Hitch Weight

Something about the hitch or tongue weight: It's not set in stone. What you see in the brochures and on the websites is a guideline. Put 100lb of sand bags on the tongue and you'll see what I mean.

The aim is to balance your load such that the tongue weight is between 10-15% of the loaded (wet) trailer weight. So if your trailer weighs 5,000lb, tongue weight should be 500-750lb. Any less and it'll tend to sway dangerously. Any more and it'll give your vehicle unnecessary wear.

So what do you do?

If you're looking to see if you can tow a trailer, use the trailer's GVWR, which is the most your trailer should weigh. Then add a 20% safety buffer. That's the max weight. Subtract that from your tow vehicle's GCWR.

Out of this, calculate your tongue weight. Subtract that from your tow vehicle's GVWR. Then subtract the weight of a fully loaded tow vehicle: All passengers, drinks, iPods, lunch, coolers, floor mats, everything. (I found that by visiting a local truck stop with a CAT scale. It cost me 10 min and $10.)

After subtracting the vehicle weight from the vehicle's GVWR, also subtract it from the GCWR and see if you've gone over. Keep an eye on the axle ratings (GAWR/FGAWR/RGAWR) of vehicle and trailer. Stay within all these ranges and you can't go wrong.

P.S. I am not an experienced road warrior, just sharing what I've read. Old-timers are more than welcome to correct anything I said wrong.

2014screw wrote:
Are the hitch weights on a manufacturers website only "Dry" weights

No battery & empty propane bottles?

Also I believe a lot of those dry hitch wts are based on empty 20# tanks not the optional 30# tanks that you generally find on most longer trailers. Thus the actual wt with full tanks, battery, and the WDH hardware generally attached to the tongue permanently can approach an additional 150#.

Larry

Yep, add two batteries and two full propane tanks and you've already added another 100lbs. to the fictional "dry" hitch weight.
and that still doesn't factor what the loaded trailer will add to it.

Broccoli1 wrote:
Yup

But includes the empty propane bottles

Yup