So I recently purchased a 3000# travel trailer. I picked it up yesterday hitched, unhitched, and then this morning I hitched again, went on a 200 mile drive then took it to storage. While I hitching I noticed that my hitch is bent at a weld point. Now I have been in this area a lot the last week and feel that I would have noticed something had it been there sooner. I took it to a collision center and they feel that someone either clipped my ball mount and drove off or the hitch failed and bent under the stress of towing a trailer.
Now with that said, a few weeks ago I used my jeep to pull some people out of the snow we had in Amarillo, Tx during the blizzard. I used a Bubba rope. Look it up, it's a giant bungee cord basically. Anyways, I used a hitch mounted d ring to pull from. I believe it may be possible while pulling people put the hitch got weakened, but it's suppose to be the strongest point on our jeeps.
The collision center hopes to have it fixed soon. It's being processed as a hit and run since there was also damage to my ball mount. (Just scrapes). But when they pull it off they will evaluate the hitch and see if they believe it was structural failure of the weld point. If so, I've got to fight jeep.
If it's failure I want to warn other people NOT to use your hitch as an anchor point of recovery. You've got to have some serious force to bend a hitch.
Oh and before people go all insurance fraud and whatnot on me, I have dashcam footage that did record an impact but the image doesn't go low enough to identify what caused the impact alert.
My guess would be they welded the 7/4 pin connector in place. But if it's a failure due to a bad weld I will be going after jeep for paying my deductible.
In my past I have abused many hitches towing and yanking people out with chains( not recommended anymore use a strap) and never bent a reciever. I highly doubt the bubba rope incident caused that. Even if your new trailer has a ridiculous tongue weight for its size I can't see it causing that, not off a 3-4000lb trailer anyways. If what I see is the hitch assembly tweaked sideways I suspect it maybe got clipped harder then you think. I would be curious if where it mounts to the frame is damaged. Or these are just wimpy hitches and that hit from the ball put some good sideways leverage due to the length and bent it.
I'm worried about the damage to the frame as well. But I won't know until they pull the bumper off. They are going forward as though it's a simple hitch replacement.
I doubt it was the bubba rope or trailer. That took a serious amount of force from the side to bend it like that. The trailer would have bent it down not to the side.
I agree that I don't think the bubba rope could have done this. I used to pull out stumps with an old pickup and never bent a hitch. And the trailer is so light that I don't think it could have caused this either. But I can't imagine the kind of force it would take to bend my hitch that far without leaving any signs that it had been hit. No metal scrape, no paint transfer, nothing. Like I said, my dash cam registered a hit but wasn't aimed low enough to catch it.
Len, good luck with the repair. On my 2000 Lexus LX470 I was rear ended a few years back and the trailer hitch took a straight on hit and it did not budge, but the bumper itself shifted forward around it several inches. I wonder if the hitch internal welds were not done correct from the factory. Hopefully the inspection of the insides will tell the story.
Yea, I didn't think the hitch should have budged. I personally think maybe someone hit it and the welds failed. But, if that's the case jeep still isn't going to cover it because it wouldn't have failed had the hitch not gotten hit in the first place.
The angle it is at is not a result of pulling somebody. Otherwise the force of the pull would have pulled out the receiver. No paint transfer says a plastic bumper that wasn't painted or steel bumper with no paint. Either way, that was a hit and run and I hope that the loser that did it has karma come back ten fold.
Because of what you are towing I do hope the entire hitch gets replaced regardless of any re weld they can do.
It would probably be easier, safer, and more cost effective in the long run.
I can see how it got bent with that ball hitch sticking out. It must have moved the entire vehicle.
Good luck and have fun with that camper.
When you yanked with the bubba rope were you pulling straight or at an angle? I have bent tow points before by not pulling straight, but for a hitch to bend it would most likely need to be more power than these vehicles can make.
I thought of that as well. In most *normal* pulls with both vehicules level with one another, especially with an elastic rope/strap, the *puller* vehicule will break traction and straighten out real fast if pulling at an angle, even on pavement. But if the vehicule you are pulling is lower and you are at an angle, lateral forces may become sufficient to bend metal as downforce prevents the tires from skidding sideways.
Trailer hitches are funny things. They are as strong as their rating when used for normal trailer "pulling" and "braking".
If they experience excessive side or downward force, they are surprisingly susceptible to damage. For example I have seen a simply bike rack with one too many bikes on it bend down a Class III hitch.
Regarding failure, most hitches will get all bend up and twisted but extremely rarely break or shear off. The failure point is almost always on the trailer side in my experience.
If the hitch was used to pull / jerk something and the object was 1,000 kg, you could have easily exerted many times that based on the momentum and angle.
Okay, to help clarify the pulling vehicles out situation. The weekend the hitch may have been weakened cause I don't think it was bent prior to a few days ago and my vehicle dash cam did in fact record an impact the other night. Anyways, I helped many vehicles simply by using my winch since many of the pulls were too long to use a snatch strap. But, in one instance I was trying to pull a big rig out of the median. Now before you criticize me understand that a lot of times they only need help getting going, once moving they can pull themselves out. Now with that said, he was in the median, he was loaded, it was the weekend of the blizzard here. The snow was blowing and roads where covered in snow and ice. That gives you an idea of traction conditions. I had to use my bubba rope and bubba extension. I took about a 15 foot run, in low range, starting in the median and my front tires could then reach the pavement. But once the bounce back occurred I was back in the median too. I tried to pull him out twice. I got him about 8 feet but I couldn't get him back towards the road. IF this is what weakened by hitch the only reason I feel it didn't straight out fail would be because of the design of the rope. It's a gentle tug not a jerk. Had I taken a 15 foot run on a chain or a strap it's likely I'd have ripped off the bumper and hitch since it was connected to a big rig. Now with that said, I don't feel that's what damaged my system. Because if that was the case there would be other signs of fatigue in the hitch, the pin point, my winch cradle, heck, my hitch pin should have sheared before I caused damage to the hitch. And the d ring I was using was only rated at 2 1/2 tons so it should have failed first cause the rope is rated to 28,500 lbs. Now I'm not against the idea that this may have weakened the hitch. But I'm fairly certain the impact the other night is what did the hitch in. I just wanted to let fellow KL people that use the hitch for recovery to be careful. It MAY not hold up to that kind of abuse.
