2017 Fleetwood Bounder

[PeterBounder]

Have a 2017 Fleetwood Bounder 35K considering purchase of 2021 Chevy Suburban Curb weight 6100#---Bounder says hitch capacity 5000#. Since i am dinghy towing with little or no tongue weight can i get away with a heavier vehicle. Has anyone done this and had any problems.

[jdc1]

I wouldn't worry about pulling 10,000 pounds on that hitch. What I would worry about is stopping it when it rips off the rear of that motorhome.

[dodge_guy]

The 35K is a heavy MH and has a very small CCC. Loaded for a trip you will use up all the GVWR. So even if you upgraded the hitch (which can be done easily). The MH will be over the GCWR with anything more than a 5k lb vehicle.

Now some like mine have a high CCC. Mine is 4200 lbs. I only use around 3000lbs of that, so that leaves me with an extra 1200lbs I can add to the tow weight if I wanted! I am going to upgrade the hitch to a 7500lb version just for the extra capacity. We tow a 13 Explorer now and I may get a 1/2 ton pick up in the future and that will allow me to tow that safely.

[rlw999]

PeterBounder wrote:
Have a 2017 Fleetwood Bounder 35K considering purchase of 2021 Chevy Suburban Curb weight 6100#---Bounder says hitch capacity 5000#. Since i am dinghy towing with little or no tongue weight can i get away with a heavier vehicle. Has anyone done this and had any problems.

I would say no - the hitch rating is the maximum rating, you're taking on a lot of liability if you go over the limit and the hitch fails.

But the hitch rating isn't the actual towing capacity, you have to take the minimum of the hitch rating (5000 lbs), what the manufacturer says the motorhome can haul (if they say anything), and the GCWR-GVWR (well, not exactly, see below), which in this motorhome is 26,000 minus 22,000 = 4,000lbs which is the most you can pull.

However, the GVWR is the maximum vehicle weight if you use up the entire OCCC (weight of the occupants, water, gas, cargo, etc). I couldn't find the OCCC for the 2017 bounder, but found a review for the 2016 that says it's around 2,000 lbs. You should find a sticker in the driver door jamb with these weight ratings.

So if you don't load heavy (especially water), you might be able to squeak by at the full 5,000 lbs towing capacity of the hitch, but even if the RV and all tanks are empty with only the driver inside, you'll still go over the GCWR if you tow that car.

And since the Suburban is apparently your daily-driver, I'm going to guess that you don't have a small family, so you'll probably use up (or exceed) that OCCC. If you fill the water and propane tanks, that's already almost 1,000 lbs, only leaving 1,000 lbs for you and your passengers and all of your gear.

Bottom line, if you want to be safe, stay under 4,000 lbs with the tow vehicle and get yourself weighed when fully packed and all passengers inside. Watch the axle loading, it's rated for 8,000 lbs front, 15,000 lbs rear.

https://recreationalvehicles.info/2017-fleetwood-bounder/

[DrewE]

Tongue weight is not at all relevant here; the hitch is only rated to pull (and push, when stopping) up to 5000 pounds. It's not at all unheard of for motorhomes to have trailer hitches with comparatively reduced tongue weight ratings (e.g. 350 pounds tongue weight, 5000 pound hitch rating). If the hitch were designed to be able to pull a heavier vehicle four-down or on a dolly, the ratings would reflect that.

Can you get away with it? Maybe...but it's neither the safe nor the sensible way of doing things. Please don't try it.

[rk911]

sure you can...until the day you can't. personally i wouldn't even try.