Has anyone ever bent or broken a receiver hitch?

Discussion in 'General Tow Rig Discussion' started by Divorced, Feb 13, 2006.

  1. Divorced

    Divorced Well-Known Member

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    Has anyone ever bent or broken a receiver hitch or a ball mount when towing? Or bent the frame of a truck where the hitch mounts? I've seen them bend/break when trying to pull a truck from the mud, but never from towing anything. Does anyone have any horror stories?
     
  2. jalewis

    jalewis Well-Known Member

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    We've had a ball mount start to bend, from towing with it. They trailer weighed in at around 5k, and the ball mount was probably rated for 6. We ended up getting a forged 10K mount, with a 10K ball.

    We now have a couple of ball mounts, including a Rapid Hitch(10K and 1.5K tongue), and another aluminum mount that has a 13K capacity and a 2K tongue weight rating. We have a gooseneck 30K ball on it.

    But, we caught the bending in time, that we never had any problems.
     
  3. BurnedBronco

    BurnedBronco Well-Known Member

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    seen plenty of bent up rear plates on 2 ton dumptrucks where the pintle attaches to. usually happens from hired laborers when they jacknife the trailer. had to beat several back into place, weld, gusset and plate.
     
  4. 1999GMC

    1999GMC Well-Known Member

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    I have a 6.5'X10' untitly trailer. I had 300 dogear fence boards, 15 posts, 32 2"X4", and 25 50# bags of concrete. Pulled out of Home Depot parking lot and heard a loud pop and felt it also in the back of my Suburban. Got out expecting to have the trailer broken some where. Everything looked good. Drove to my buddies house(was picking the stuff up for him). Dropped everything off. No problem. A week later I was going to tow a 28 foot towhauler so I decided to take a good look at my hitch set-up. Glad I did that pop was the left side of the hitch breaking a 1 of the 3 bolts on that side. The hitch dropped about quarter of an inch on that side. So I replaced the hitch the next day.
     
  5. RJF's Red Cummins

    RJF's Red Cummins TRC Staff Moderator

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    Thats a good question for the GM guys.:D Especially the guys with later HD's.
     
  6. BadDog

    BadDog TRC Staff Staff Member

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    Mine's doing fine, but I seem to recall they did have a recall on some of them. Was it after '02?

    However, the hitch on my 98 Ram had to have some reinforcement gussets added for a TSB dealing with cracked mounting plates...
     
  7. 1999GMC

    1999GMC Well-Known Member

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    I don't remember what brand mine was. It was $99 11 years ago.
     
  8. J. Delaney

    J. Delaney Well-Known Member

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    I've never had any troubles with a reciever hitch bending or breaking. One day I decided to jump my truck with a 21' toyhauler in tow. Some dude had a blowout on the freeway and ran us off the road. The people behind me said that the truck caught about 6' of air going over the gaurd rail. Luckily the trailer got hung up on the first gaurd rail and the chains held. Otherwise my truck would have been sitting smack dab in the middle of oncoming traffic in the other lane of the freeway! Pretty much everything on the truck was broke, but the hitch was ok.:D
     
  9. Heavydutyharley

    Heavydutyharley Well-Known Member

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    Only in an accident. Had 1 class III (welded) break loose from a 1/2 ton truck, while towing an 18' car trailer,when hit from behind and bent a 12in drop on a weight distribution set up while towing a 24' enclosed (overloaded) when 2 tires blew out at the same time. :eek:
     
  10. 86k30

    86k30 New Member

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    broke one off the frame on my 86 crew cab chevy dually. was pulling my 20 foot car hauler with my 5-6K chevy truggy on it . made three turns on a dirt road and heard a pop in each corner. thought it was a rock caught in the duals the first and second time. third time trailer hit the dirt and pulled the wiring off. only had one bolt left in it. luckily i was pulling up a slight grade and going slow enough toknow what was going on.Valley reciever with three 1/2 bolts per framerail spread over20" on each side.
     
  11. budkole

    budkole Well-Known Member

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    While at the truck pull put on by Sheid Diesel last year in terre haute, I saw a dodge pulling the sled and all of a sudden it broke the hitch clean off the truck! Not sure of the severity of the damage, but the thing was dragging the ground. Guess them sleds are pretty heavy.
     
  12. BurnedBronco

    BurnedBronco Well-Known Member

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    saw another broke pintle hitch bracket today at work. 94 LN 8000 ford.
     
  13. CoastalDav

    CoastalDav Well-Known Member

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    Your right and it did not stop as indicated in the TSB. My trucks hitch was broke on both sides, having never towed anything. Thats what they get when you bend steel cold.

    http://dodgeram.info/tsb/recalls/872.htm

    Dave
     
  14. gravdigr

    gravdigr Well-Known Member

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    I had a receiver break on me 3 years ago. It was 15 years old and mounted on our F250 dump/plow/tow truck. WHat happened was the square tubing that goes across the 2 main brackets that the receiver tube is welded to was rusted, a lot. Since the ends were open mud, water, road salt, etc... packed in there and sat slowly rotting it from the inside out. Had our 7k backhoe loaded on the 18' trailer and when I got home the bottom of the hitch was about 4" off the road and the entire cross tube was twisted.
     
  15. Ben427

    Ben427 Member

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    My stock receiver on my 2005 2500HD bent down and out about 1/2 inch. I replaced it with a class V so i wouldnt have any problems,
     
  16. TonyB

    TonyB Member

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    I had one get bent on my F150....when I was rear-ended! Cop claimed the driver was only doing 25! I doubt that!

    Also, my brother used to work in a body shop....when trucks would need frame work, they would use the hitch as a pull point to straighten the frame.

    Hitches are VERY storng by nature....mostly to compensate for the exposure to the elements experienced over the years.

    Tony
     
  17. jalewis

    jalewis Well-Known Member

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    Yea, I was rear-ended once and the hitch took all of the blow, it held on, and the frame actually bent behind the rear wheels.
     
  18. BurnedBronco

    BurnedBronco Well-Known Member

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    hitch off a f450 dump
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    bent 4 ways from sunday and U shaped.
     
  19. Burt4x4

    Burt4x4 Well-Known Member

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    I have heard this happening more times than I liked so I replaced mine with a Reese Titian V before I bent the factory one. waytogo
    I hate the new design GM is useing....:doah:
     
  20. Diesel Nut

    Diesel Nut Well-Known Member

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    Where to start???

    Well, when I had my 93 Dodge 350 4x4 I got stuck in a ditch and finally got her to get moving in reverse - right into the homeowners driveway! As I climbed the driveway my Ball hitch dug into the groundand tore out part of the driveway and bent the hitch.

    Then, like 3 years or so later, I was towing a 10K tractor on a flatbed trailer and some gal locks em up. Well, the guy I worked for was supposed to have fixed the brakes. NOPE! Long story short, put a 2000 Cummins 4x4 in the ditch truck/trailer/tractor and side swiped a tree and took out a mail box. Missed the minivan. When she stopped hitting stuff we wound up with a bent the front axle, ripped the PS pump off, and broke all but 2 bolts for the factory tow package. Over 10 grand in damage. Pretty rough ditch. Employer got the brakes fixed after that!!!!
     

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