New to travel trailers. Seeking guidance
Hi everyone. While I am not new to camping I am new to the whole RV style of camping. My name is Jason. My wife and I are in the market looking to purchase a new (not used) tow behind travel trailer...
Forum Discussion
If you can afford it, I would buy new as well. No sense in inheriting other's problems imo. If you put 30-35% down and use it a few years and decide it is not for you, it wont be too bad getting out of it.
I have a 13 Ram 1500...I was looking at similar sized trailers and I quickly found out the payload capacity will kill you and seriously limit your trailer choices. Load up the truck with gas and the family and go to a local CAT scale and weigh it...you might be shocked at how much it weighs...(I was). When I did this my truck weighed in at 6380lbs...GVWR of truck is 6800lbs....that meant I had 420lbs of payload left!! Needless to say I was not happy (and my 2014 Ram 3500 CTD I ordered 6 weeks ago should be here any day now:))
Once you have a real world weight of your truck, then look at trailers and do as others have suggested and take 13% of the GVWR of the trailer (dry weight is utterly useless) and then add maybe 100lbs for the hitch, etc, and that will let you know what you can tow (depending on how close you want to get to the limits of your truck). Good luck and once you have the size and GVWR of the trailer narrowed down, make sure to look at a LOT of floor plans...more than you think is necessary:)
I have a 13 Ram 1500...I was looking at similar sized trailers and I quickly found out the payload capacity will kill you and seriously limit your trailer choices. Load up the truck with gas and the family and go to a local CAT scale and weigh it...you might be shocked at how much it weighs...(I was). When I did this my truck weighed in at 6380lbs...GVWR of truck is 6800lbs....that meant I had 420lbs of payload left!! Needless to say I was not happy (and my 2014 Ram 3500 CTD I ordered 6 weeks ago should be here any day now:))
Once you have a real world weight of your truck, then look at trailers and do as others have suggested and take 13% of the GVWR of the trailer (dry weight is utterly useless) and then add maybe 100lbs for the hitch, etc, and that will let you know what you can tow (depending on how close you want to get to the limits of your truck). Good luck and once you have the size and GVWR of the trailer narrowed down, make sure to look at a LOT of floor plans...more than you think is necessary:)
