tongue weight

Yep I stand by my assumption that you will be fine.

You are correct that with a weight distribution hitch your receiver is rated for a total of 10,500 lbs and a max tongue weight of 1,100 lbs.

I always figure about 1,200 lbs with added clothes, food, water, and other camping junk. So you are at
5,620 lbs Dry
1,200 loaded for camping
6,820 total heck round it up to 7,000 for grins. that gives you
910 lb tongue weight at 13%

Trailer is rated at up to 7,600 so you are good there with 7,000 lbs.
Truck is rated at 9,600 so you are good there again with 7,000 lbs.
hitch is rated at 1,100 WDH so you are good there with 910 lbs.

I'm still saying in my opinion you're good with a 1,000 lb WDH.


You also have to take a step back and realistically figure on how the weight is going to get into the waste tanks. If you have say 40 gallons fresh, you're only really going to wind up with 40 gallons combined black and gray. The water in the waste tanks had to start somewhere and that somewhere is the fresh water tank; plus some of the relief after drinking the drinks in the cooler. So as you use the 40 gallons fresh, the water moves into the waste tanks. When the fresh tank is empty, the waste tanks will stop filling.
Figure 40 gal at 8.3 lbs per gal = 332 lbs.

Now if you are at a park with a fresh water hookup, you will be bypassing the fresh tank and will be able to put more than 40 gal in the waste tanks. But then again if you are at a park with a water hookup, they will also invariably have a dump station to empty the waste tanks before heading home.

andrew_the_newbe wrote:
I had one more question. I just went out to the TT to check the #'s again, my dry weight is 5620 lbs and Max weight the trailer can handle is 7600 lbs. I'm pretty sure you never want to tow with water tanks full, you hook up and dump if possible at the park. Now I know how fast weight can add up, but with a empty water tank and light on packing ( clothes, beer, water, food,bedding) how much weight can you really add as long as you are trying to stay on the light side? I think I would find it hard just to put 600 lbs of stuff in a trailer and even if I could that's 6220 lbs towing empty tanks. We decided not to dry camp already so we never have to haul a weighed down trailer and I have heard you can't always dump black/grey water at a campsite but can a black/ grey water tank really weigh close to 1300 pounds? Would it be best to order a tongue weight scale, load up the things I think I will need and weigh the tongue weight that way?

who knows what you are going to put in it.

we use plastic plates, many would cringe at the thought of not eating off of corel.That right there is an easy 20 lbs. Some bring crockpots, bread makers, then you should always carry a full set of sockets, drivers, pliers,etc, jacks, leveling equipment....it adds up super quick.
Google "cat scale" and see where the nearest one is to you...load it up and go weigh it.

I likely stay around the 5-600 in cargo range others are into the 2000-2500range...if you can carry it some will

As a general rule, we never tow with anything in the tanks....very minor exceptions excluded. Water weighs something like 8.3# per gallon x 30 gallos, if that's your tank size = 240# in the FW. Probably similar in the grey and I haven't asked and likely won't how much the "stuff" in the black tank weighs per gallon. But adding 750 - 800# without realizing it is easy. I couldn't help but think as I hauled the WM bags to Rocky the other day just how heavy they were. I really should park the bathroom scale by the TT and just see how much weight I'm adding just in food, etc for a weekend trip. Probably would knock my socks off.

Slightly OT, but my cousin had his own plane and 3 small children. As the children grew, so did the weight and the "stuff" that came along. It got to the point that his DW "joked" - not really - that when they found they had to weigh the potato chips, it was time to sell that plane. Same principal.

We are very weight concious, but when we started moving stuff from our HTT to our new TT, we were amazed at the stuff that had found its way in there. Likely 1 piece at a time, but it added up. Rocky is on a lifetime diet! If it's not necessary and/or we don't use it regularly, it stays home.

I had one more question. I just went out to the TT to check the #'s again, my dry weight is 5620 lbs and Max weight the trailer can handle is 7600 lbs. I'm pretty sure you never want to tow with water tanks full, you hook up and dump if possible at the park. Now I know how fast weight can add up, but with a empty water tank and light on packing ( clothes, beer, water, food,bedding) how much weight can you really add as long as you are trying to stay on the light side? I think I would find it hard just to put 600 lbs of stuff in a trailer and even if I could that's 6220 lbs towing empty tanks. We decided not to dry camp already so we never have to haul a weighed down trailer and I have heard you can't always dump black/grey water at a campsite but can a black/ grey water tank really weigh close to 1300 pounds? Would it be best to order a tongue weight scale, load up the things I think I will need and weigh the tongue weight that way?

ok, got some numbers for you. As far as the gear ratio, they didn't tell me which one my Silverado has, they just told me that I'm rated for 9200. Now I just went out to the truck and looked at the hitch receiver and there was two sets of #'s,

Hitch type/ max trailer weight/ max tongue weight
-------------------------------------------------
weight / /
carrying / 5,000 lbs / 600 lbs.
--------------------------------------------------
weight / /
distributing / 10,500 lbs. / 1,100 lbs


Sorry, tried to make it as it appeared on the truck. So, if I'm reading this right, The hitch receiver can handle 1100 lbs with a wdh and 600 lbs without a wdh(tongue weight), is that correct or am I reading this wrong? Oh and to answer a earlier question. The truck is a 2008 LT, V8 5.3L, w/4 wheel drive, Crew cab, short bed. Again, thank you everyone for your help.

