Wheelbase and trailer length
People toss around 2 guidelines that have been discussed many times on these RV boards.
One is a table for travel trailers that considers trailer length. Since you asked, I have a problem with this table because its not about the length of TrailManors, its about the length of travel trailers which have a high center of gravity and lots of sail area. There's nothing nice about what happens to you as the pressure wave around the front of a fast moving large vehicle overtakes you in the next lane while you're towing a large travel trailer. Towing is so much better with a folded trailer that the table doesn't do us justice. In other words, I'd much rather be towing a big TrailManor than a small full height travel trailer, whereas that table tells us in black and white that the reverse is true. Therefore, that table is a few feet short of a proper yardstick.
The other guideline is based on a very simple ratio, stating that the distance from the hitch ball to the trailer axle should be no more than twice the vehicle wheelbase. I measured this distance once on a TM 3023 and got 180 inches, for example, which would place your Highlander comfortably within this standard. I didn't measure the 3124, but it's probably less than a foot longer, and therefore also presumably within the standard.
Neither standard considers the very important but often unappreciated concept of "overhang", the distance between the rear axle of the tow vehicle and the hitch ball. This distance is the length of the lever arm that your trailer can use to yank or pry your tow vehicle into different directions than the one you were planning while it's trying to use the tongue weight to lift the front wheels off the ground. Shorter is better (the Highlander isn't bad), longer is worse (some of the extended minivans and pickups for example). Of course, best of all would be the fifth wheel rigs, which is a big reason they are so much more stable than standard travel trailers (but then, what can go down the highway at 60mph that isn't more stable than standard travel trailers?) (maybe those modular house segments...). I suspect that the real standard we're looking for has a lot to do with the ratio between the wheelbase and the overhang (maybe somebody's got one more towing table for us).
Here are some more guidelines:
- Read and follow the owners manual guidelines about towing.
- Buy a heavier receiver and hitch than the one that meets minimum specs.
- Don't overload any of the elements (hitch, tow vehicle, tongue weight, and trailer).
- Use a good brake controller (Prodigy, for example) that's properly adjusted.
- Drive conservatively. It's not how fast you can go in one of these things that counts, it's how fast you can stop.
So the short answer is that you should be able to have the 3124 within all of these if you work through the details.
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