Truck rides rough when towing

[karynzoo]

I just bought a used 21' (on the floor) goosneck LQ horse trailer, loaded it's about 10k. I pull it with a 2004, f250, crew, short bed, 6.0 td 43kmiles stock.

There are two issues with pulling this trailer

1) there seems to be some drag on the truck pulling it.
I had the trailer checked out and serviced, the packed the bearings and
put on new brakes (all 4) so the axles should all be good.

2) When driving there's a lot of bounce in the truck from the trailer.
prior owners had a taller truck so I'm thinking that I need to lower the neck on the trailer about 3" and check the tire pressure first. If that doesn't work then I may have to look into air bags. The bounce on small bumps can get pretty bad and actually bounce you off the seat. It's the worst when going over numerous small bumps in close proximity.

I've gotten suggestions on bad tires - my truck tires are good but can check the trailer tires.

check air pressure

check GN position or height

Bad springs/shocks (doubtful on my truck)

I previously pulled a 18' bumper pull and except the lag and poor MPG pulled fine. With the goosneck it's a whole other animal, so far I'm not likin it.

Any suggestions?

[fulltimer50]

IMHO your problems are more related to the 10K? weight then anything else. So good E-range rear tires properly inflated would be #1.
Airbags or more/heavier springs would be #2.
Dont discount trailer brakes dragging just because they were Just Done.

[drbond]

I agree with the new weight and GN now. I take it single rear wheel, so I feel that is your problem. My suggestion is load up with horses, water, and everything else and go get it weighed at the scales. Then go from there. Good luck and I was there, and now got the F550 and no problem at all.

Bondo©

[dmd]

Dont know how you can say the shocks are good if they havent been
replaced. Unless they have changed, they wont last 30k before
going bad.... At 43k they are useless if stock.

[karynzoo]

shocks bad at 30k? Really?

This is my daily driver vehicle and I haven't worked it hard until I got this trailer. Pulled it about a 1/2 dozen times thus far and am not impressed although I should have plenty truck to do it.

The trailer guy is checking it out for me today and it goes to Ford next week for some other maintenance issues - if I need shocks that'll be what I get.

I did find that my tires were underinflated - I guess I need to inflate them myself instead of the store that does my rotations. they were supposed to be at 70 and are barely at 60.

[hiljoball]

I suspect 2 problems.

First is that the pin weight of the trailer is overloading the truck's rear suspension.

Second possibility is that the weight on the trailer is too far back, so there is not enough weight on the pin and the trailer is rocking. More pin weight will kill that effect. Now back to problem number 1.

[karynzoo]

Trailer guy say's " your truck is squatting and the trailer is adjusted pretty level and I suggest heavy duty springs" He suggested the springs instead of the air bags as he said you always have to fiddle with the air bags. He also mentioned that Ford is notorious for putting softier springs in the SD trucks. He's got a F350 himself.


Found that my tire pressure on the truck is low so I'll take care of that. He didn't mention shocks. He couldn't guarantee that it would be an end all cure all but would certainly help the situation.

Anyone tried this route? results?

Note - the drag from the trailer wasn't too bad today - I may be able to attibute that to wind resistance the other time.

[fulltimer50]

The advantage with air bags is that you CAN "fiddle" with the airbags so that you dont need to wear a mouth guard while driving solo.
I found Ranch 9000 shocks to be great. I can fiddle with them too. Make them stiffer when towing and softer when not.

[dmd]

I luv my rancho's too.... Shock will help, but as above, probaly need something
to deal with the weight... Only way to tell is to hit the scale..

[HighwayPrisoner]

I am also a fan of the rancho 9000 XL. The adjustability is a real asset, be sure and get the new 9000 XL, the XL's are about 50% larger than the 9000S. I have had both, an the XL is a big improvement. Check em out.

[jorlee]

Wondering here, where is your ball placed at? 4 inches infront 6 inches, directly over rear axle?

Where does the truck bounce? Entire truck, front more or rear more?

I've pulled many different configurations of gooseneck, with many different pickups, and never had a bouncing issue. It could be because the weights were higher than what you towing (10K higher), or that ball placement. I don't know just a suggestion.

[karynzoo]

The ball is placed in front of the axle so that should be okay. I can't get the bolts unscrewed on the neck to drop it so will have that done this week. I'm going to drop the neck about 2-3" and see if that in combination with the Timbren's will do the trick. The trailer is definately heavier than my other one and over the axle rather than on the bumper.

My tires were underinflated so I fixed that and didn't feel as much bounce but the drag from the trailer is pretty bad so hopefully with the two things I'm going to do above it will make it better. I may need shocks too but I'll check into that this coming week as well.

Truck goes into the diesel shop for a look over and fix that stupid slip yoke issue that has been annoying me for the past year. The towing MPG on this truck is in the toilet - I'm probably getting arount 7-8 mpg and with a 28 gal tank you can imagine I wouldn't get very far. I'm starting to wonder if I made a mistake upgrading to a GN.

[brotherxb]

I have a 01 supercab F-250 with air bag's and onboard compressor. I have a 5th wheel with 2080 pin weight and 10,800 mty and my truck ride's way better while pulling. I think it would be more the weight distrubution of you trailer not being correct.