Dry weight vs. ready to go weight.
For the newbies who are TT hunting this may be of some use. The dry weight on my 25 ft. Dutchman is listed at 5004 lbs. Tongue weight is said to be 462 lbs. (about 9%) Twice I weighed my rig wi...
Forum Discussion
SoundGuy wrote:
Of course you can! :( Rigs spec'd with so much CCC that very few would actually use could convince one it's necessary to go up a category in tow vehicle, say 3/4 ton instead of 1/2 ton, when in fact it wouldn't be required at all with a reasonable cargo load. If a trailer's GVW, loaded and ready to camp, is comfortably within it's GVWR then fine, use the GVWR as a worse case scenario, but if GVW with a practical load is several thousand pounds below GVWR then it would be a horrendous mistake to use GVWR as a guide in determining which tow vehicle category would be necessary to safely tow that particular trailer. Good grief, no wonder so many newbies find the subject safe towing so confusing! :S
You can really box yourself in a corner by using the method you are using. What you are suggesting is that a newbie guess at how much they will load in a trailer. How would they know? How would you know what they might load into their trailer? Talk about confusing! They won't really know until they get the trailer and weigh it, and it may be too late by then. Sure there are situations where one could be towing several thousand lbs below the GVWR. But that's going to be exception not the general rule. This is especially true when talking about smaller trailers, 24ft or so and less. Many trailers in this size range have less than 1000# of CC after the options are added.
Keep in mind that many people start out "packing light" then see all this extra available space and guess what? It's like the basement and garage. They find ways to fill the space. If they used your method of sizing, they run into decreased towing ability and complain about how bad their TV is. Why not size everything properly from the get go and have breathing room?
I've knowingly had 2 rigs very close to my capacities. Yes it worked, yes it was safe. But in both cases it was a less than stellar towing experience and very limiting on how far and what kind of terrain I could take my trailers on. I just don't like suggesting to newbies to skimp when they have a chance to size things comfortably.
