Reese Hitch – Weight-Distributing & Sway Control

This removes any sensitivity to side-winds and passing trucks – no sway and also gets a useful measure of the trailer tongue-weight back onto Ruby's front wheels and the trailer's four wheels (especially the trailer's rear axle).

This is Reese's best kit and sells for about $800 plus fitting & tweaking. Here, it's all set up and working really well. It's been run over good and bad roads, gravel and paved with potholes. If you've heard horror stories about bumper-tow trailers, or think that only 5th wheel trailers can achieve a stable tow under bad conditions – this is the solution.
(Picture above is not Ruby & BF, as I find I don't have a sexy holiday snap of my hitch... but ours looks just like this one.)
You can read the factory info here and a magazine review here. It has worked brilliantly for us.

This WD hitch is really pretty easy to use. It takes about 3 minutes to connect the trailer (including safety chains and electrical plug) and less to disconnect. If you're unlucky, you may get a little grease on your hands – and it's good to add a little grease to the ball and trunnions every couple of days. Simple & effective.

The 2015 RAM 2500 has a factory-fitted Class V reciever (the big 2.5" one) which is SAE rated for up to 17,000 lb gross trailer weight (GTW) with a max trailer tongue weight (TW) of 1700 lb – or (without wight-distribution) for 12,000 lb GTW with a maximum TW of 1200 lb. Using this Reese hitch, the larger numbers apply.

Note that the Bigfoot has a maximum legal weight (GVWR) of 7500 lb. For us – BF usually runs about 6200 (with tanks full and a few bottles of wine) and a TW well below Ruby's legal limit – with or without the Reese hitch. That's called 'overkill' – or 'a comfortable safety margin' depending on your point of view. On rainy steep downhill grades, or in big mid-western wind gusts – it's just called peace-of-mind.

Note that if Ruby & Bigfoot (the Truck & Trailer) go to different homes - the hitch goes with the trailer.

Rear Camera: Lets you see exactly where your tow ball and trailer are – makes hitch-up a peiece of cake. Great feature.

Air Suspension: A really great option we put on Ruby is the rear air suspension. With no trailer attached, it moderates the harshness in ride that any HD pickup truck suffers from. It desreves a mention (here on the hitch page) because it allows you to quickly 'kneel' the back of the truck. This means that you can back up to the trailer, kneel (drop the whole rear suspension) by about 125mm ( 5"), back the tow ball under the hitch reciever and then raise the suspension back to normal. Of course, the same can be done when detaching the trailer. Picture below shows the drop (bars & chains removed for clarity.)

Brake Controller: Also standard spec on the 2015 RAM 2500, is a dash-adjustable and intelligent Electric Brake Controller – to automatically apply just the right amount of power to the trailer brakes – when you apply the truck brakes. This works really well with the Bigfoot's brakes and can be easily tested / checked – takes 2 seconds and is something we try and remember to do every morning. Great feature.

Exhaust Brake: The brakes on the truck and trailer work really well – but they get used a lot less than you might think. The RAM's Cummins Deisel engine option gives you an easy-to-use exhaust brake, which is magic for reducing speed without touching the brake pedal. Turn it on and then just let up on the accelerator – and you're slowing down. This is so nice on mountainous downhills – you get no brake heating and no white knuckles.

Jake Brake on Cruise Control: But wait – it gets better. RAM have incorporated the exhaust brake's actions into the cruise control – so you can set a comfortable speed (eg: 50 mph) at the top of a long downgrade and the cruise control will modulate the exhaust brake to keep you from over-speeding. It will even automatically down-shift for you – to make this work on steep slopes. Very, very nice feature.