First time 5ver
Posted this to Forest River forum but wanted to get your feedback as well. So after 4 years in our BH TT we have decided that we want to upgrade. We have looked at about 100 units in the last week ...
Forum Discussion
donn0128 wrote:
Look this is really really simple. Load the truck like your going camping. Drive across a set of scales. Get your true actual front, rear alxes and your loaded weight.
Subtract your GVWR, FAWR, and RAWR and see what yoy have left over.
Right off the bat we know your tires are only good for less than 6300 pounds.
Depending on how you load, your scaled truck weights are going to be around 3500 rear axle and 7500 pounds total weight. But until you get real weights it is all a guessing game. Dont forget to add 250 pounds for a slider hitch to your scaled weights. Typically a fifth wheel will have around 20% but can go as high as 25% of its loaded weight. Rarely will you find them less than 20%.
True. Load it up for camping and weigh it on a CAT scale at truck stop. If loaded and your rear axle weight is about 3,500# (sounds reasonable with 4 people and dog and a few extras), subtract that from Your RAWR of 6,200# and you have about 2,700# for the sliding hitch and pin weight. If you assume 200# for hitch, that leaves bout 2,500# for pin weight.
If you assume as loaded the pin weight will be close to 20%, that means the fifth wheel should way no more than about 12,500#. Don't focus solely on the GVWR of the fiver, since some have huge cargo carrying capacities that most non full timers don't fully utilize. Example using my fiver, the GVWR is 14,000#, empty weight from trailer sticker is 10,600#, and my CAT scales weight ready to camp is 12,000#. That means I have about 1,400# of stuff in camper. I have 2,000# of unused capacity, but 1,400# of stuff is a lot. Actual rear axle weight on my 2500 is about 450# under the RAWR. It's about 800# under tire ratings.
Since the fiver could weigh 12,500# in the example calculation above, if you knew your total cargo weighs 1,500#, you could buy a fiver with an empty weight of 11,000#. Look at the actual sticker on the trailer for the empty weight.
My main point is looking at empty weights can certainly lead to being overweight, but looking at GVWR, while a safer option, can also lead to buying less than you can safely pull if the fiver has a lot of unused cargo capacity. Only you know how much stuff you actually need to allow for. Hope this helps. Keith