Hi Andrew,
Don't let the newness get to you. if your truck is rated at 9,200lbs your truck will pull the trailer. The wrong gear ratio in the truck might make you a bit slower on the big hills, but other than that the truck will pull the trailer. People have been pulling similar weight trailers for many years with vehicles that have significantly less horsepower and torque.

Can you give us the year and model of the truck? Is it 2 wheel drive, 4 wheel drive? Long bed, short bed, crew cab, standard cab? Did the dealer tell you the axle ratio, or just that it's the wrong ratio?

Yes tongue weight is important, and we don't like to guess because we don't want you to have to spend additional money to correct a bad guess. But I'm going to "guess" that a 1,000lb hitch will be fine, and definitely not more than a 1,200 lb hitch.

In reality we're talking 200lbs difference and you're probably going to get more than that fluctuation in just camping and using the trailer for a weekend. When I camp in the desert I easily add 200lbs to my tongue weight for the trip out. After the weekend my coolers are empty, the fresh water tank (in front of the axles) is empty, and the black and gray tanks behind the axles are full. And I get home towing 55mph without any sway.

Yes it would be nice if you could take the trailer to the scales and get a tongue weight. If you can't do that though, then here's what I would do.

Send your wife to the store to buy you some more beer because you're getting low. While she's gone run into the bathroom and grab the bathroom scale. Then follow this link to get your tongue weight.
Bathroom Scale tongue weight Make sure you use method B :)

Or another thing you can do which is not as precise but probably just as good. You have bought a standard run of the mill 28 foot trailer. Call Progress MFG (the makers of the Equal-i-zer)1-800-478-5578 and ask them which weight rating hitch they sell the most of. I'm guessing that they tell you it's the 1,000 lb model. If it is the 1,000 model then that's probably the model I would buy.

You also asked about the different hitches fitting. The hitches are all basically the same size unless you get up to a class V hitch which is not a stock hitch on your truck. The different weight class on the WDH is the spring bars. (the bars between the hitch and trailer A frame) They will all fit your trailer, but you probably can't buy a 1,000 lb hitch and later put the 1,200 lb bars in it. But I guarantee you that if you call Progress they can tell you for certain if upgrading to larger bars later is an option. :)

One more thing. Go out to your truck and look at the hitch. Is there a sticker on the hitch that tells you the capacity of the hitch? If so what are those numbers?

Huntindog wrote:
One thing that often gets overlooked is that TW can change quite a bit during the course of a trip. Especially important for boondockers.

Water gets used and moves from the fresh water tank to either the black or grey tanks, food gets eaten and drinks consumed, and a lot of it may end up in the black tank. Propane gets used. Even things like clothing may move from the closet etc. to the dirty clothes hamper.

So I cringe when I see someone confident that a marginal TV will be just fine if the TT is loaded to keep the TW low....One of two things is bound to happen at some point. 1. The TW will get too low, potentially cause handling problems or.
2. The TW will get too high, potentially causing overloading problems.

I like to see a TV capable of 15% or more of the GVW TW, and target loaded ready to go TW of 13-14%.

Good point ! Thats why I invested in a Sherline TW scale. I take it with me on my trips. That way I can measure my TW at the campground before returning home to ensure its not out of whack.

I would get the 1000/10000 for a 28 ft trailer. Most TW's are in the 11-13% range so I don't agree with basing it on 15%.

you will get a poor ride experience with bars too heavy as well.

Have you taken the time yet to get the trailer weighed? nobody can tell you anything until we know the weights.

My suggestion as I have said before is buy a Propride or Hensley. yes they are 2000 but you have spent all this money now what is a bit more to ensure you enjoy what you have purchased.

Ok, to answer a question, I towed this trailer home( about 30 mi.) with a Chevy Tahoe with nothing more then a 2 5/16 " ball on the back of a Tahoe and that's it. This was before I signed on to this forum. Knowing what I know now, that was very dangerous but considering I had no wdh with sway control it towed ok. I definitely won't be doing that again until the proper safety measures are taken. Now after that is said , my Wife and I started looking at trucks not only for the trailer but since I'm in the construction industry and trying to start my own business, we thought a truck would kill two birds with one stone. Before I go any further I want to point out that my trusted mechanic and fellow RV'er looked at the owners manuel for my previous Tahoe and the trailer and told me I could tow it, granted I was totally maxed out but I was within the capacity of my Tahoe. Now I was just at the dealership today to drop off some paperwork for the Silverado that we just purchased and they told me the Silverado was rated to tow 9200 lbs Max. and told me I was looking at the wrong gear ratio. I know I'm new to all of this and I have a lot of learning to do, but I did do some homework before I purchased this truck. I did ask several different credible people before this purchase and everyone assured me that I could tow this tt safely assuming the proper safety measures are taken ( wdh, brake control, etc). I understand towing such a vehicle without those things was very reckless on my part and there was a lot of ignorance in that situation. I have towed things before but never anything this big and I just didn't know about sway and a wdh and so on. But I can tell you I won't be making that mistake again. So back on subject, that is all the info I have at this point and I'm trying to get a proper setup to tow safely. Should I just play it safe and get the biggest made which is 1400/14,000 lbs and know that I'm covered or do I need to get a accurate weight? And I also want to state that any and all help is welcome and appreciated. Thank you.