I am having excessive vibration when towing a trailer at speeds from 85 to 95. The vibration only happens when towing. The ford dealership has swapped out tires on both the truck and trailer, as well as tried towing with other new trucks on the lot - the dealer says it's my trailer. My neighbour's chev truck tows this trailer just fine with no vibration at any speed - I stumped to figure why this is happending on my 2006 F350 ford truck.

 

What about having the driveshaft balanced? How many miles are on the truck, what size tires, what kind of tires.... need more info.

Why are you even towing a trailer at those speeds anyways?

 

UMMMMMM SLOW DOWN TO THE SPEED LIMIT!

 

I was using km/hr (Canadian, eh). The speeds are 50 to 60 mph. Usually I'd cruise at these speeds on the highway towing the horse in the trailer. So it's right at cruising speed that why it is crappy. The truck has 47,000 km (about 30,000 miles), and the tires are 18". The dealership tried new tires on the truck, balanced the tires, balanced the tires on the trailer. They think it's the trailer, I think it's the truck. The steering wheel vibrates, so I don't know how a trailer could cause that much vibration.

 

I've towed alot in my life, and have had some mis-fortunes broken hitches, blown tires, broken u-joints. if you are feeling the vibration in the steering wheel chances are it's in the front end,If you feel it in the seat it's in the drive line or rear end. how much tongue weight do you have if the front end unloads( more weight to the back of the truck) your front end will be lite allowing the tires to not fully contact the road for a complete contact patch of tread, I'd check front alignment, ball joints, warped rotors( usually you feel warped rotors when you hit the breaks) tie rod ends or a worn idler arm. if it is possible to transfer some weight back in the trailer towards the rear just to see how much of a differance it makes or try another trailer barrow one from a friend or somthing?. I had a very annoying problem in my dodge 4x4 when I towed my boat, that thing would shake and shudder at 55/60 I did all of the obviouse things checked my front end had it checked at my buddies shop all was good?? then this old guy told me to move my boat back on the trailer and put about 200lbs on the tongue. no more shack rattle or roll. I moved the boat about 3in. back on the trailer?? maybe this will work ?? good luck.

 

Trailer setup is very important, how heavy is this trailer fully loaded?

Sounds more like a front end issue in the truck though like doin my own 6.0 said.

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm towing a horse so, can't move anything back. I have about 250 pounds of tongue weight. I'll try putting weight in the box to see if this fixes the problem. The vibration is mostly in the steering wheel, although the whole truck vibrates to a degree. No vibration without a load.

 

I've seen this allot on short box pickup trucks, but your description doesn't state bed size.

I would guess too much tongue weight. Those hay burners are heavy.
You may want to get a equalizer hitch so that you can push down on the Front of the truck. It is also very important to have the correct ball height and a proper nose slightly down on the trailer when loaded.

 

equalizer hitches are great they level the load on the truck and help with the fish tailing that you can get from an improperly set up trailer. maybe you can get ol' bessy to step to the rear some time to see if it helps.... air springs or load levelers work too. find a heavy duty bathroom scale and weigh your tongue weight with the trailer at average load. like I said earlier about 200# is a good starting point? leverage is a funny thing watch what happens when you hit a bump, the truck will bounce, then the trailer will bounce, then the truck will bounce and surge, all of the trucks weight and the trailers weight will be concentrated on that poor little hitch ball, makes you stop to think.......boy I hope it don't break... good luck.