Hi All,
Today was a rough day... let me go back a couple days and set the stage for this story and my follow up questions. Last week 6/8 my wife and I picked up our brand new 2021 Imagine XLS 15FLE in Salt Lake City.
After picking it up we towed it to my sons house about 45 minutes to an hour away and everything went great. We spent the past five nights in front of his house setting things up doing some initial modifications (full time bed, micro air easy start on Air Conditioner, hitch lock, coupler lock, etc.) This morning we were supposed to head toward Phoenix Arizona to visit my wife's parents for a couple days.
This morning we got everything ready, packed all up and put away nice and neat... I hooked up the trailer to the WDH without issue. Since this was our first time doing this since we sold our last trailer about 9 years ago my wife and I walked through all the safety checks together:
I tap the brakes to slow down as we are approaching a stop sign and the trailer jerks and bounces... I stop short of the stop sign, put the truck in park, walk around and do a visual check, everything is looking ok...
I move up to the stop sign very slowly... ok everything seems good so far, start to pull away from the stop sign and decide to manually check the trailer brake using the hand control on the electric trailer brake. The truck and trailer shudder, there is a loud bang, a little more shaking as a brake and come to a stop. I get out to look and the tongue of the trailer is sitting on the ground still attached to the WDH! :-(
The WDH has pulled completely out of the receiver and is sitting on the ground, the tongue jack has smashed the tailgate denting and scratching it and breaking the toggle switches on the front of the jack. I chock the trailer, assess the tongue jack quickly and cant fix it, the pin for the WDH is nowhere to be found it either disintegrated or shot off to the side somewhere (at least I think, because I haven't been able to find it. One of the modifications I did was to replace the standard pin for the WDH with a locking pin conceptually to protect my $900 WDH from walking away, apparently that didn't work out so well.
So I dig through my boxes and find the original non-locking pin, manually jack up the trailer and remove the WDH so it can be reattached to the truck (with the original pin). When jacking up the trailer to remove the WDH (e-2) I notice the weight distribution/sway control bars are no longer on the bracket but instead are resting on the ground. When I pull the L-Pins I realize they have been completely bent allowing the bars to jump off.
Ok well no WD to go with the WDH for now at least it's only about 100 yards back to my parking spot in front of my son's house... The rest of the hitch looks good, the WDH bar appear fine, The tailgate has a dent and scratches, the tongue jack switches are broken and not working but I manage to reconnect the trailer to the hitch (the ball coupler is super hard to latch but did latch). We backup get parked, disconnect the truck and park it then I do a full damage assessment:
Tailgate dented but functional:
Tongue Jack Cover cracked but sealed up with duct tape to keep out dust and water, rocker switch for light shattered/destroyed, rocker switch for jack operation reconnected wires that came loose and now functional:
asphalt on street nicely gouged.
In the end no one was hurt and only some relatively minor damage to the truck and trailer.
My recommendation to anyone who considers using an aftermarket locking pin for your hitch is DON'T do it, especially if it is this one:
Here are my questions:
1. I obviously have to replace the L-pins that are bent, what about the rest of the WDH? Appearance wise it seems to be completely normal...
2. The ball coupler is now extremely hard to operate especially when latching... i.e. I had to use a hammer to get it off and back on to get the trailer out of the street. I assume it might need to be replaced?
3. Is there anything else I might need to check or repair that I am not thinking of?
Thanks
Today was a rough day... let me go back a couple days and set the stage for this story and my follow up questions. Last week 6/8 my wife and I picked up our brand new 2021 Imagine XLS 15FLE in Salt Lake City.
After picking it up we towed it to my sons house about 45 minutes to an hour away and everything went great. We spent the past five nights in front of his house setting things up doing some initial modifications (full time bed, micro air easy start on Air Conditioner, hitch lock, coupler lock, etc.) This morning we were supposed to head toward Phoenix Arizona to visit my wife's parents for a couple days.
This morning we got everything ready, packed all up and put away nice and neat... I hooked up the trailer to the WDH without issue. Since this was our first time doing this since we sold our last trailer about 9 years ago my wife and I walked through all the safety checks together:
- Hitch connected and pinned
- 7-way plugged in
- safety chain attached, trailer emergency disconnect attached
- Shore power cord secured
- Slide in
- compartments locked
- all lights functioning
I tap the brakes to slow down as we are approaching a stop sign and the trailer jerks and bounces... I stop short of the stop sign, put the truck in park, walk around and do a visual check, everything is looking ok...
I move up to the stop sign very slowly... ok everything seems good so far, start to pull away from the stop sign and decide to manually check the trailer brake using the hand control on the electric trailer brake. The truck and trailer shudder, there is a loud bang, a little more shaking as a brake and come to a stop. I get out to look and the tongue of the trailer is sitting on the ground still attached to the WDH! :-(
The WDH has pulled completely out of the receiver and is sitting on the ground, the tongue jack has smashed the tailgate denting and scratching it and breaking the toggle switches on the front of the jack. I chock the trailer, assess the tongue jack quickly and cant fix it, the pin for the WDH is nowhere to be found it either disintegrated or shot off to the side somewhere (at least I think, because I haven't been able to find it. One of the modifications I did was to replace the standard pin for the WDH with a locking pin conceptually to protect my $900 WDH from walking away, apparently that didn't work out so well.
So I dig through my boxes and find the original non-locking pin, manually jack up the trailer and remove the WDH so it can be reattached to the truck (with the original pin). When jacking up the trailer to remove the WDH (e-2) I notice the weight distribution/sway control bars are no longer on the bracket but instead are resting on the ground. When I pull the L-Pins I realize they have been completely bent allowing the bars to jump off.
Ok well no WD to go with the WDH for now at least it's only about 100 yards back to my parking spot in front of my son's house... The rest of the hitch looks good, the WDH bar appear fine, The tailgate has a dent and scratches, the tongue jack switches are broken and not working but I manage to reconnect the trailer to the hitch (the ball coupler is super hard to latch but did latch). We backup get parked, disconnect the truck and park it then I do a full damage assessment:
Tailgate dented but functional:
Tongue Jack Cover cracked but sealed up with duct tape to keep out dust and water, rocker switch for light shattered/destroyed, rocker switch for jack operation reconnected wires that came loose and now functional:
asphalt on street nicely gouged.
In the end no one was hurt and only some relatively minor damage to the truck and trailer.
My recommendation to anyone who considers using an aftermarket locking pin for your hitch is DON'T do it, especially if it is this one:
Here are my questions:
1. I obviously have to replace the L-pins that are bent, what about the rest of the WDH? Appearance wise it seems to be completely normal...
2. The ball coupler is now extremely hard to operate especially when latching... i.e. I had to use a hammer to get it off and back on to get the trailer out of the street. I assume it might need to be replaced?
3. Is there anything else I might need to check or repair that I am not thinking of?
Thanks
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