From the ground, the 171 sits 19.5" i the front, and 19" in the rear, so when towing it is pretty level.

However, I noticed sway I had not experienced before cruising at 60 to 65 max on the highway with trucks and even vehicles passing me. I did not have my sway control on, as in the last several FL trips, I didn't seam to need it.

I was wondering if my sway was caused by the conditions I just never experienced before or if maybe I should bring my ball down a bit to give the front more of a dip.

Thoughts?

Note: I was also running WDH, which was not very tight, just to help with dips and stuff.

We will see how that goes before dropping the ball.  

I run 60lbs in my tires. I have the 2018 with 15" wheels.

One issue with wd hitches is that they reduce the load on the rear axle of the TV by moving it to the front axle and to the trailer axle. To the extent that our rPod axles are, shall we say to be polite, not over-engineered for the application, you may want to either forego use of or or minimize the tension on your wd hitch springs to help reduce the rear axle load. This assumes your TV is robust enough to handle it. 

First are the trailer frame rails. Consider that the trailer structure is basically two single ended cantilever beams supported at one end by the hitch and by the trailer axle inboard from the other end. The loading on these beams is more or less uniform along their length without the wd hitch load. By tensioning the wd hitch I am adding a point load 2.5 ft in from the hitch end. This load combination creates a max bending stress on the rails somewhere near where the tongue is welded to the main frame rails under the front of the trailer box. On my 179 at 1200 lbs tension on the wd hitch and a fully loaded trailer I am increasing the max bending stress on the frame rails by about 80% at that point. 

So, is this additional frame loading a problem or not? I'm not a vehicle design engineer and am not interested in picking up any liability for taking a position on that.  I will only say that taking a quick look on line at the g load factors typically used in vehicle frame design and checking the section properties of the rPod frame rails (which on my 179 are 0.1 in thick 4x2 box tubes) I wouldn't want to drive around very much with 1200 lbs tension on my hitch. 

Second is the receiver hitch. Think of the wd hitch as the equivalent of a really strong guy shoving a big breaker bar into the receiver and rotating it to push the front wheels down into the pavement. There is a giant moment (torque) being applied at the receiver (3000 ft-lbs on my hitch at 1200 lbs tension). What could possibly go wrong? If you don't have a hitch rated for wd use here's what can happen. And no, that's not my Highlander. So, be sure your hitch (and its attachment to your TV) is rated for wd use. This one wasn't. 

Oh, I like that rule.

In parts of Washington, slow turn-outs are enforced for vehicles with 5+ vehicles behind them. With people driving as if the 5mph-over rule is real, it can prove for some stressful times. I just remind myself that, if I'm going the speed limit, I'm not a slow vehicle.

All of these forces are foreseeable for the designers of each component and each component designer must anticipate the use of the other's product.  Thus, they have to take the twisting and bending loads into account and adequately design for them and/or advise the users of the load limits and dangers.  In most states, product liability rules require designers to factor in not only foreseeable uses but also misuses that pose a risk of injury.  In other words, if a receiver, such as the one in the pictured Toyota Highlander that appears to have been damaged by torsional loading of a WDH, is not capable of sustaining such loads, Toyota has the duty to warn of the load limits or advise against the use of a WDH.

For example, I bought our Pod from a dealer who sold us both the trailer and a WDH and installed the hitch to our Dakota receiver.  That dealer, is responsible for making sure that the receiver, the trailer, and the WDH all are within design limits and if I got killed as a result of the incompatibility of the three components, he's got to pay the fair market value of my continued existence on this planet to my survivors.  Though it wouldn't do me much good, my survivors would relish in receiving the $7.99 of value my life had, less, of course, attorneys fees and costs of litigation.  

I would say that if you're driving the speed limit with vehicles following you, you might not be speeding, but you are a slow vehicle.

Washington law defines a slow vehicle as one "... which is proceeding at a rate of speed less than the normal flow of traffic at the particular time and place."  It doesn't say less than the speed limit.

Aside from the law though, I think it's uncommon courtesy to just pull over and let people by, whether you're pulling your Pod or driving your Maserati.

First, its really very easy to get a tongue weight of 600 plus lbs on a 179. Dual batteries, dual propane tanks, and a full fresh water tank does it. Lots of folks on this forum have those mods. 

As for the slightly off topic issue about pulling over for faster traffic, as a matter of common courtesy (referred to as "uncommon courtesy" by poston, likely because not enough people do it) pull over and let people pass no matter what your speed is relative to the speed limit.  It lessens the tension in your neck muscles (that have the same principles of physics that offgrid so eloquently explained) and you'll feel a lot better not to mention will reduce your chances of being involved in a road-rage incident.

I am a newbie just got our 179 in August of 2018 and we live in Michigan and have set up the trailer the way we want too.  We are planning on getting out of this snow to warmer climates (Florida and New Mexico).  With all that said I finally got around to having the rig weighted yesterday and have a question even after reading most the posts on the forum concerning tongue weight.  I am pulling the r-pod with a 03 Jeep Grand Cherokee no problem there with the gross weight of the rig.  I am not using a wdh and have a tongue weight of 450 lbs, finding that weight by weighing the tv without anything hooked up to it then attaching the tt to the tv and weighing just the tv axels (2) and the difference is the tongue weight.  Got that.  Then I pulled the tv and tt on the scale (all 3 axels) and found out when I subtracted the tv's weight from the total rig I found out that I was just over the axel rating of 3500 lbs.  Also impacting the weight is when I weighted the rig I had snow load on top of the r-pod, guessing that load to be about 200 lbs and taking that load away from the gross weight of the rig gives me a little breathing room.  And yes we treat our r-pod very poorly in Michigan, allowing the snow to accumulate on the roof.

Here's my question to calculate the tt axel load do you subtract the tongue weight and tv weight from the gross rig weight to determine the load on the axel of the tt??  That would seem to be logical to me, but what do I know.  That's the reason for the question.  Any help would be appreciated and I have load range D tires so that should not be a problem.

Thanks in advance

Jay

With no wdh the rig doesn't really need to be totally level. If you were using a wdh then if the rig wasn't on a completely flat surface the tension on the wdh would create some errors. But with no wdh the total error won't be more than 2x the scale accuracy, which is usually +-20 lbs or so. If you're worried about being off by at most 40 lbs then you're too close to the limits anyway

Thanks all the light bulb came on when I thought that I had to subtract the tongue weight with the tv's weight to get the trailer's axel weight.  Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something.  I do have enough breathing room on the trailer's axel weight to enjoy our trip coming up next week.  Thanks again furpod and offgrid.