Please advise - determining max tow capacity

Alan_Hepburn wrote:

rk911 wrote:
if it were me i would want to KNOW the dry weight rather than trust a brochure or closet sticker.

I know it's just semantics, but to me the DRY weight is a fictional number. An RV will NEVER match its dry weight once you drive it out of the dealer. You're going to add fuel, water, propane, batteries, tools, kitchen stuff, clothing, etc. and most of that stuff will stay in the RV forever. What you need to determine is the ACTUAL weight, which you can ONLY get by visiting a scale. Ideally, you want the weight carried by each wheel; if you can''t get that then the weight carried by each axle will work; if you can't get that then as a last resort you can use the total weight on all axles.

which is why i don’t accept the mfg stated dry weight, empty weight...whatever label you want to place on it. when we took delivery of our current MH i weighed it. nothing in it but me, the extras from the dealer and factory and a few gallons of gas. after deducting my weight and x-lbs for the gas i had my actual empty weight. i then filled the fuel, fresh water and LP tanks and re- weighed. that gave me my wet weight. payload = GVWR minus wet weight. when we loaded up for a trip i re-weighed to be sure neither axle was overweight. on my F53 chassis the GVWR = the sum of the GAWRs.