Down Sizing

Alex and Tee wrote:
Regarding weight, the Tiffin rep said our unit should come in at 21-22,000 lbs. and we have a 30,000 lb. total capacity. With our tow vehicle and dolly counting 5000 lbs. toward that, it leaves us with 3000 lbs. of leeway roughly. I think we’ll run out of space before we hit the weight limit.

I think they are confusing GCWR with GVWR. Which often happens since weights are complicated to explain and they'll just give you the numbers that sound the best.

Tiffin's website says it either has a 24,000 lb or 26,000 lb GVWR depending on the chassis option (24K or 26K) (as far as I know, the only difference between the two is the axle springs, the chassis+axle is identical). There's an overall 30,000 lb GCWR for either chassis option.

The GVWR is the max weight you can have on the chassis (driver, passengers, water, cargo, etc), the GCWR is the max weight for the RV + any towed vehicle. The hitch is rated at 5000 lbs for either chassis, so that's the upper limit of what you can safely tow, but it's not the only limit.

If you have the 26,000 lb chassis and load it up to 26,000 lbs, then you can only safely tow 4000 lbs because of the 30,000 lb GCWR.

If the RV weighs 22,000 lbs empty and you have the 24K chassis, you can load 2,000 lbs of passengers+water+cargo. If you have the 26K chassis, you could load up to 4,000 lbs, but then you'd reduce your towing capacity to 4,000 lbs. So if your towed vehicle weighs 5,000 lbs, you can only load up the 26K chassis to 25,000 lbs which would give you the 3000 lbs that they said you'd have. But it really depends on which chassis option you have.

If you're using a tow dolly, that should have a pretty light tongue weight, probably around 100 lbs, but could be 200 lbs (that's what U-Haul says their dolly tongue weight is), that weight would count toward the GVWR too.

But still, check the stickers and weigh to be sure.