Actual Hitch Weight vs Dry Hitch Weight

We had a 2012 ram 1500 payload 1015. With the truck loaded for camping ( without kidding ourselves) it left us with 350 lb hitch weight. We used it to pull our 1996 rustler for 3 years, towed it awesome, we were around 400-500 lbs over gvw but under gawr and gcwr. If you are going to try and be within the specs of that vehicle, you need to put everything in it, including the hitch, fire wood, bikes, levelling blocks, any tools or generator you take and go weigh it. Our solution was to find a new truck when we needed a new trailer. I loved my ram, it towed like a champ, tons of power and the 5 link in the rear was stable as could be. That being said, they just don't build them to do what we want them to do. My guess is you will be overloaded, or towing a tent trailer. We bought a gmc 1500 with 1985 payload and run it at 90-95% gvwr and the tongue weight is advertised at 860, loaded is 1280 and with WD is 1100. Best of luck to you, let us know how you make out.

I use a Sherline trailer tongue scale - no guess work needed.

My Nash 17K (22'4") is advertised at 550 lbs and 4260 dry. Loaded weight is 5430 and 680 lbs with fresh water that sits right behind the axle. A smart design might buy you a little bigger trailer. My F 150 handled the Nash very well, with a 1700 Payload.

I looked at the Apex 288BHS today. I built the bathroom scale setup last night. The hitch weight was 576 lbs with all options and front propane tanks. Battery was missing, so that would go up about 60 lbs. That would put it at 636 lbs before my equipment. My estimate is that I would add no more than 1000 lbs. If so, the hitch travel weight would be 766 lbs. I want to keep it under 800, so that would be perfect.

Claimed dry tongue on mine was 375 as I recall, actual is 580-600

dry tongue weight on mine about 800lbs. actual tongue weight with a full fresh water tank, full propane and trailer loaded. 1450 lbs!!

On the trailer in my sig. the "factory dry hitch weight" was listed as 300lbs, (IIRC), loaded, with 2 propane tanks, 2 batteries all the stuff we all carry in the front storage and a full fresh water tank, the weight, on a sherline scale, was 680 lbs.
Dry weight figures don't mean much, I take the gross weight of the trailer, take 12-15% of that..there's your t/weight...give or take a few lbs.

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.

I've found a couple of these used, so I'm leaning towards it.

http://www.kz-rv.com/sportsmen-show-stopper/S242SBHSS.html

The GVWR is 6000 lbs, so max hitch weight would be 780 lbs. I plan on using a WDH with it.

mfifield01 wrote:
Basically I need a dry hitch weight of 400 lbs or less. Not much in that category.

Take a deep breath, it is not that bad. There are those out here that think that you can't tow anything more than a tent trailer with a half ton. If you look around at any campground you will see many trucks like yours hooked up to all sorts of trailers.

Here is my situation. I am towing a 25 ft Airstream with a GVW of 7200 and I am usually going down the road just a tad over 6100. I have weighed my setup and found that the estimated tongue weight as posted in the sales brochure is not all that close to the actual. They state 720 which is 10% of the gross, but when loaded with full propane, a spare tire and two batteries it is just over 1100. The WD hitch transfers enough back to the trailer that my actual tongue weight is 840 lbs. We do travel light since it is just the wife and I. We typically bring along a generator, some camp chairs and occasionally some firewood. We carry most of our stuff in the trailer so we are right at our payload limit.

If your truck is designed to "pull" over 10K then all you need to do is to concentrate on your payload numbers. Keep the trailer to around 6000 lbs, get a good WD hitch and look at what the tongue looks like. Are the batteries stored there, is there a spare on the tongue and how many and how big are the propane tanks? If you are planning on bringing tons of stuff from home when you camp you will likely need a bigger truck. I have been doing this with my current combo since '09 and have gone over 30K miles without any issues.