Gdetrailer wrote:
itsjustjer wrote:
Pardon me if I come across as frustrated with this post, but if we can’t depend on ANY numbers from the vehicle or the RV manufacturer to be correct, then how has anyone ever purchased a vehicle and RV and known they were within their limits until after the fact?
Maybe we’ll just rent whatever model we’re thinking of buying and take it to the scale. Even then, that particular trailer isn’t going to weigh the same as the specific one we’ll be buying.
Sorry that the answers you are getting do not fit your idea of a proper tow vehicle/trailer match.
Folks ARE giving you straight up GOOD ADVICE on tongue weight, I would REALLY RECOMMEND HEEDING THIS ADVICE.
10% tongue weight is THE ABSOLUTE MINIMUM, it IS LESS THAN IDEAL putting YOU AND YOUR FAMILY IN TO A PLACE YOU DO NOT WISH TO GO. That is especially true when "Mr MURPHY" decides to cross your path at the wrong time (like going down hill on a major Interstate at say 70 MPH and a deer jumps across the road). That is when you WILL be WISHING you had 15% tongue weight or more..
For each % above 10% you will find the trailer will track better and be much more stable. Some say 12%, some say 13% but personally, myself I LOVE 15%..
Yeah, I HAVE encountered not once but TWICE deer running right across the road while on a major Interstate while running 70 MPH.. Both times I was able to fully keep control of my vehicle and trailer without even changing lanes.
Granted in both cases I am driving a F250 with 6500 lbs of 26 ft trailer behind me and not once did it ever feel like I was about to lose control.
My tongue weight?
975 lbs loaded.. 15%
Empty weight of 5500 lbs I have 770 lbs on the tongue or 14%.
You simply will not like how your trailer tows if you run 10% tongue weight and most likely will be back complaining about it..
Tongue weight is your friend..
I understand what you’re saying and that’s fine. My frustration comes from the inability to calculate ANY weight to ANY certain degree seeing as how it’s impossible to know that any weight is actually accurate from the manufacturer. How has anyone ever purchased a vehicle and camper and known they’d be compatible if we can’t rely on payload numbers or tongue weight numbers from the manufacturer?
There are a lot of campers I’ve looked at that state they have close to 3k lbs cargo carrying capacity. I’ve dragged out everything we had in our old camper and weighed it, plus weighed way more clothes than we’d ever bring realistically, plus so much more gear that we’d probably just shove in the camper to store it and probably never actually use. All of that weighs about 650 lbs (I think it was 644). I just rounded that up to 1k lbs because maybe we’ll want to travel with a tank of water sometime. Now there is a huge difference between adding an additional 1k lbs to the dry weight versus adding an additional 3k lbs to the dry weight. I’m all for over estimating (as you may have noticed), but over estimating by 2k lbs is kind of overkill considering everything else has been overestimated already. This is my problem with saying we’ll use the GVWR on a trailer. However, if we can’t rely on the dry weight to be even remotely accurate then how is it even possible for someone to know what weight they’re supposed to add their gear weight onto to find their loaded weight? That’s the frustration.
