Can I Sway Your Opinion?
by Mark J. Polk

"Yaw,” more commonly known as “sway” in the RV industry, is a bad word for pop up campers. The definition of yaw or sway is a side-to-side movement. Nothing will ruin the way you feel about camping faster than the first time you experience trailer sway.

You go to your local dealership and find a pop up with the perfect floor plan for you and your family. The sales person knows that it will be close to the maximum weight that your tow vehicle can pull. He really needs a sale because things have been slow. Rather than risk losing the sale, he decides not to explain the added expense of the proper hitch work to safely tow your new trailer.

You’re all packed up for a weekend getaway. You made all of your pre trip checks and you’re ready to go. You load the most precious cargo you have, your family, into your tow vehicle and head out on a new venture. Everything is fine when you leave the house. You take the on-ramp to the interstate. You’re cruising at the speed limit, enjoying the music on the radio. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a transfer truck going twenty miles over the speed limit is passing you as if you’re sitting still. The pop up is pulled into the draft created by the truck. In an attempt to correct this totally unexpected event, you over-steer, and the trailer begins to go in the opposite direction. Not really sure what to do, you turn the steering wheel to the left, then to the right. Now the one-ton trailer behind your sport utility vehicle is veering sharply from side to side and begins to affect what little control you have over the vehicle. The results are catastrophic…

Okay, since this is a magazine article, let’s start over and fix this before you even realize that there is a potential problem. You purchased your pop up from a responsible local dealership. At the risk of losing the sale, your salesperson explains that you will require some specialized hitch work to pull your new trailer safely. You are a bit skeptical, feeling like he just wants more of your money. (Besides, your father never needed any of this stuff. He just hooked his trailers onto a ball on the bumper.)

You decide to give the salesperson the benefit of doubt and listen for a minute. He shows you in his book that your tow vehicle is rated to tow a maximum of 3,500 pounds. Then he explains what you must factor into that tow rating. It includes the weight of your new camper, any after market add-ons, like the roof-mounted air conditioner that the dealership is going to install, all of the cargo that you load in the trailer and in the tow vehicle, and the weight of the people in the vehicle. Now all of the sudden the sales person has your undivided attention. You had no idea that all of this had to be considered. Now he shows you the weight label on your new trailer. The unloaded vehicle weight (UVW) is 2,100 lbs. The air conditioner weighs 100 lbs. To be safe, he estimates that you will carry about 300 lbs. Of cargo, and then adds 400 lbs. (for you, your wife and the children).

You are amazed how fast things add up. Now you have 2,900 lbs. instead of the 2000 lbs. that you thought it was. It isn’t over yet. Your sales person starts to explain that every state has different requirements on how much a trailer can weigh before it requires trailer brakes. In your state, the weight is 3,000 lbs., but as a responsible dealership, any trailer they order that weighs over 2,000 lbs., they have brakes installed by the manufacturer. He explains that even though your vehicle is rated to tow 3,5000 pounds, the brakes on the vehicle were designed to safely stop the vehicle’s weight, not an additional ton and a half being pulled behind it.

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