Turning point hitch for Reflection 150 series

[mossrun1]

We recently bought a new lightweight Reflection 150 series. It has a unique turning point hitch that pivots at the at the trailer allowing for 90 degree turns. But people need to check to make sure they are installed properly. Lippert has a great UTube video. At first, the dealer did not have it set up to pivot. It only turned at the hitch in back of truck. Then we noticed a lot of popping and dramatic shifting on turning. It happens that the wedge plate was not in the correct position. Had we not watched the Lippert UTube video, we possibly would not have known anything was wrong.

[manofslip]

Agreed, So far I really like the Turning point..Only if it is set up correctly. I do not think the technicians at the dealerships really care for these. If your rig is set up for this they need to convert it back to a fixed king pin so they can move the rig since they do not use this set up to move 5th wheels. The first time they set it up it was ok. The 2nd time they did not. The hitch was at an angle to the king pin when they set it up which did not allow the wedge plate to seat properly. I did not notice this and had a devil of time trying to back up the 5th wheel due to the play with the wedge block. Loosen the wedge block, hammer it into place and torqued it down and it fixed the issue.

I saw a video for a sliding hitch system which was trying to find fault with this type of hitch set up. They indicated that you would have sway issues. So far I have not. The weight is still on the axle of the truck which helps the sway. So far so good with my set up. I just back from a 550 mile round trip with no issues. I will have a longer trip this summer. As an added bonus you can push the king pin under the camper to keep it out of the way at the camp site.

[backtrack2015]

Agreed, So far I really like the Turning point..Only if it is set up correctly. I do not think the technicians at the dealerships really care for these. If your rig is set up for this they need to convert it back to a fixed king pin so they can move the rig since they do not use this set up to move 5th wheels. The first time they set it up it was ok. The 2nd time they did not. The hitch was at an angle to the king pin when they set it up which did not allow the wedge plate to seat properly. I did not notice this and had a devil of time trying to back up the 5th wheel due to the play with the wedge block. Loosen the wedge block, hammer it into place and torqued it down and it fixed the issue.

I saw a video for a sliding hitch system which was trying to find fault with this type of hitch set up. They indicated that you would have sway issues. So far I have not. The weight is still on the axle of the truck which helps the sway. So far so good with my set up. I just back from a 550 mile round trip with no issues. I will have a longer trip this summer. As an added bonus you can push the king pin under the camper to keep it out of the way at the camp site.

I saw that video too. It is true that the turning-point style pin-box won't be quite as sway-resistant as a normal fifth-wheel hitch (because the pivot point is behind the axle instead of right over it). That being said, it should be far nicer than having the pivot point 5 feet behind the axle as with a traditional travel-trailer hitch.

[MarkRizRV]

In the first year of having the Reflection 230RL set to swivel I have not experienced any Sway and that was with my previous TV 2016 F150 Supercab. It was much better than towing a Imagine 2150RB with Blue Ox Sway Pro.
Mark

[manofslip]

The main reason I switched to a fifth wheel because my last travel trailer was horrible to tow. The sway was very bad. I could feel a sports car passing me it was that bad. All of my previous travel trailers never had an issue. I spent 2 years trying to make that travel trailer safe to tow. I decided to stop throwing money at the problem. In the end I think the problems were attributed to 1) low tongue weight (#1 Issue in my mind) 2) Crappy tires with sidewalls that flexed very badly. 3) The weight distribution was a Dual Cam and it seems I could never hit the sweet spot. It did worked flawlessly with my the travel trailer before this last one.

I am not sure you have seen the video with that demonstrates sway on a trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2fkOVHAC8Q. This shows how much an effect weight has with trailer sway. I am convinced that weight is the biggest factor. With my last travel trailer the tongue weight from the factory was less than 10% of the trailer weight out of the factory. I had the tongue weight measured after the trailer was loaded. It still was way below 10%. So when you add weight distribution you only remove more of that weight off of the hitch. This forces the weight to the front of the tow vehicle and the back of the trailer. In the video you can see the effect of adding weight to the back of the trailer. The max weight for that trailer was 7500 pounds. Actual weight around 7000. The tongue weight normal load was 600. So I would have had to add over 100 pounds to the front of the camper get over that 10% weight point. It was crazy. The travel trailer I did not have any issues with had a hitch weight over 800 pounds out of the factory. The max weight weight was similar.

Some factors why 5th wheels are so much better are:
1) Pin weight is 15% to 20% of the trailer weight.
2) The pin weight is on or in front of the axle of the tow vehicle. There is no need for weight distribution.

I am not sure how much an effect moving the pivot point back with the Turning point hitch causes. It certainly is not as big a factor as tongue weight has.

I hope this food for thought helps someone.

[backtrack2015]

@manofslip: I definitely agree that the location of the center-of-mass is critical for trailer stability. I've seen that video many times, and actually tried very hard to convince my son to repeat it (but as an experiment) using a fifth-wheel geometry for his school science project this year. I was really curious what we would find as the minimum stable pin-weight %. He was not enthusiastic.

I was actually trying to explain the pivot point issue to my daughter a few weeks back. The best I could do for her was to use my arm. I held it straight out in front of me and had her attempt to push it side-to-side. That was easy for her. Then I had her do it again but by pushing on my shoulder. She didn't get it to move. Certainly it was much easier for my arm/shoulder to resist her attempted sway when the coupling length was short or non-existent.