towing of heavier toad

richard_123 wrote:
Have presently a Winnebago class "A" 35 foot motor home. Desiring to pull a larger vehicle. I have noticed in the last 6-7 months appears a lot of motor homes are pulling jeeps, small trucks, mid size suv's. My motor home came with 10000 pound roadmaster hitch and bar, brake buddy system, break away electrical hookup and the dingy towing light set up.


My concerns are the motor home is only rated for gcw of 24000 pounds. The weight of motor home with full,supplies,bicycles, and two adults is at 21345 pounds. What can I do to be able to pull my chevy equinox with a wet weight of 4400.

The motor home has larger assisted brakes, additional torsion bar at rear, front sway bar, heavier shocks, improved cooling for engine and trans, and Banks Pac added to engine.

I feel their is no problem with handling the tow behind, Since previous owner was pulling four door jeep safari.

But overweight!!!!!

What to do, appears legally I can only tow about 2600 pounds, which seems ridiculous for a class A motor home.

Sounds like you have a P30 chassis, but you'll never know the difference and until you encounter some long 6% grades maybe. First thing is to get a tranny temp. gauge, as the tranny will most likely be the first thing to suffer. If you're running a Chevy 4L80E tranny, it will go into limp mode once it gets to a certain temp. and you can most likely then continue your climb in low gear at 25mph. This in itself, will give you a 25% overload, so with some anticipation, you may want to do this beforehand, rather than heating it up anymore than you need to. You mentioned extra cooling and if over and above what's usually incorporated, then it might just be adequate.

Legality has nothing to do with being over gcwr

Current year Ford RV 24k chassis are 24,000 GVWR & 30,000 GCWR.



Ford Class A Motorhome Chassis

richard_123 wrote:
Have presently a Winnebago class "A" 35 foot motor home. Desiring to pull a larger vehicle. I have noticed in the last 6-7 months appears a lot of motor homes are pulling jeeps, small trucks, mid size suv's. My motor home came with 10000 pound roadmaster hitch and bar, brake buddy system, break away electrical hookup and the dingy towing light set up.


My concerns are the motor home is only rated for gcw of 24000 pounds. The weight of motor home with full,supplies,bicycles, and two adults is at 21345 pounds. What can I do to be able to pull my chevy equinox with a wet weight of 4400.

The motor home has larger assisted brakes, additional torsion bar at rear, front sway bar, heavier shocks, improved cooling for engine and trans, and Banks Pac added to engine.

I feel their is no problem with handling the tow behind, Since previous owner was pulling four door jeep safari.

But overweight!!!!!

What to do, appears legally I can only tow about 2600 pounds, which seems ridiculous for a class A motor home.

in general, the maximum amount of weight you can safely tow will be the lesser of the following:

• the GCWR (gross combination weight rating) of the MH minus the actual weight of the MH as it is loaded for travel (includes fuel, fresh water, food, clothing, people, pets, supplies, etc.)

• the weight rating of your tow bar

• the weight rating of your hitch

so let's do the math. the GCWR of 24000 minus 21345 is 2655-lbs. presumably your tow bar is rated for at least 6000-lbs. the weight rating of your hitch is 10,000-lbs. so you're stuck at 2655-lbs or 1745-lbs less than your toad. are you sure the GCWR is 24K or is that the GVWR?

You haven’t given us much information about the motorhome itself, including model and year. If your motorhome only has a gross weight of 24,000 lbs. it must be gas powered on either a Ford or Workhorse chassis.

If it is either of these chassis the hitch is not factory original. The maximum towing capacity of gas chassis in this weight range is 5,000 lbs., unless you have a late model Ford chassis which is capable of towing 6,000 lbs.

I don't understand your statement: "The motor home has larger assisted brakes, additional torsion bar at rear, front sway bar, heavier shocks, improved cooling for engine and trans, and Banks Pac added to engine." Again more detail is needed. I've never heard of anyone installing "larger Assisted brakes". There is no way to install larger brake pads without installing larger calipers and rotors. Larger rotors would also necessitate larger wheels.

The front and rear sway bars are standard on most newer chassis. They don't increase towing capacity but rather minimize the effort needed to control the motorhome in windy or heavy truck traffic conditions. The shocks will also have no effect on the towing capacity.

As for the Banks Pac there are several available, everything from merely expanding the air intake and exhaust flow, to those with transmission modifications. Unless you know exactly what you have I wouldn’t risk overloading the chassis or drivetrain. Keep in mind the engine and transmissions are matched. An example is the Ford 310 hp 2 valve per cylinder mated to the 4R100 transmission. The engine has a maximum torque output of 425 ft. lbs. of torque from the factory. The 4R100 transmission can handle a maximum of 455 ft. lbs. of input torque from the factory. You can’t increase the engine output torque beyond the maximum transmission input torque unless you upgrade the transmission as well.

In addition the weak points on most older motorhomes are the frame rail extensions. While the original frame can handle a heavy load and a substantial amount of pulling force the extensions are generally lighter than the original frame. The hitch is anchored to the frame extensions and will be capable of pulling only a limited amount of weight.

Someone has increased the size of the trailer hitch in an attempt to tow something beyond the original capacity of the chassis. Unless the chassis and drivetrain has been upgraded as well attempting to increase the GCWR from 24,000 lbs. to nearly 26,000 lbs. is a recipe for disaster. It may work on a temporary basis, but I would expect expensive problems in the future if all the bases aren’t covered.

I am sure that the lawyer for the people you run into will also determine that you are grossly over the RVs limits. In court you can of course say that you put heavy duty springs under it, etc. which will be ignored.
bumpy

This is one of the reasons we purchased a DP motorhome. We had a Class C unit with the same drive train as the F53 units it had a GVWR of 14,500# and a GCWR of 22,000#. The F53 motorhomes max out at 26K GVWR and 30K GCWR. Most are much smaller and lighter as is likely the case with yours. I would look for the manufacturer's load plate for GCWR (Gross Combined Weight Rating) and GVWR (Gross Vehicle Weight Rating). You do not want to EVER exceed those numbers. If you are in an accident regardless of apparent fault you could be charged with negligent driving or at a minimum be liable when arguably you should not have been. There are many personal injury attorneys that will crucify you. That isn't to mention that you may have issues with your insurance company if you are overweight. They insure for "normal" risks not intentional assumed additional risk incurred due to overloading. I know that lots of people drive around all the time severely overloaded and as they say "nothing bad has happened yet". Nothing ruins a vacation like an accident.