Anyone have experience with B&W Continuum vs Anderson WDH?

[John Galt]

I’m new to towing (have not gotten my RV yet) but I’m doing my homework.
I know I need a WDH and looking at 2 options because they appear to be well-regarded and have a more modern design. They also appear to be much quieter under normal operation, easy to hitch/unhitch, do a pretty decent job of what they were designed for.

the two I’m looking at re the Anderson WDS (3350) and the B&W Continuum.

Aside from 2x the price of the B&W anyone have experience with both and can recommend one over the other? I know the Anderson weighs about 70 lbs but I can’t find a weight for the B&W.

my truck is a Ram 1500 with 1389 lbs of payload and 11200 lbs towing capacity.

the rv is 6000 lbs dry (7500 lbs GVWR) with a 700 lb tongue weight (dry)

right now I’m tending towards the Anderson because it appears to be lighter and almost half the price. Is the B&W 2x better?

 

[Rick3478]

I don't have "experience" with either one of these, but I have researched them a bit in my own quest for a future travel trailer. So it looks like the B&W is going to be easier to unhook if you want to leave the trailer sit and do a bit of running in the tow vehicle. A possible drawback is the use of hydraulics, which may be prone to leakage and failure with age. The Andersen is a simpler all mechanical design, cheaper and maybe more reliable long term.

Both appear to have a potential drawback in that there is no friction adjustment. Near as I can tell, they both rely on a tapered pivot seat that converts tongue weight to a proportional amount of anti-yaw friction. That could be a problem when tongue weight drops as you crest a hill and the whole rig suddenly becomes less stable. That's all theory on my part.

If I had to choose between those two, I think Andersen for price and reliability.

For myself, I'm actually thinking ProPride 3P.

 

[John Galt]

That’s pretty much what I was thinking too. Hydraulics could fail….and is it any better than the chain-based one especially for a fairly mid-weight camper? If it’s better I’ll gladly pay the extra $$ but I think they both work on the same principle and just have different loading mechanisms.

I also can’t find the weight of the B&W hitch anywhere….I guess I could just call them and ask but I don’t want something heavy. I only have so much payload to work with.

 

[SnowBlaZR2]

We had an Andersen 3350 and it was pretty good for the money. I really liked the simplicity of it and how light it was compared to others. It worked just as well as our older Husky and was easier to work with. I don't think you'd be disappointed once you got it dialed in, especially at the price point it's at.

We've since moved up to the ProPride and I can't recommend it enough. I'll say the same thing I said in my towing thread...I'd rather be a bit over on payload with a ProPride than a bit under with anything else. We're right at GVWR on the truck, give or take 100 lbs depending on how we're loaded. It's pricey, but it does everything they claim it does once you have it properly adjusted. We could probably stand to get some weight off the back of our trailer, which would make it even better. We're on the low end for tongue weight, sitting just over 10%.

 

[silver billet]

I don't have "experience" with either one of these, but I have researched them a bit in my own quest for a future travel trailer. So it looks like the B&W is going to be easier to unhook if you want to leave the trailer sit and do a bit of running in the tow vehicle. A possible drawback is the use of hydraulics, which may be prone to leakage and failure with age. The Andersen is a simpler all mechanical design, cheaper and maybe more reliable long term.

Both appear to have a potential drawback in that there is no friction adjustment. Near as I can tell, they both rely on a tapered pivot seat that converts tongue weight to a proportional amount of anti-yaw friction. That could be a problem when tongue weight drops as you crest a hill and the whole rig suddenly becomes less stable. That's all theory on my part.

If I had to choose between those two, I think Andersen for price and reliability.

For myself, I'm actually thinking ProPride 3P.

The Anderson provides friction in the ball mount. In a normal hitch, the coupler rotates on top of the ball, but with the Anderson the coupler is locked onto the ball which prevents it from turning, and instead the mechanism that ball sits in provides friction/anti sway as it turns.

 

[silver billet]

I’m new to towing (have not gotten my RV yet) but I’m doing my homework.
I know I need a WDH and looking at 2 options because they appear to be well-regarded and have a more modern design. They also appear to be much quieter under normal operation, easy to hitch/unhitch, do a pretty decent job of what they were designed for.

the two I’m looking at re the Anderson WDS (3350) and the B&W Continuum.

Aside from 2x the price of the B&W anyone have experience with both and can recommend one over the other? I know the Anderson weighs about 70 lbs but I can’t find a weight for the B&W.

my truck is a Ram 1500 with 1389 lbs of payload and 11200 lbs towing capacity.

the rv is 6000 lbs dry (7500 lbs GVWR) with a 700 lb tongue weight (dry)

right now I’m tending towards the Anderson because it appears to be lighter and almost half the price. Is the B&W 2x better?

I only have experience with the Anderson, so I'll just pass it along in case it's useful.

In my experience, the Anderson was a huge upgrade from traditional WDH's. It has one really important feature that separates it from the others, it uses static force when it levels as opposed to trunion bars which are "springy". Chains don't spring, they provide 100% constant force. This was important for me because I was trying to fix a vertical porpoising with an older trunion bar setup. My theory is that there was simply too much spring in my setup, the ram coils are already very soft and springy and combined with a second springy force with the WDH it was too much spring.

The second I switched to the Anderson (making no other adjustments to the truck/trailer/cargo/load etc) it settled right down and pulls very nice.

YMMV though of course.

 

[John Galt]

We had an Andersen 3350 and it was pretty good for the money. I really liked the simplicity of it and how light it was compared to others. It worked just as well as our older Husky and was easier to work with. I don't think you'd be disappointed once you got it dialed in, especially at the price point it's at.

