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chooks2's avatar
chooks2
Explorer
Jan 20, 2015

2014 Dodge Durango

I have a 2014 dodge durango that has a towing capacity of 6200 lbs and manual says 1330 for payload. What would the max travel trailer weight that you would recommend with this vehicle. I will use a weight distribution hitch. Any help would be appreciated
  • On the door sticker find the GCWR rating. Get the Durango weighed while fully loaded, including the gas, and hitch. Then subtract the Actual weight from the GCWR and you'll know what the max TT weight is.

    GCWR - Actual loaded weight = What you can tow

    GVWR - Actual loaded weight = The max payload of the Durango
  • Just an example:

    Say you have 4 people (600 lbs), 2 dogs (100 lbs), and your WDH (100 lbs). You take your 1350 lbs and subtract that 800 lbs and you are left with 550 lbs for tongue weight.

    The more stuff you put in the TV the less TW you can handle. TW is typically 12-15% of the loaded weight of the travel trailer. Dry weights are usually meaningless unless you read them from the sticker on the trailer itself. Figure folks usually add 1000 lbs of stuff to their trailer. So a TT with a sticker weight of 4000 lbs could weight 5000 lbs loaded. That would put the TW between 600-750 lbs typically.

    Remember this is all just theoretical as different trailers have different distributions and behavior characteristics going down the road.

    Now this could be a moot point if your receiver is only rated to handle 500 lbs, so that's important to know too.
  • So if my payload is only 1350 then I need to subtract all my gear and everything from that. If so I wouldn't be able to hail anything with this vehicle. Or do I take the 6200 subtract the payload and gear from that number? Sorry a little new to this and don't want to mess up my vehicle.
  • eluwak wrote:
    You'll likely be limited by either remaining payload or receiver rating on this one.


    Yup.

    Bruce
  • Look at the door sticker to get the actual payload. Then you need to know the weight of what will be in it when you travel (i.e. people, pets, firewood, snacks, gold bars, etc.). Then you can look at how much TW capacity you have left and work back from there. You'll likely be limited by either remaining payload or receiver rating on this one.