Towing Capacity for New Travel Trailer

Forget about the "tow capacity" and be more concerned with payload capacity as you will run out of that well before nearing the tow rating. For example, a 9700lbs tow rating is completely useless when the truck only has 1200lbs of payload. A 9k tt will have in excess of 1k tongue weight. Add in a 200lbs driver and you're already overweight.

Rams have the lowest payloads of all the 1/2 ton trucks. Some loaded crew cabs are under 1000lbs. Depending on your payload and what you carry in the truck people and gear wise, you may be overloaded with your current setup.

donn0128 wrote:
Please stop concerning yourself with the dry weight. You will never ever tow a dry trailer. Instead look at the trailers GVWR. If your truck can safely tow the trailers GVWR, then it should work OK. You may never see the trailers gross weight, but anything lower will be your safety margin.

Sure, for trailers with perhaps 1000 - 1500 lbs of CCC as that means once loaded it's GVW will end up not all that far off it's GVWR. However, many trailers offer much more CCC (heck, even my own 19' Coachmen is well over a ton!) so using GVWR as a guide just makes no sense at all as there's no way one can (or should) load so much into the trailer that GVW will ever come anywhere near close to it's GVWR. Unfortunately the OP hasn't indicated what this intended trailer's CCC may be so there's really no way one could rationally suggest using GVWR as a guide. If there's any Achilles' Heel to the 1/2 ton truck it's the rather modest payload capacity, especially if that truck has to also carry the weight of a family & some additional gear in the cargo compartment as well as accommodating any trailer tongue weight transferred to the truck. Reality is, with his 1/2 ton truck the OP will run out of payload capacity long before he comes anywhere near to meeting the truck's GCWR. In addition, the OP hasn't said anything about his particular truck's axle ratio which will have a HUGE impact on just how well it may tow a trailer this heavy. :( JMO, but having been towing for 10+ yrs with 1/2 tons I'd not tow a trailer anywhere near this heavy, about 6000 lbs fully loaded I'd consider about max as that will easily result in an average gross tongue weight of ~ 750 to 800 lbs, about the most I'd want to be dropping on the rear on most 1/2 tons with limited payload capacity.

Welcome to the Forum.
and, be MUCH more concerned with the Payload capacity of your truck and not so much with the towing capacity.

Good luck with your search and you are being very wise doing this kind of thinking BEFORE you buy.

kenm500 wrote:
I am currently looking to purchase a new Travel Trailer. My current trailer, a Keystone Bullet 246RBS, has a dry wt of 4800lbs. I tow it with a 2013 Ram 1500, which is rated between 8400lbs and 9700lbs depending on the chart you use. Seems as even the dealers have a hard time answering the actual towing capacity question. The truck has no problems towing the current trailer, but I'm looking at a new trailer which is 5 ft longer and has a dry weight of 6100lbs. Should I be concerned that the weight with gear and such is getting to close to the capacity of the truck? Obviously I would prefer not to upgrade to a 2500.

In 2016 we purchased 2 new trucks .First was 1500 cc sb 4x4 ram rated to tow 10,200# purchased OR 274 RLS 6710# Dry wt. Towed-with this for 1500 mi.not pleasant.6 mo later traded for 3500 ram 6.7 cc lb 4x4 . Now we can tow and not worry & what a difference. I decided to skip the 2500 to future proof any later tt up grades. Every dealer both tt sales and truck dealer & OR manufacturer all stated the 1500 would be fine match for the 274RLS. Not True
Your not gonna band aid the 1500 up to tow ( air bags , expensive wd hitches) as I have tried. I am pretty sure there's people out there that won't agree with my opinion. Your spending a lot of money you need to be happy. I hope you are

Good luck

You should have an idea from current trailer towing. If it tows that weight easily, adding 5' and 1,500 lbs should be doable, if adding the same gear/weight from old trailer to new.

Payload of truck, can be an issue with heavier tongue wt. Passengers, things in truck bed, plus added hitch wt, can make a soft suspended 1500 not handle very well.

Look at all truck numbers, GVWR, RAWR, payload sticker. The tow weight rating is more about engine/driveline.

Jerry

It's really easy to figure out the actual towing capacity of your Dodge...

What it can tow = the GVWR Rating - It's actual weight (loaded for travel).

So, get it weighed and find out for yourself.

Please stop concerning yourself with the dry weight. You will never ever tow a dry trailer. Instead look at the trailers GVWR. If your truck can safely tow the trailers GVWR, then it should work OK. You may never see the trailers gross weight, but anything lower will be your safety margin.