Now with that said, I'd also like to point out that I haul a power chair with electric lift. That combined weighs close to 500lbs. The stress of 500lbs 7 feet back from the center of the rear axle could have stressed the hitch to its failure point combined with everything else. But the last straw was the vehicle hitting it.
It is hard to say. I guess the morale of all this is best not to use trailer hitches for anything aside from trailers. Tow hooks are best if you have them. That said I have done waaaaay worse trust me.
Regarding the 15 foot run, that could have been it. 15 feet, at 10 mph + a couple thousand lbs not straight on the hitch (i.e. at an angle), certainly could have caused damage. Keep in mind a hitch will completely bend and twist up far before every breaking off.
Even after this, I'll still use the hitch for my winch mount. I just won't yank someone out with it. I try to only do straight line pulls or gently pull people out. But I knew, with a big rig, I was gonna have to go all out with it if I had any chance of getting him back on the road. In the past fellow jeepers have strapped 3 or 4 jeeps together to pull out one big rig. I had I hopes.
3,000lb trailer (4,000lbs 'cuz everybody underestimates.... is not going to cause any kind of damage to a Class-III. Not even 5,000. Maybe 8,000 if you are going 60Mph over speed bumps... No way that any kind of strap is going to be able to transfer enough force to cause damage.
However... The hitch's primary mechanical construction is vertical and longitudinal. If somebody smacked into the hitch form the side, I could see it potentially breaking the weld, but I'd expect a lot more surrounding damage for the amount of force needed.
Shorter version: looks like a crappy weld to begin with.
I actually tow a 3000lbs trailer. All the documentation is 3000lbs and the axle is only rated and the tires are only rated for 3500lbs. If my trailer ever weighed 4000lbs it likely wouldn't last long before the bearings or the tires gave out.
Oddly enough however there is no other apparent signs of damage other than the broken welds and the hitch no longer lining up properly. But when they remove the bumper and hitch we will know more.
So I'm at the collision center. They took the hitch and bumper off. The damage is isolated to JUST the hitch. The mounting points are sound, the tow hook is sound. The hitch is bent AND twisted. It doesn't sit on the floor flat anymore. In addition they ordered the wrong hitch. They got a non TrailHawk hitch and blamed it on my vin not having a tow package attached when that simply isn't the case. So now they are scrambling to find me a hitch at a dealer somewhere because I'm waiting on them to replace it. However the non TrailHawk hitch fits without any problems so there isn't any structural damage. They just have the wrong part.
Alright, the hitch has been replaced. I took the hitch to my local Jeep dealer to have the hitch looked at. After getting a good look at the hitch the metal where the 7 pin plug goes through the hitch buckled. Jeep said they will have there rep look at it and make a decision. If they agree that it was hitch failure I will be paid back everything I paid to have the hitch replaced.
As much as this is a crappy situation for you, I hope this is a 1 off problem and not a manufacturing defect that'll affect all factory towing optioned KL's...Last thing we need is another problem popping up.
Initially they tried to tell me I violated the weight distribution hitch requirement but after pointing out that in the owners manual it states it MUST be used on trailers with a GVRW of 3500 or more. My trailers MAX weight is only 3500lbs. Empty it weighs 3000 so THAT shouldn't have been the problem. I do however feel that the trailer hookup location is a bad design. It should have been welding to the outside of the tubing, not through the tubing because all the damage was isolated in that one location. The rest of the body, tow hook, and frame was just fine. The only thing that failed was the hitch at the weak point. I too however agree that I hope this is a single case of hitch failure and not seen as a recall because that would be a huge headache.
Alright, just left the dealer. Initial thoughts with the engineer is the welds on the hitch failed and not from exceeding its ability. The welds appear to have failed and twisted the hitch. With that said I'm still waiting on the final decision and reimbursement. But so far it can been unofficially confirmed by an FCA engineer that the hitch failed. So I really hope this is a one off failure and not recall worthy.
I have bad news for those following this thread. First off I want to say that my experience thus far has been nothing but exemplary. From my service advisor to the SRT team engineer, to Chrysler. So they have agreed it was a failure caused by a quality control problem. This has been verified by several engineers. Now they are investigating who installed the hitch (which department) and who actually built the hitch. My TH was assembled in Toledo. They have narrowed it down to either paint and body or accessories. They are checking other TH's built during the same time for quality control. While this MAY not initiate a full recall it may at least put out a service bulletin for when your TH is brought in to have the tech inspect it for failure or stress cracks in the welds. Like I said, bad news. But I am VERY impressed with the team handling the situation. They have been nothing but professional. Also, it helps that my dealer has an engineering team based out of there dealership. I personally think THAT has made the difference because they didn't have to fly a tech out or something like that. Just a heads up. My service advisor wasn't happy to hear that I posted in online but I did tell him I wasn't bad mouthing the dealer or FCA.
Excellent update. While not the best news, I like the direction this is heading.
They could have easily set this aside as a one-off event, instead of investigating it.
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