Holding tongue weight steady

drb116 wrote:
I am looking at buying a twin axle TT and all the weights are ok, except the tongue weight is close to the max for my Pathfinder. The stated tongue weight is 479# and my max is 500#. I know that adding the battery and propane will add to the tongue weight, but the trailer has storage in the back. By my estimate, the storage in the back is about half as close to the rear axle as the propane and battery would be to the front.

So my thought is that I can just put about 200# of gear in the back storage to balance out the propane and batteries and I would essentially hold the tongue weight close to the stated weight.

Are these assumptions correct and is it easy to balance a trailer out so that the tongue weight doesn't change much?

Thanks!

No. A TT needs about 13% of it's total weight on the tongue, or it will sway. As you add cargo, the tongue weight will rise. Putting a bunch of stuff in the rear to reduce tongue weight will result in reduced stability. The tongue weight of that TT when loaded will be well over the dry weight from the brochure, and too much for your Pathfinder.