Taking the plunge
Ok.... So my wife and I are buying a TT. We currently own a pop up and have loaned it to some friends this weekend in hopes that they will buy it. My wife has had enough of camping without a bathroo...
Forum Discussion
As others have stated, there is a lot more than overall manufacturers stated tow capacity to look at as that number is given on a best case scenario with nothing but a driver in the truck..... let's look at how to figure out what you can tow.
First load your truck up with all passengers, pets and gear that will be with you when camping. Now go to a local Cat scale and weigh your truck with a full tank of fuel plus all of the above mentioned items. Put the front axle on the first scale pad and the rear axle on the second scale pad. (Bring a broom handle as the button to push us at truckers height).
Now take your trucks total scaled weight and subtract it from your trucks gcwr to get your adjusted towing capacity. Trade your trucks scaled weight and subtract it from your trucks gvwr to get your available payload. Take your rear axle weight (drive axle on the paper) and subtract it from the max rawr to find out how much room you have available on your rear axle. You need to stay within all of these numbers with your loaded tt weights.
Your trailer tongue weight will be applied to your trucks payload. The dry tongue weight listed is kind of a useless number as it commonly does not include propane, battery etc. Your ideal tongue weight is 13-15% of the trailers loaded (not dry weight). You will not be taking a empty or dry trailer camping. Since you don't know how much weight you will be putting in, it is safer to calculate using tt gvwr, although I will tell you that on average people tend to add 1000-1500 lbs of gear, dishes, clothes etc to their tt.
The 28bh has a gvwr (dry weight + cargo capacity) of 9695 lbs. That means a worst case scenario hitch weight of 1454 lbs (15% of 9695) although you will not likely be that heavy. 13% of gvwr would be 1260 lbs. If we just added 1500 lbs to dry weight you would be looking at tt weight of 8226 lbs loaded and hitch weight of 1069 - 1233 lbs. That is a lot of trailer for a 1500 level truck. If it is within all ratings then do it but if not then keep looking.
First load your truck up with all passengers, pets and gear that will be with you when camping. Now go to a local Cat scale and weigh your truck with a full tank of fuel plus all of the above mentioned items. Put the front axle on the first scale pad and the rear axle on the second scale pad. (Bring a broom handle as the button to push us at truckers height).
Now take your trucks total scaled weight and subtract it from your trucks gcwr to get your adjusted towing capacity. Trade your trucks scaled weight and subtract it from your trucks gvwr to get your available payload. Take your rear axle weight (drive axle on the paper) and subtract it from the max rawr to find out how much room you have available on your rear axle. You need to stay within all of these numbers with your loaded tt weights.
Your trailer tongue weight will be applied to your trucks payload. The dry tongue weight listed is kind of a useless number as it commonly does not include propane, battery etc. Your ideal tongue weight is 13-15% of the trailers loaded (not dry weight). You will not be taking a empty or dry trailer camping. Since you don't know how much weight you will be putting in, it is safer to calculate using tt gvwr, although I will tell you that on average people tend to add 1000-1500 lbs of gear, dishes, clothes etc to their tt.
The 28bh has a gvwr (dry weight + cargo capacity) of 9695 lbs. That means a worst case scenario hitch weight of 1454 lbs (15% of 9695) although you will not likely be that heavy. 13% of gvwr would be 1260 lbs. If we just added 1500 lbs to dry weight you would be looking at tt weight of 8226 lbs loaded and hitch weight of 1069 - 1233 lbs. That is a lot of trailer for a 1500 level truck. If it is within all ratings then do it but if not then keep looking.
