Tongue Weight Rating
Hello, We are buying a trailer for our daughter and son-in-law. They now have a Ford Expedition with 8,900# tow rating. 80% of that is 7,120#, but they should stay below 7,000# loaded (5,500 to 6...
Forum Discussion
clearnetedm wrote:I think many RVers forget that tow vehicles are used to tow things other than RV trailers.
---I really can't understand why vehicle manufactures talk about TW being greater than 10% over trailer weight but only rate the hitch for 10%. I suspect most are in the 12-14% range. In our case the hitch is rated for 9200LBS pull and 920 hitch weight (with WDH) (I know there are other weights to consider here).---
For example, a large number of TV are used for towing boats.
With a boat, it's not uncommon to have a tongue weight percentage which is 10% or less.
Most TVs are not capable of handling a TW which is 15% of what they can pull.
If a TV can handle only 900# of TW, we could say the maximum trailer weight should be 900/0.15 = 6000#.
However, if the TV can pull 9000#, there is no reason not to rate it for that.
I guess the $64,000 question is -- why do so many TV's have a max trailer weight rating which is exactly 10 times the max tongue weight rating?
Perhaps the TV manufacturer simply doesn't want to be in a position of having a max tongue weight which is less than 10% of the max trailer weight -- since they say the tongue weight should be 10-15% of the trailer weight.
Ron
