weight police questions please

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Barney

Hi Riven,

Some things to look out for. Pulling power wise you may not have large issues. Weight wise, heads up. I looked up your 2 campers you mentioned. I'm "assumed" you meant current model year. I did not find the 720# dry tongue weight camper you listed.

I did find these. The Apex 269rbks front bedroom, rear bath floor plan. 636 dry TW with 5,837 dry GVW less any dealer added options. 10.9% dry TW (tongue weight)
269rbks

The Apex 279rlss front bed room, rear living floor plan. 620# dry TW with 5,490# dry GVW less any dealer added options. 11.3% dry TW
279rlss

You seemed to be using the "dry" tongue weights for your truck capacity. That is not accurate for a "loaded" camper.

I have had 2, rear living floor plan campers and that floor plan loads a good amount of weight towards the tongue. Point: Heads up, the 279RLSS is going to rise in TW a lot more then the rear bath model. The only thing in the back of the 279RLSS is those nice 2 rocker chairs. Look where all the storage is. Over the axles, good. Some in the bath, OK, and a boat load in the front bedroom and front cargo hole. Heads up, that front area weight is going to go to the tongue as there is not much storage aft of the axles to unload it. That camper may easily end up rising to 1,000# to 1,100# loaded TW. Maybe more pending if you use all the cargo capacity of the TT. We really love the rear living floor plan. But it takes a truck with cargo capacity to hold it up. In our case, the first camper forced me out of a 1500 Tahoe to a 2500 Suburban. 6,800# TT with 1,200# TW. And our current rear living room camper, has 9,950# TT with a 1,600# TW, thus the F350.

The 269rbks, has the rear bath and the kitchen pantry which is behind the TT axles. You can add cargo to those rear areas that will help offset the front bedroom area and help keep the TW lower.

Point: For the same amount of camping "stuff" the rear bath layout will be better on your truck then the rear living.

50 gal. fresh water tank. Watch where that tank is located. If you need to haul fresh water to camp from home, that is 415# of weight to account for. Best is, it is over the TT axles but some mfg'ers mount them forward of the axles raising TW even more. Also watch out if it is behind the axles as that lowers the TW, may be, not good.

Even the 269rbks may have a 900 to 1,000# TW. If your truck only has 1,328# cargo capacity your going to have a time trying to manage your weights. If you have 325# of passengers, 1,000# of TW, well there is not much left over. As Old Biscuit said, take your truck with all the people in it, the kayaks on the roof, bikes in the bed and any other gear and go get a front and rear axle scaled weight. Now you are armed with real world numbers. You do not want to be overrunning the truck rear axle rating which is where your issue will come. GVWR is going to be into issue too.

The LT tires are a good move but still do not overrun the rear axle capacity.

Hope this helps and good luck. Happy Thanksgiving to you too.

riven1950 wrote:
The tongue weight on one is 620 , the other is 720.

We have a 2013 F150 3.5 Ecoboost 4x4 crew cab. The sticker says 1328 lbs carry capacity. Installing new LT tires and Bilstein 5100 shocks in December.

We are two people 95 percent of the time. Carry two kayaks and two folding bikes in the truck.

Our clothing etc. going in the TT is about 1000 as previously weighed.

We would weigh in at about 325lbs. We don't carry much else in the truck other than folding chairs and extra 20 lb lp tank.

I have no problem pulling the 6500 lbs with our truck. My calculations show we would be right at the payload capacity, maybe a couple hundred over at most.

Looking at Apex 269rbss and Apex 279rlss. 29'10" and 31' overall length including tongue. box about 3' shorter

Do you have the OPTIONAL HD Trailer Tow package with the HD radiator and HD auxiliary transmission cooler ?

If NOT, get them installed !

Since I'm not the weight police, I'll say u may need a little rear suspension help but that's an otherwise capable tow rig for what you're looking at.

What do kayaks weigh?
What do the folding bikes weigh?
What do the folding chairs weigh?

Your weight, GFs weight, any stuff in cab (under/on seats, bags/backpacks etc.), the kayaks, the bikes, the chairs and that 35# of extra propane (cylinder weight & 20# propane).........ALL have to be subtracted from that 1328# cargo carrying capacity.
THEN you have to subtract the TT tongue weight from that!

SO you will be OVER on payload .......not so much because of TTs weight but the extra stuff in/on truck (kayaks, bikes)

The other issue to pay attention to would be the trucks RAWR
LT tires are a good idea.

Both trailers would be OK it's just all the stuff that you are packing in/on truck that will cause you to be overweight.

Best to go to scales and get weighed 'camp ready' then you have REAL numbers to use in decisions.

Like I said...either trailer weight wise OK for your truck.
Just need to see what the extras weigh in at.

Didn't you already ask this same question a couple of days ago and get lots of good answers?

SEE HERE

Anyway, you should be fine with either and good luck with your choice.

Don't need to change trucks. Enjoy your new trailer.

I think you'll be fine. Bed cargo may need to be minimized.