Weight of hitch for calculating tongue weight

mrkoje wrote:
I'll get the popcorn ready.

All I could think of

mkirsch wrote:


It's very simple:

Because you *DON'T KNOW* what the trailer "does weigh."

You *CAN'T* know what the trailer "does weigh" until you hand the RV dealer a check and tow it off the lot.

Still learning the #'s and such but isn't it as simple as subtracting the payload from the yellow sticker from the GVWR of the trailer? That should give you the "true" unloaded weight, right?

Ron Gratz wrote:
I don't know why anyone would want to penalize him/herself by purchasing a too-small trailer just so the TV could tow excess trailer payload which would never be used. The TV doesn't care how much the trailer can weigh -- it only cares how much the trailer does weigh.

It's very simple:

Because you *DON'T KNOW* what the trailer "does weigh."

You *CAN'T* know what the trailer "does weigh" until you hand the RV dealer a check and tow it off the lot.

At that point it is too late.

You're stuck with it, and if you absolutely *HATE* how it tows, too frickin' bad. It's yours, and it's now worth exactly 50% of what you just paid for it.

I'll get the popcorn ready.

LarryJM wrote:
Ron while your profile says full time Rving, I seem to remember that you currently don't even own a trailer and not sure how much hands on experience you might have with TTs,---

Larry, in case you've forgotten -- my answer to your previous query along this line can be found here.

My 11 years and 70,000 miles of half-time experience in a TT an 9 years and 80,000 miles of full-time experience in a MH gives a total of two decades during which I've learned that not all RVers load their rigs the same as I do -- or the same as you do.

Ron

dodge guy wrote:
Add approx. 1200-1500lbs to the dry weight, this will be the ready to travel weight. then figure on 12.5% for tongue weight.

So 5300lbs dry will be approx. 6600lbs ready to travel. and the loaded tongue weight should be 825lbs (12.5% of the 6600lbs). well within the ability of an Expedition.

What is the CCC (Cargo Carrying Capacity) of the TT in question. some have as high as 4000+lbs! (mine has a 4100lb CCC) I`m 2k lbs less than the GVWR. so using the GVWR in some instances is also useless. now most smaller trailers have a very low CCC, as low as 500lbs, so in that case using the GVWR is a must. it all depends on what you load into it also. If you have the available CCC use the dry weight plus 1500lbs. if you have a low CCC go by the GVWR.

You do bring up a good point in some of these trailers that have those HUGE CCC numbers .... HOWEVER ... my take is that it is probably IMPOSSIBLE to EVER load that much wt. because of simple size constraints and those HUGE CCCs are the result of very robust frames and running gears/tires. However if one were to take even those trailers and load every nook and cranny with personal gear, fill up their black and grey tanks and have like 1/2 tank of fresh water that 4K+ CCC might quickly evaporate. Yes, I know one can say ... "BUT I ALWAYS DUMP" before leaving, etc., but there have been more than just a handful of posts where things like dump stations closed, etc. that have forced folks to carry more excess liquids than normal. In fact several years ago a gent over on the R-Vision site posted about this exact situation happening and unfortunately it resulted in an unstable tow combination that cause a wreck and total loss withing like 10 miles of leaving the CG. He had several years experience and like 5 to 10K prior towing miles with that combo w/o a single issue.

Larry

Ron Gratz wrote:

Gdetrailer wrote:
My take is to use the GVWR as your measuring stick for buying (even though your trailer could have a high Cargo rating you may never use).---

I don't know why anyone would want to penalize him/herself by purchasing a too-small trailer just so the TV could tow excess trailer payload which would never be used. The TV doesn't care how much the trailer can weigh -- it only cares how much the trailer does weigh.

I've expressed my opinions on this issue several times. This time, I'll refer you to several posts written by another ORF member. Links to them can be found here.

An example post by "John & Angela" is copied below. I agree completely with the comments.
Using the trailer's GVWR instead of the expected GVW is likely to
1) result in your buying a TV which is bigger than you need or want,
2) result in your buying a trailer which is smaller than you want and smaller than your TV can handle, and/or
3) result in your buying a trailer with a relatively small CCC which could make it more likely that you would load the trailer to 100% or more of its GVWR.

QUOTING "JOHN & ANGELA"
The problem with using GVWR instead of GVW for checking compatibility with a tow vehicle is that it can take you out of a lot of higher quality units that use higher capacity components in their suspensions, frames, axles, brakes etc. A well known quality manufacturer has a model weighing in around 6200 dry weight. The GVWR is 10,000 pounds. If one has a truck capable of towing 9000 pounds for example they would not look at the unit if they are using the GVWR as a weight instead of a rating. They would effectively choose a lesser trailer only because its rating is LOWER. A 6200 pound 25 foot trailer even with a pack rat packing it would probably never come in over about 7800 pounds. It has also been my experience that the yellow tag is fairly acurate although I am not aware that includes propane and battery as any unit I have seen come from a factory doesn't have propane or battery included. This may vary depending on how it is ordered from the factory I suppose.

Although overestimating weight is always a good idea I think it needs to be kept real. GVWR is your friend. The bigger the better. Kinda like buying a truck. Do you look for a truck with a smaller rating or a larger rating. JMHO. I think even a rookie would understand that looking for a unit with a low rating vice high could turn into a safety issue fast.
UNQUOTE

Gdetrailer wrote:
---Using the GVWR of the trailer ENSURES you will NEVER exceed the vehicles towing capacity and GIVES YOU ROOM to grow in the years to come.

Nothing is ENSURED. Too much load in the TV can cause the towing capacity to be exceeded. Exceeding the trailer's GVWR can cause the towing capacity to be exceeded.
If you believe that people are incapable of estimating and controlling how much they might load into the trailer, how can you be sure they will not load too much into the TV or into the trailer?
I choose to believe that people can make reasonable estimates and can control loading -- especially people who ask the kinds of questions being asked by the OP.

