The difference between dry an loaded weight.

SoundGuy wrote:

rbpru wrote:
Unfortunately, the heart of the problem is the consumer themselves.

My point exactly - people these days want to be spoon fed, can't be bothered doing any work themselves to establish exactly what they can and can't safely tow. :R

rbpru wrote:
Even if the TT had a giant sticker on the side saying "This TT weights 7987 lbs. at this time and has 850 lbs. of tongue weight. The consumer would say " no problem" the truck literature says their 1/2 ton can pull 9500 lbs. and the hitch is rated to 1500 lbs with a WD hitch.

We see this posted in one way or another almost every day here on the forums. People actually believe this nonsense. The real problem is many don't want to understand. :S

I agree consumers are guilty to a point. Even the towing guru's hear on RV.net can't agree as to which towing parameters really matter?

But the manufactures don't help with using terms like " Mandatory options". and then advertise the weight without those options"
Truck dealers will tout large tow ratings but fail to mention payload.
Consumers maybe their own worst enemy. But RV manufactures are far from being totally forthright in their advertising and brochures.
They deliberately omit key info that would benefit and educate the consumers.
Instead of eliminating the confusion, they strive to maintain it by telling only half of the story.
It's not so much what the ad says, It is what it doesn't say that ultimately hurts the consumer.
For instance the brochure list dry weights, however trailers with the dry weights listed in the brochure don't actually exist because they a fictitious stripped down models. That exist on paper only.
Slip in the term mandatory options and you have the recipe for consumer confusion.
Somehow you want this to be the consumers fault. The RV manufactures could easily make changes to educate the consumers but deception opens more doors and sells more RV's than the upfront truth.