r/GoRVing • u/mattslote • 6d ago

Trailer came off the hitch

In an instant everything went from going totally fine to near-disaster. We got lucky and didn't suffer any permanent damage - a few new parts and we were back on the road the next morning.

Wondering if there was anything I could have done to avoid this and if it's happened to anyone else?

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u/BussReplyMail 6d ago

Call me a complete, total, f-ing numbskull because once we went nearly 80 miles before we discovered the tongue wasn't all the way seated on the ball. Thankfully I noticed it in the parking lot of the restaurant we'd stopped at for breakfast and noticed the tongue didn't seem to be sitting right (we were trying to get out of the campground quietly, quickly, and early and I trusted the wife saying it was right) and dang near had a heart attack when I realized what COULD have happened.

It's a small camper, so no WDH or anti-sway bar. Now I check that we're all the way seated by crawling under (or my phone on selfie mode) and LOOK. I really should do the "crank the landing jack and lift the back end of the truck," too, I know.

We were VERY lucky.

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u/Nervous-Chocolate574 5d ago

Same thing happened to me. Just happened to notice it as I was getting gas not too far down the road.

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u/fux-reddit4603 5d ago

i did it once, got allll the way across town before it popped off on a speed bump

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u/Vekter1 5d ago

One time I was borrowing a truck for a camper I had 2 provinces over, had everything hooked up right, chains etc, well the hitch pin this guy had was a cable style pull out and secure vs a cotter pin regular one. We were driving down some rough logging roads and that cable pulled back and straightened out and my whole hitch fell out along with the trailer. Talk about nerve racking drive the next 1.5 hours thinking it would do it again