There are 2 schools of thought on which to buy first, truck or trailer. My thought is to find the trailer you want first. There are more choices for trailers than trucks. If you find a trailer you really like make notes of the GVWR of the trailer. Using the mentioned 20% figure out how much pin weight you will have and then match the truck. You said a dually is out so IMHO you should look for under 14k GVWR for the trailer to match to a 1T SRW. (New trucks have higher ratings)
Pin Weight is the weight the hitch will sit on the hitch. How much can I have?
For real world numbers I have a 2009 F350 SRW Diesel. The placard shows my RAWR is 6693 lbs. I know that with myself, 1 grandson, hitch, toolbox, and a full tank of diesel I have 3580 lbs on the rear axle(CAT Scale) and total weight of 8240 lbs. I can put up to 3113 lbs on the hitch (maybe) as long as everything else stays the same. And then the "gotcha" The other info on the placard is Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR), in my case 11k lbs. Since the difference between actual weight and Gross allowed is only 2760 lbs my pin weight shouldn't exceed 2760 lbs although the rear axle can carry 3113.
I hope that didn't cause more confusion. For grins here is all my numbers for the setup in my sig. See how it figures out.
Empty Loaded Rating
Front 4660 4800 5000
Rear 3580 5900 6693
Total 8240 10700 11000 (I know, this is less than the 2 axles???)
The trailer has 8600 on it's axles so my combined weight is 19300 and I'm allowed 23000.
I'm under on all numbers and the combo tows fine.