Ron

Ron while your profile says full time Rving, I seem to remember that you currently don't even own a trailer and not sure how much hands on experience you might have with TTs, but those of us that have years ... no make that decades of TT experience with multiple trailers are the ones recommending using the worst case GVWR number so you are assured as best you can of no surprises. Doing what you are advocating leaves significant IMO room for error in underestimating weights and then ending up with a less than satisfactory tow combination. Now I will add there are a few trailers that have HUGE CCCs like 4K+ and those you might use a number somewhat less than the stated trailer GVWR, but then those are generally the much bigger and heavier trailers with significant tongue wts already.

Finally as I pointed out in my prior posts here using the GVWR vs. say 900lbs less and estimating a 15% TW is only a delta of 135bs and if that is the make or break numbers then IMO you were already in trouble wt. wise. In fact that 135 probably adds less than 100 lbs to the GVW of the TV proper. You also seem to want to frame this as being penalized for using the GVWR, but I guess I view it in the frame of additional safety margin and flexibility/room to grow. I know you are a numbers and estimates guru and while you might be good at that, here I think "HANDS ON PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE" and the closest full of T-shirts trump your armchair and back of the envelope estimates .... SORRY that's just the way I see things.

Larry

dnhx wrote:
Although I understand why I should use the GVWR, I am a bit confused. The trailer we were looking at is 25' 9" and has a dry weight of 5240 and a GVWR of 7200. But the next trailer bigger is 28', dry weight of 5780 (over 500 lbs heavier) and has the same GVWR of 7200. Another TT we looked at is the Minnie Winnie 2351, which is 25' 10" comparable layout and options and has a dry weight of 5100 (150 less than the Keystone) but a GVWR of 7620. The Minnie Winnie 1801 is 21' 11", dry weight of 3780 but also has a GVWR of 7620 lbs. (not sure how you can stuff over 3200 lbs in a 22' trailer.) If you take 15% of 7620, you get 1143, which is actually over the F150 max tongue load of 1130.

I do not seeing the correlation between GVWR the trailer size and thus how much stuff you can put in it.

That's an excellent observation.
Just because a trailer has a Cargo Carrying Capacity of 2000 or 3000 or 4000# -- doesn't mean you're going to load 2000 or 3000 or 4000# of stuff into it.

Ron

Gdetrailer wrote:
My take is to use the GVWR as your measuring stick for buying (even though your trailer could have a high Cargo rating you may never use).---

I don't know why anyone would want to penalize him/herself by purchasing a too-small trailer just so the TV could tow excess trailer payload which would never be used. The TV doesn't care how much the trailer can weigh -- it only cares how much the trailer does weigh.

I've expressed my opinions on this issue several times. This time, I'll refer you to several posts written by another ORF member. Links to them can be found here.

An example post by "John & Angela" is copied below. I agree completely with the comments.
Using the trailer's GVWR instead of the expected GVW is likely to
1) result in your buying a TV which is bigger than you need or want,
2) result in your buying a trailer which is smaller than you want and smaller than your TV can handle, and/or
3) result in your buying a trailer with a relatively small CCC which could make it more likely that you would load the trailer to 100% or more of its GVWR.

QUOTING "JOHN & ANGELA"
The problem with using GVWR instead of GVW for checking compatibility with a tow vehicle is that it can take you out of a lot of higher quality units that use higher capacity components in their suspensions, frames, axles, brakes etc. A well known quality manufacturer has a model weighing in around 6200 dry weight. The GVWR is 10,000 pounds. If one has a truck capable of towing 9000 pounds for example they would not look at the unit if they are using the GVWR as a weight instead of a rating. They would effectively choose a lesser trailer only because its rating is LOWER. A 6200 pound 25 foot trailer even with a pack rat packing it would probably never come in over about 7800 pounds. It has also been my experience that the yellow tag is fairly acurate although I am not aware that includes propane and battery as any unit I have seen come from a factory doesn't have propane or battery included. This may vary depending on how it is ordered from the factory I suppose.

Although overestimating weight is always a good idea I think it needs to be kept real. GVWR is your friend. The bigger the better. Kinda like buying a truck. Do you look for a truck with a smaller rating or a larger rating. JMHO. I think even a rookie would understand that looking for a unit with a low rating vice high could turn into a safety issue fast.
UNQUOTE

Gdetrailer wrote:
---Using the GVWR of the trailer ENSURES you will NEVER exceed the vehicles towing capacity and GIVES YOU ROOM to grow in the years to come.

Nothing is ENSURED. Too much load in the TV can cause the towing capacity to be exceeded. Exceeding the trailer's GVWR can cause the towing capacity to be exceeded.
If you believe that people are incapable of estimating and controlling how much they might load into the trailer, how can you be sure they will not load too much into the TV or into the trailer?
I choose to believe that people can make reasonable estimates and can control loading -- especially people who ask the kinds of questions being asked by the OP.

Ron

Add approx. 1200-1500lbs to the dry weight, this will be the ready to travel weight. then figure on 12.5% for tongue weight.

So 5300lbs dry will be approx. 6600lbs ready to travel. and the loaded tongue weight should be 825lbs (12.5% of the 6600lbs). well within the ability of an Expedition.

What is the CCC (Cargo Carrying Capacity) of the TT in question. some have as high as 4000+lbs! (mine has a 4100lb CCC) I`m 2k lbs less than the GVWR. so using the GVWR in some instances is also useless. now most smaller trailers have a very low CCC, as low as 500lbs, so in that case using the GVWR is a must. it all depends on what you load into it also. If you have the available CCC use the dry weight plus 1500lbs. if you have a low CCC go by the GVWR.