We've since moved up to the ProPride and I can't recommend it enough. I'll say the same thing I said in my towing thread...I'd rather be a bit over on payload with a ProPride than a bit under with anything else. We're right at GVWR on the truck, give or take 100 lbs depending on how we're loaded. It's pricey, but it does everything they claim it does once you have it properly adjusted. We could probably stand to get some weight off the back of our trailer, which would make it even better. We're on the low end for tongue weight, sitting just over 10%.

Why did you switch?

 

[SnowBlaZR2]

Why did you switch?

We're full time nomads for now, so we're towing at least once a week on average. The majority of the time when conditions were great, the Andersen did what we needed it to do. In heavier winds, faster traffic with semis, and on poorly maintained roads, we had issues with sway. The ProPride took care of nearly all of it. We'll sometimes still get moved around a bit in those circumstances, but it's more of a push on the entire rig and it feels much more stable and controllable. There's also the chance we'd have to maneuver around something unexpected, and I feel a lot better about how that would go with the ProPride.

Like I said, I think we can improve our setup a bit by balancing the trailer better, but mostly happy with how it tows now. We'll eventually be moving to a heavy duty truck no matter what because we want the payload, but the ProPride was a lot cheaper than a new 3500.

 

[John Galt]

We're full time nomads for now, so we're towing at least once a week on average. The majority of the time when conditions were great, the Andersen did what we needed it to do. In heavier winds, faster traffic with semis, and on poorly maintained roads, we had issues with sway. The ProPride took care of nearly all of it. We'll sometimes still get moved around a bit in those circumstances, but it's more of a push on the entire rig and it feels much more stable and controllable. There's also the chance we'd have to maneuver around something unexpected, and I feel a lot better about how that would go with the ProPride.

Like I said, I think we can improve our setup a bit by balancing the trailer better, but mostly happy with how it tows now. We'll eventually be moving to a heavy duty truck no matter what because we want the payload, but the ProPride was a lot cheaper than a new 3500.

Ok that makes sense. I think we’ll eventually get a 5th wheel and a 1 ton truck…..but didn’t want to blow that much on something we might or might not take to. Going to give it a couple of years.

 

[SnowBlaZR2]

Ok that makes sense. I think we’ll eventually get a 5th wheel and a 1 ton truck…..but didn’t want to blow that much on something we might or might not take to. Going to give it a couple of years.

Gotcha. We were hesitant as well, particularly because we were pretty happy with the Andersen. In the end, we figured it was worth it for a $150k rig and the peace of mind.

I'll say that if we weren't full time, we'd have probably stuck with the Andersen and wouldn't even be thinking about a bigger truck. For what it sounds like you're after, I'd bet you'd be happy with the Andersen.

 

[John Galt]

Gotcha. We were hesitant as well, particularly because we were pretty happy with the Andersen. In the end, we figured it was worth it for a $150k rig and the peace of mind.

I'll say that if we weren't full time, we'd have probably stuck with the Andersen and wouldn't even be thinking about a bigger truck. For what it sounds like you're after, I'd bet you'd be happy with the Andersen.

We’re not looking to full time but we both work 100% remote (for the same company even) so we’re trying it out. Ultimately we’d like to get a 5th wheel with a mid bunk house we can tear the bunks out of and make an office…. But after looking at some monster 5th wheels we decided to start smaller since I’ve never towed before.

……then again I’m the guy that bought a brand new 1200cc sportbike as my first motorcycle and never had a problem. But I was younger and dumber then.

 

[SnowBlaZR2]

We’re not looking to full time but we both work 100% remote (for the same company even) so we’re trying it out. Ultimately we’d like to get a 5th wheel with a mid bunk house we can tear the bunks out of and make an office…. But after looking at some monster 5th wheels we decided to start smaller since I’ve never towed before.

……then again I’m the guy that bought a brand new 1200cc sportbike as my first motorcycle and never had a problem. But I was younger and dumber then.

We started out looking at toy haulers and an F-450. Ended up in a 19ft travel trailer with the Ram.

One thing I've been glad for with starting small is some of the parks we've been able to get into that wouldn't have been available to us in a rig that size. Glacier and some of the spots we stayed in around Moab and Arches, in particular.

Even our current trailer has been great for that. We also recently stayed on the East River in downtown Brooklyn. I don't think we'd have made it in if we were in a 5th wheel.

Don't get me wrong, we definitely wouldn't complain about doing laundry in the rig, having bigger tanks, or having more space for me to work. I see some of these 5th wheels, with their slide outs and 100 gallon tanks...

 

[John Galt]

We started out looking at toy haulers and an F-450. Ended up in a 19ft travel trailer with the Ram.

One thing I've been glad for with starting small is some of the parks we've been able to get into that wouldn't have been available to us in a rig that size. Glacier and some of the spots we stayed in around Moab and Arches, in particular.

Even our current trailer has been great for that. We also recently stayed on the East River in downtown Brooklyn. I don't think we'd have made it in if we were in a 5th wheel.

Don't get me wrong, we definitely wouldn't complain about doing laundry in the rig, having bigger tanks, or having more space for me to work. I see some of these 5th wheels, with their slide outs and 100 gallon tanks...

Yea……we also have 50 acres away from civilization and it’ll be good to have a 5th wheel when we start building on it and want to be there to supervise.

 

[mzflorida]

That’s pretty much what I was thinking too. Hydraulics could fail….and is it any better than the chain-based one especially for a fairly mid-weight camper? If it’s better I’ll gladly pay the extra $$ but I think they both work on the same principle and just have different loading mechanisms.

I also can’t find the weight of the B&W hitch anywhere….I guess I could just call them and ask but I don’t want something heavy. I only have so much payload to work with.

Unsure if you ever got the answer regarding weight, it is 116 pounds per BW and they also offer a veteran's discount of 10%.