Overweight Toyhauler Dilemma!!

[AdvSeekers]

We finally got around to weighing our toyhauler and it confirmed that we are indeed overweight. The scale says we weigh 14,660 lbs. total with all of our belongings on board. The trailer is a 2010 Keystone Fuzion 302 that has an empty weight of 11,195 and a payload of 5164 that includes the hitch weight of 2365. (Just realized through our recent research that Keystone does that with their weights, which means that we were erroneously assuming that we could haul 5164 lbs. of cargo.)

Unfortunately, we aren't really able to lose much weight off of our total without getting rid of a motorcycle or two which would defeat the purpose of living on the road for us! According to my calculations we are hauling around roughly 3500 lbs. of motorcycles, tools, gear, food, dishes, TVs, etc.

We're not really sure where to go from here, but neither of us are excited about living on the road full-time with an overweight or nearly overweight trailer, since that will surely cause problems down the road.

What are our options? Can we modify our current trailer to be able to carry more weight, or would we be better off upgrading to a larger, more capable setup? I'd hate to spend a bunch of money upgrading our current setup only to end up still not having enough trailer in the long run.

Any advice or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

[AH64ID]

AdvSeekers wrote:
The shop called about 7pm tonight and I have some options to think about. I think the plan from here is to swap out the 6k axles for 7k axles, install the Mor-Ride system, and do new wheels and tires. I originally wanted to upgrade to electric over hydraulic disc brakes, but I think that is going to add too much to the cost for now.

Hopefully we'll have this issue addressed before it has a chance to become a real problem.

Thanks to those that had some helpful feedback and I'll let you know how it all ends up.

They may be 6K axle, but the 09 brochure shows them at 7K. Are the 8 lug or 6 lug? What does the sticker say?

Just want to verify first.

What is the weight rating of your current wheels and tires? They should be LRE 235/85/16 right?

Are you talking about the Mor/Ryde independent setup, or the CRE or SRE system?

[FireGuard]

Has anyone determined how much overweight the trailer is?
I'm sure it will be pretty expensive to change axles and wheels/tires.
If not that much overweight, I don't think I would worry about it.
Also, how often do you change campsites? If you have tools or small heavy items, throw them in the rear of the truck while driving and transfer back to the TH when set up.

[AdvSeekers]

The shop called about 7pm tonight and I have some options to think about. I think the plan from here is to swap out the 6k axles for 7k axles, install the Mor-Ride system, and do new wheels and tires. I originally wanted to upgrade to electric over hydraulic disc brakes, but I think that is going to add too much to the cost for now.

Hopefully we'll have this issue addressed before it has a chance to become a real problem.

Thanks to those that had some helpful feedback and I'll let you know how it all ends up.

[AdvSeekers]

traveylin wrote:
Geeee guys, the answer is not technology,, but self control in what is stashed in the trailer. When I worked we relocated countries every 18 months for 20 years(not military) and the relocation weight allowance was 500 lbs per family member. Any pounds over that was charged at 15$/lb to the employee. The kids and mother knew that and used it very wisely to the extent of weighing each article. Being on the road means traveling light, reuse and substitution. Everything from kitchen to bed linens to clothing, tools and toys need to be shed.

pops

I think you're missing the point of owning a toy hauler! I'm going to assume that you don't ride motorcycles or else you wouldn't be talking about living that light. We bought a TOY hauler so we could haul our TOYS with us in our on the road lifestyle. Our weight problem is a direct result of hauling 3 motorcycles, 2 bicycles, riding gear, spares, tools, etc. in order to do our hobbies.

If all we had to haul was clothes, toiletries and dishes, we would be so far underweight it wouldn't make sense to own the trailer that we do! We even went so far as to buy plastic dishes to save weight in the living portion of our trailer! If I could live with just 500 lbs. of stuff, I would have just bought a VW Westphalia and been done with it!

If you are trying to be helpful, I guess I would say thanks, but if you want to brag about how little you need to live there's probably a better forum to do it on than this.

[traveylin]

Geeee guys, the answer is not technology,, but self control in what is stashed in the trailer. When I worked we relocated countries every 18 months for 20 years(not military) and the relocation weight allowance was 500 lbs per family member. Any pounds over that was charged at 15$/lb to the employee. The kids and mother knew that and used it very wisely to the extent of weighing each article. Being on the road means traveling light, reuse and substitution. Everything from kitchen to bed linens to clothing, tools and toys need to be shed.

pops

[AH64ID]

hammer21661 wrote:

ah64id wrote:

hammer21661 wrote:
I have the 322 fuzion. When we bought ours they had in the literature that they use 7k axles in all of them. If you have 8 lug wheels I would say that is a safe bet.

