Actual Hitch Weight vs Dry Hitch Weight
I'm currently looking at a lighter TT. I'm concerned with hitch weight right now on my Ram 1500. My towing capacity is fine (10,050lbs). I'm looking at TTs with a dry hitch weight between 515-600lbs. ...
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The tongue wt. on our KZ TT went from 540 lbs dry to 960 lbs actual loaded for camping, or about 14.5%, and that's with one battery and empty holding tanks. Am going by memory on the numbers but they are pretty close to these. The FW tank is under the pass-through and a full tank would put the TW well over 1000 lbs. I ordered a WDH in advance and ended up having to upgrade the spring bars afterwards because our tongue wt. went up so much.
Factory CCC numbers can be grossly optimistic. When our KZ Spree is fully loaded for camping we are about 200 lbs under the GVWR. For a long trip with more stuff in the TT, we could be at or even over the GVWR. If we travelled with one or more full holding tanks, we'd be over the GVWR for sure.
Unless you have a pretty good idea what actual tongue weights will be from doing research, I'd use 15% of the GVWR, or at the very least a min. of 13%. Factory dry wts. can be very misleading and cause you a lot of grief after you've made the purchase. In our case we had an F250 so the actual TW was not an issue.
Based on previous experience with an F150, I would not want to tow near the towing and payload capacities.
Factory CCC numbers can be grossly optimistic. When our KZ Spree is fully loaded for camping we are about 200 lbs under the GVWR. For a long trip with more stuff in the TT, we could be at or even over the GVWR. If we travelled with one or more full holding tanks, we'd be over the GVWR for sure.
Unless you have a pretty good idea what actual tongue weights will be from doing research, I'd use 15% of the GVWR, or at the very least a min. of 13%. Factory dry wts. can be very misleading and cause you a lot of grief after you've made the purchase. In our case we had an F250 so the actual TW was not an issue.
Based on previous experience with an F150, I would not want to tow near the towing and payload capacities.
