use a Class "C" but I'm sure it goes for any camper or vehicle. I bought my motorhome used and it didn't come with any manual. It had a trailer hitch on it so I used it.

I was very lucky one day while pulling a trailer. I went over a bump (New Brunswick pothole) and I heard a large bang from the hitch. I just thought it bottomed out so I kept driving. While we were travelling through Quebec, my daughter needed to stop so we pulled into a service center. I was out stretching my legs and noticed the back of my motorhome didn't look right. I checked it out and found what the big bang was. The frame had broken on my motorhome and was sagging about 3 inches below the body. I could bounce the trailer hitch up and down without any effort and the motorhome frame was what was moving.

I had to find a welding shop to fix it but they were all booked up and couldn't help. One shop told me they had just fixed another camper that had the entire frame brake right off. The scarry part is, the only thing the person had was a trailer hitch bike rack with bikes on it. That was enough weight to break the frame. Scarry!!! We eventually found a shop that welded everything back up and re-inforced it.

Since my motorhome is so old, I couldn't find specifications on it and didn't think I needed them. I should have taken some time to see if I could find some. I shouldn't have assumed it could pull a trailer just because there was a hitch installed already.