I see this brochure from Sep 2009 agrees with you.

http://www.uvsconsole.com/manager/admin/cp-brochures/126927660673050.pdf

That was in the 13 model year.

The link I posted says September 2009.

[lbrjet]

Yea, sounds like you are 300 over. What did the trailer axles weigh? How did you weigh it?

[hammer21661]

ah64id wrote:

hammer21661 wrote:
I have the 322 fuzion. When we bought ours they had in the literature that they use 7k axles in all of them. If you have 8 lug wheels I would say that is a safe bet.

I see this brochure from Sep 2009 agrees with you.

http://www.uvsconsole.com/manager/admin/cp-brochures/126927660673050.pdf

That was in the 13 model year.

[sh410]

HERE is the specs for the 2010 Fuzion 302.

Interesting that the specs say carrying capacity is 5164# and the UVW is 11210# but the sticker on the OPs Fuzion states GVWR is 14365#.

The specs are either wrong or at least misleading

[AH64ID]

hammer21661 wrote:
I have the 322 fuzion. When we bought ours they had in the literature that they use 7k axles in all of them. If you have 8 lug wheels I would say that is a safe bet.

I see this brochure from Sep 2009 agrees with you.

http://www.uvsconsole.com/manager/admin/cp-brochures/126927660673050.pdf

[hammer21661]

I have the 322 fuzion. When we bought ours they had in the literature that they use 7k axles in all of them. If you have 8 lug wheels I would say that is a safe bet.

If you do upgrade the axles and wheels get the 8k axles.I don't know what to tell you on the wheels I am planning on the 19.5 wheels and tires.

[AH64ID]

AdvSeekers wrote:
The sticker on the side of the trailer says 14,365 GVWR and it has 6000 lb. axles. I'm still confused on whether or not I need to subtract hitch weight from the GVWR # on the trailer. If not, I guess we are only 300 lbs. overweight instead of the 600 I thought we were.

Either way, I think we're definitely going to upgrade our tires at minimum and I'd like to upgrade the axles and wheels as well. We'll see what the shop says when they call back.

Thanks for all the replies and I'll let you know what I find out.

Okay, that makes more sense. Yes you are a little overweight.

GVWR will include pin weight.

If your pin weight is 20% you have approx 2392 tongue and 12268 on the axles. You need to find out what the split is, going a little over on GVWR isn't as big of a deal as going over on GAWR and/or tire ratings.

[AdvSeekers]

ah64id wrote:

AdvSeekers wrote:
My understanding is that you subtract the pin weight from the payload capacity meaning that the max weight is as follows: 11,195 (dry weight) + 5164 (payload capacity) - 2365 (hitch weight) = 13,994. I read on another forum that Keystone uses this formula to make their numbers look better, but in the end it just serves to frustrate their owners!

Unfortunately, the only scale we had access to was the one at the local landfill here where we're staying in Kerrville, TX. The weight we got didn't differentiate between axles and pin weight, so the 14,660 figure is just the rough overall weight of the trailer.

Interesting. Is there a GVWR on the trailer? That is what you need.

What size OEM axles?

Next time your by a scale just put the trailer axles on it, that will give you an idea how it breaks down.

The sticker on the side of the trailer says 14,365 GVWR and it has 6000 lb. axles. I'm still confused on whether or not I need to subtract hitch weight from the GVWR # on the trailer. If not, I guess we are only 300 lbs. overweight instead of the 600 I thought we were.

Either way, I think we're definitely going to upgrade our tires at minimum and I'd like to upgrade the axles and wheels as well. We'll see what the shop says when they call back.

Thanks for all the replies and I'll let you know what I find out.

[PhilipB]

You've got one of the smallest toy haulers available and a very capable late model truck. And the 3500 payload isn't really that much. Most of us add 2000 of "stuff" to normal rigs. Another 1500 for a couple bikes isn't too bad either. Thinking something's wrong in the math.

[AdvSeekers]

the bear II wrote:
You can do several things to ease your concern.

Replace the axles and springs with higher rated units. May need to beef up the frame around the spring shackle attachment points.
Add shocks if not already equipped
Go to larger wheels with higher weight rating and H rated tires.

You'll still need to watch out for frame stress issues especially around the pin box area. An air ride hitch or pin box will help soften road caused problems.

I'm waiting to hear back from a local RV shop here to see what solutions they came up with for our problem. Everything on your list is what I thought of, but the shop needs to check to see if there is a higher rated axle that will fit on our particular trailer. They were also going to look into the Mor-Ride system as a possible solution. The higher rated tires on bigger wheels would be a big help too.

The trailer already has a 5th Airborne air ride hitch that the previous owner installed, so that should help with that end of things.