Bought my first trailer today - Page 2

New, go out to your local auto junkyard and do some looking around in the pickup-truck section. You'll see all kinds of trailer hitches (frame style) still under the trucks as most owners are too lazy to crawl under and pull their hitch off before it hits the yard. Shouldn't cost more than $10- 15 for them to cut a hitch off for you. Never rely on a bumper ball hitch.

Originally Posted by taterjuice

Wouldn't that technically mean your overloaded your bumper, not the trailer ? If you look on the bumper I doubt it was rated for much over 1000# total. And bumpers are for towing boats and golf carts, not heavy loads. I have class 5, rated for 16,000 lbs, receiver hitches on both pickups. Who's dangerous now ?

You mistook me. All I was trying to say, given the relative size of the trailer, I think it'd be pretty hard to overload unless you find really heavy small pieces of iron. Furthermore I didn't give out any bad info. I have towed almost everything you can possible tow with a pickup, and with no accidents yet to date.
U-Haul: Tips: Learn how to load and haul a trailer safely

If you click there and scroll down they reccommend you to load 60% of the weight to the front. Which indeed supports my before mentioned advice.

So with a short trailer to achieve the 60/40 split you'll have to heap the front and slope it down to the back which is what I ment by "getting as much weight forward as possible".

Which you failed to mention in your post so you see how it was easy to misinterpret? It read to me that you were putting 7400 lbs on a utility trailer rated for far less and ''bragging'' about it (''You crack me up!''). So, my bad.

My point was, (and, I did have the trailer loaded correctly and drove less than a mile afterwards), a lesson was learned that day by me and my recapping it was to be used as a lesson for a new trailer owner, all owners actually. Stuff happens and it happened to me that day. I had carried that weight before no problem and until I get a new truck or hitch, I won't be doing it again since it bent my bumper because that would be dangerous! When I had it installed I asked my mechanic how much I could safely haul with that setup as well as a couple other people and that is what I was told. I wasn't being ''dangerous'' on purpose, I was doing what a majority had told me and I figured they had more knowledge than I did at that point! Now I know better!

Mechanic - I never even thought of going to a junk yard for a hitch, I don't know why that never entered my mind! Thanks for the tip! Finding a good one would be cheaper that way then buying new.