Set up a weight distribution hitch

When a heavy van is hitched to the back of a tow vehicle, all that weight pressing down on the coupling tends to push the rear of the tow vehicle down and lift the front. As the front lifts, the steering goes light, the headlights point at the trees, and the rig is more likely to wander or sway. A weight distribution hitch is the gear that takes some of that coupling weight and spreads it back across the front of the tow vehicle and the trailer’s own axles, so the vehicle sits more level and steers more like it did unhitched. Not every rig needs one, and loadmate does not need one either. A weight distribution hitch is optional, and it lives on the trailer. If you do not use one, you can skip this page entirely — the rest of your trailer setup is unaffected, and nothing here is missing from your checklist. This page is for when you do have one, and want loadmate’s Rig Score to account for the weight it moves around.

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Do you need a weight distribution hitch?

This is a decision for your hardware, not for loadmate. The honest answer lives in two documents you already own: your tow vehicle’s owner manual and your coupling or hitch instructions. Both usually state, in plain terms, the coupling weight above which a weight distribution hitch is recommended or required. As a rough guide, these setups commonly benefit from one:

• A heavy caravan or large trailer where the weight pressing down on the coupling is a big share of what the tow vehicle is rated to carry.
• A tow vehicle that visibly squats at the rear, or whose steering feels light, once the van is hitched.
• Any setup where your vehicle or coupling manual names a weight distribution hitch as recommended or mandatory.

And these usually do not:

• A small, light trailer — a box trailer, a tinny on a single axle, a light camper.
• Any setup your manual says should not use one. Some vehicles and some couplings are not compatible with weight distribution gear, and fitting it anyway can do harm.

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Where to find the settings

A weight distribution hitch is configured on the trailer it belongs to, and it only does anything while that trailer is hitched to your tow vehicle. You reach the settings from the trailer:

• Open the trailer profile and use the WDH card or quick link.
• Or, on the Rig tab, tap the WDH badge on the hitch point card to open its detail sheet, then choose Edit settings.

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Choose your mode

The very first choice on the screen is the calculation mode, and it matters because the two modes describe two genuinely different kinds of hardware. Pick the one that matches the gear you actually own. The screen reminds you which is which: Spring bars for chain-link systems. FALR for hydraulic or percentage-based WDH setups.

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Spring bars

Choose Spring bars if your hitch is the traditional kind: steel bars (often called spring bars or load bars), chains or brackets, and a tension setting you adjust when you hitch up. This is the most common type in Australia and the UK. In this mode loadmate works the effect out from the numbers printed on your gear and setup sheet:

• Bar rating — the minimum and maximum coupling weight your bars are rated for. There are two boxes, a low and a high figure.
• Bar length — how long the bars are. This one is always entered in inches, even if everything else on your screen is in kilograms or pounds, because spring bars are sold and labelled by inch length the world over. Type the inch number from the bar; loadmate does not convert it.
• Applied tension — a slider for how tight you have wound the setup, from loose to firm. Set it to roughly where you actually run it.

A worked example: say your bars are rated 360–540 kg, they are 30 inches long, and you run the tension around the middle. loadmate takes those numbers, works out how much load the bars are moving, and shows you the result in the Effect Preview lower down. You are not doing any maths — you are just describing the gear you have.

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FALR

Choose FALR if your hitch does not have a tension knob to read off — typically a hydraulic weight distribution hitch, or any setup where your fitter or weighbridge gives you a percentage rather than a tension setting. This is the default loadmate offers US users on first setup, and the right choice for hydraulic systems anywhere. FALR stands for Front Axle Load Restoration. That is exactly what it measures: the share of the front-axle weight your vehicle lost when the van was hitched that the hitch is set up to put back. A FALR of 70% aims to restore about 70% of the front-axle weight the coupling took off. FALR works from two things:

• The restoration percentage — a slider, marked Recommended: 50–100%. Set it to the figure from your fitter, your hitch maker, or your own wheel-arch or weighbridge measurement.
• The coupling weight — the weight pressing down on the tow ball, which loadmate already holds for your trailer. Depending on your region this is shown as tow ball mass (AU), nose weight (UK), or tongue weight (US). The form shows where that number came from, with a small label such as Weighed or a manufacturer source.

A worked example: your coupling weight is recorded as 160 kg, and your fitter set the hitch to restore 70% of the lost front-axle load. You select FALR, confirm the 160 kg is correct, and slide to 70%. loadmate restores about 70% of the front-axle weight that 160 kg took off, and shows the result in the Effect Preview.

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Enter the hardware weight

Both modes ask for the hardware weight: how much the weight distribution gear itself weighs, sitting on the trailer’s A-frame. This matters because that gear adds to the trailer’s total weight whether or not the hitch is doing its job — so recording it keeps your trailer’s loaded figures honest. WDH product labels often print this with a decimal, like 31.5 kg, so type the number exactly as shown rather than rounding it. loadmate accepts the decimal.

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Read the Effect Preview before you save

As you enter your values, a live Effect Preview updates at the bottom of the screen. It is a plain-language picture of what your settings will do, shown before you commit anything. Three rows tell the story:

• Front Axle — how much weight is put back onto the tow vehicle’s front axle (shown with a +). This is the weight that brings your steering back.
• Rear Axle — how much weight is taken off the tow vehicle’s rear axle (shown with a −). This is the squat the hitch relieves.
• Trailer Axle Group — how much weight is shifted onto the trailer’s own axles (shown with a +).

The numbers are in your own units — kilograms, or pounds for US users.

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Save, and review the rig

When the figures match your gear, tap Save WDH Settings. loadmate stores your configuration on the trailer. In FALR mode it also stores the exact coupling weight the calculation was based on, so it can tell later whether the setup still matches the way the trailer is loaded. After you save, open the Rig tab. The Rig Score recalculates the next time you view it, so the score and compliance numbers reflect the weight your hitch redistributes. When a saved weight distribution hitch is active and the trailer is hitched, a WDH badge appears on the hitch point card, showing the current mode at a glance. To see how this feeds the overall number, read What is the Rig Score.

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When loadmate flags that your setup has drifted

A FALR setup is built on one particular coupling weight. If you later load the van differently and that weight moves a long way — loadmate watches for a shift of more than about 10% from the figure FALR was saved against — your hitch is no longer tuned for how the van sits now. When that happens, loadmate raises a WDH tongue weight changed item in the Rig attention list. This is FALR-mode only; spring-bar setups are not watched this way, because they do not pin themselves to a single coupling weight. Open the item, check your current coupling weight, and save the FALR settings again with the up-to-date figure.

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Changing or removing it later

To change a saved setup, reopen the WDH settings from the trailer profile or the Rig detail sheet, edit the values, and save again. The Rig Score updates the next time you open the Rig tab. To take the hitch out of the picture entirely, use Remove WDH from the trailer profile or the Rig detail sheet. Removal applies straight away, with a short undo option — so an accidental tap is recoverable for a few seconds. Saving or removing a hitch on your own rig both require Pro.

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Where to go next