Help making a decision on truck purchase.
I am thinking of buying a new truck to pull our winnebago micro Minnie 5th wheel. We currently have a 2006 gmc 2500 . I’d like to go with a smaller truck for gas mileage and was thinking of a Toyota ...
Forum Discussion
MFL wrote:
Hey Marty...from my experience, purchasing/shopping for several new FWs, the dry wts given are for the entire trailer, sitting on the scale, disconnected from truck. The dry pin wt is normally about 20% of this figure. So, if the entire dry wt of trailer is 5,500, the dry pin would be 1,100. Then fully loaded 7,000, sitting on the scale, truck disconnected/trailer only, would have 1,400 pin wt, when reconnected to truck.
This the reason some FWs with 10K gvwr only have 4,400 axles. Mine has 5,200 axles, but a 12,110 gvwr.
Jerry
GVWR is for the entire trailer not what sits on the axles. The axle rating plus hitch weight added together should equal or exceed the GVWR. You may or may not get lucky exceeding the GVWR.
With a 1400lb pin weight, not many 1/2 ton trucks will have the payload once you add in a hitch and a few people in the truck, plus anything else in the bed or bolted on after market (all of which count against the payload).
If you think you know better than the manufacturer, go for it but lots of folks have played that game and payed the price when they pay for the bigger truck or quit RVing because it's scary to drive an overloaded rig.
1/2 ton trucks are really much better suited to bumper pull where hitch weight should be 12-15% rather than the 20-25% of a 5th wheel.
