tongue wt.
When figuring tongue wt. do you include the weight of the wdh.
Forum Discussion
- Yes, I do.
- No, not included in tongue wt, but is included in payload.
Jerry - The weight of the hitch counts against your truck's available payload.
(along with the tongue weight, all the gear in your truck, all the extra passengers, etc) - Why would you “figure” tongue weight? Weigh it.
- 80 lbs One way or the other isn't going to blow up your truck.
- I agree with MFL, downtheroad and wing_zealot, it is not tongue weight, it is truck payload, but it weighs so little compared to the rest of the tongue weight, it really doesn't matter.
- Its weight supported by the receiver so technically yes it’s tongue weight. The receiver can’t tell the difference. That being said I weigh my truck with the hitch in the receiver. My hitch is also rated for 2500lbs TW so it’s not a big deal.
If the TWc is 800lbs and the hitch is 80lbs that’s 10%, hardly a insignificant number. - Some of you are missing the important issue.
Including the hitch in the TW gives you a false number. It will give you a higher number than it actually is. This can make you feel that you have enough TW, when you really do not.
As most everyone here knows... Too little TW is the leading cause of sway.
Don't fool yourself by including the hitch in the TW. - Ditto
- I concur with Huntingdog. Tongue weight needs to be 10% to 15% of trailer weight to try to prevent sway. That means trailer weight pressing down on the ball the coupler is hooked to. The WD hitch weight is not pressing down on the ball, so it is not part of the weight keeping the trailer from swaying, it is merely payload.
We may need to differentiate between tongue weight and hitch weight. Tongue weight is what keeps the trailer from swaying, and does not include the WD hitch. Hitch weight is the weight that the hitch supports, and does include the WD hitch.
