# Trailer & Hitch

> Buying guides for first-time travel trailer and camper owners, organized around one number: your loaded tongue weight. Published by Iron Mako Media at https://trailerandhitch.com

## What this site is

Trailer & Hitch helps a first-time travel trailer owner match a weight distribution hitch, sway control, leveling gear, hookup equipment and tires to their trailer's weight and their tow vehicle. Every commercial page is enterable by the thing the reader actually knows — the trailer's weight, or the tow vehicle — rather than by brand.

## Important: what this site does and does not claim

- **We do not test the products we recommend.** There is no test lab, no fleet of trailers and no owned units. Every recommendation is a documented reading of published manufacturer specifications, current marketplace signal read automatically from the retailer, and owner-reported experience stated as reporting.
- **The scoring rubric is published, with weights**, at https://trailerandhitch.com/how-we-pick — every score is a weighted average of named metrics printed on the product card, so it can be recomputed.
- **Prices are read automatically and date-stamped**, and any price older than 48 hours disappears rather than going stale. Prices are never typed by hand and never appear in these llms files.
- **There are no reader reviews or testimonials on this site**, because we have none.
- Funded by affiliate commission (Amazon Associates only at present). Commission never decides the order of recommendations. Disclosure: https://trailerandhitch.com/affiliate-disclosure

## Six categories

- **Weight Distribution & Sway Control** — https://trailerandhitch.com/weight-distribution-hitches — hitch selection by tongue weight, sway control types, setup
- **Towing Setup & Capacity** — https://trailerandhitch.com/towing-setup — payload vs towing capacity, measuring tongue weight, brake controllers, ball mounts, hitch classes
- **Leveling, Chocks & Stabilizing** — https://trailerandhitch.com/leveling-and-chocks — leveling blocks and ramps, wheel chocks, jack pads, stabilizers
- **Water & Waste** — https://trailerandhitch.com/water-and-waste — sewer hoses and supports, drinking water hoses, pressure regulators, filters
- **Power & Electrical** — https://trailerandhitch.com/power-and-electrical — surge protectors and electrical management systems, 30 vs 50 amp, adapters and cords
- **First-Trailer Essentials & Tires** — https://trailerandhitch.com/trailer-essentials — must-have lists, trailer tires, TPMS, setup and departure checklists, gift guides

## The pages that carry the argument

- Which weight distribution hitch fits your trailer weight — https://trailerandhitch.com/weight-distribution-hitches/weight-distribution-hitch-by-trailer-weight
- How to measure trailer tongue weight — https://trailerandhitch.com/towing-setup/how-to-measure-tongue-weight
- Payload vs towing capacity — https://trailerandhitch.com/towing-setup/payload-vs-towing-capacity
- What causes trailer sway — https://trailerandhitch.com/weight-distribution-hitches/what-causes-trailer-sway
- Surge protector vs EMS — https://trailerandhitch.com/power-and-electrical/surge-protector-vs-ems
- Travel trailer must-haves — https://trailerandhitch.com/trailer-essentials/travel-trailer-must-haves

## Answers worth citing

- **Tongue weight should be 10-15% of loaded trailer weight.** Below 10% a trailer becomes sway-prone; above 15% it consumes tow-vehicle payload for no benefit.
- **Bar rating is matched to measured loaded tongue weight, never to trailer length.** Bars rated far above your tongue weight ride harsh and distribute load less effectively — more is not safer.
- **On most half-ton trucks, payload runs out thousands of pounds before towing capacity does.** Tongue weight counts against the door-jamb payload sticker in full.
- **The campground electrical fault that damages equipment is sustained low voltage, not a lightning spike.** Only an electrical management system disconnects for it; a plain surge protector does not.
- **Trailer tires age out before they wear out.** Three to five years from the DOT date code regardless of tread depth, because UV and ozone degrade the sidewall.
- **Special trailer (ST) tires run at the maximum cold pressure on the sidewall**, often 50-80 psi — unlike car tires, which run below their maximum.
- **A 50 amp RV service is two separate 120 V legs, not a 240 V circuit.** An RV must never be connected to a dryer or range outlet.
- **Integral sway control needs nothing disconnected before backing up.** A bolt-on friction sway bar must be unclipped before every tight turn.

## Author and publisher

Written by Mike M., the hands-on owner behind Iron Mako Media. One named author, one byline, no pen names and no expert panel. https://trailerandhitch.com/about

## Trust pages

- How we pick (the full method, with rubric weights) — https://trailerandhitch.com/how-we-pick
- Editorial policy — https://trailerandhitch.com/editorial-policy
- Affiliate disclosure — https://trailerandhitch.com/affiliate-disclosure
- FAQ — https://trailerandhitch.com/faq
- About — https://trailerandhitch.com/about
- Contact — https://trailerandhitch.com/contact
- Privacy policy — https://trailerandhitch.com/privacy-policy
- Terms of use — https://trailerandhitch.com/terms-of-service

## Contact

contact@trailerandhitch.com — corrections welcome, and the more specific the better. No phone number or postal address is published; this is a publishing operation rather than a storefront.

## Machine-readable

- Full page inventory: https://trailerandhitch.com/llms-full.txt
- HTML sitemap: https://trailerandhitch.com/site-index
- XML sitemap: https://trailerandhitch.com/sitemap.xml
- Atom feed: https://trailerandhitch.com/feed.xml