Getting the right tow vehicle

[Dso66]

I'm not being a smart guy and I'm not normally dense. But I've asked the question and have seen it asked. How do I get the right truck for the rig. The pat answer is. "Take it to a scale and get it weighed." What am I missing? I don't have a truck capable of towing the rv The few friends I have don't have a truck capable of towing the rv. So besides running the numbers listed and leaving leeway what does a guy do?

[mb1776]

Ayyyy...no wonder people get confused. I am going through this process too, switching from a 1500 to a 2500 after buying a trailer that was "in the limits" by tv manufacturer website, but is overweight in the real world for the 1500. My advice since you already have the trailer.

1) Locate the TT Gross vehicle carrying weight on the yellow sticker on the side of the trailer. This is the max possible weight the trailer can hold.

2) Multiply this number by .15(15%) to get a tongue weight if the trailer was completely loaded. This amount should be used as the payload weight the trailer will add to your tv.

3) Before purchasing a tv, have it weighed to get its real world weight. This is where I went wrong. The manufacturer published weight of my truck was 4-500 lbs less then what my truck actually weighed on a scale. Best way to weigh is with all passengers and equipment in the truck that you will be using for camping along with full tank of fuel. Or you can estimate making sure to figure in weights for family members, equipment, and hitch.

4) Subtract the weighed number (or weighed plus estimated cargo) from the gross vehicle carrying weight of the truck that is printed on the inside of the driver's door of the tv. The difference is your remaining payload. If the number you figured in number 2 above is less than you should be ok, more than you should look for bigger truck.

I have a 6600 lbs dry weight trailer. TV gvcw was 6800 lbs. Published weight of my truck with full tank was 5400 lbs. Went one day with my kids and myself and weighed with half a tank and was topping 6000lbs. Once I added wife, hitch, and full fuel plus tongue weight I was looking at being 500lbs overweight. After months of avoiding the issue or looking for an easy way around it, decided the only way to fix the problem was move up in tv class.

[glkids2]

also what or where do you plan on traveling. if you plan on staying in the midwest area or traveling to the coasts that can also play into the details of the tv. big difference between the plains and mountain roads. not just the power to go up but also to go down the other side

[noteven]

The 20% rule applies:

Use a tow/haul vehicle with at least 20% tow or haul capacity to spare.
Run a tire arrangement with 20% extra capacity.
Use hitches with 20% capacity to spare.
Dream of all the space you will ever need in the RV and add 20% before you buy.
Add 20% to the weight of any truck camper you look at.
Take all fuel economy claims and reduce them by 20%.
Multiply all pickup truck OEM b.s. claims by 20%
Save 20%/yr of age by buying gently used if you don't have to have a toilet no one has sat on.

Add at least 20% to your gotta get there trip time pressure and enjoy your new rv. No make that 40%...

enjoy

[stickdog]

We brought our TV before buying our fifthwheel. No problem. I had done my homework. I knew what the TV was capable of and looked for a fifthwheel that fit. It's all in the numbers, if you don't understand the numbers you can't make an informed decision.

[wintersun]

Get the manufacturer's numbers for the dry weight and the maximum gross weight. The maximum gross weight is what you want to be able to tow and do so without being at 100% or near 100% of the vehicle's towing capacity.

Download the towing guides from Ford, Toyota, GM/Chevy, and Ram, and then look at which of their vehicles will be able to tow 120% of the maximum trailer weight. You will find that the towing capacity depends in part on the engine and to a great extent on the gears provided.

With a used vehicle you can do a lookup with the VIN to find out about how the truck was equipped at the factory (tow package, etc.) and the gears provided.

With GM for example the 4.10 gears provide 25% more towing capacity than the same vehicle with the same engine with 3.73 gears, which is important to know for towing a heavy trailer. The lower gears also enable the vehicle with its tow load to accelerate faster for merging with freeway traffic, better able to pull a steep grade, and shorten passing time when getting past a big rig pulling a heavy load at a low speed.

Most trailers fall into the under 8,000 lb. or over 12,000 lb. categories. For the second group you will want a diesel engine.

[Allworth]

Some of the children just love the sound of their own voices!

[Dso66]

Thanks. After wading through all th guys that look down their noses I got my answer from some of the guys that aren't jaded and remember what it was like being a nube. I was not asking specifics. I was asking how you would figure out how to get a truck for the rv you want. I got a lot of great responses. I also got a lot of guys who enjoy showing how much they know and who ignorant everyone else is.

[AH64ID]

Grit dog wrote:
Well 3 pages of rhetoric and the OP didn't even say how heavy his trailer was!
Gawd I love this place! Lol

So the basics of matching s TV to a TT are different based on weight?

All the same principles apply for a 5K TT as they do a 12K TT. Those are what the OP was asking about, and IMHO he didn't need to post weight to get an accurate and proper response.

[Grit_dog]

Well 3 pages of rhetoric and the OP didn't even say how heavy his trailer was!
Gawd I love this place! Lol

[mdamerell]

Dso66 wrote:
I'm not being a smart guy and I'm not normally dense. But I've asked the question and have seen it asked. How do I get the right truck for the rig. The pat answer is. "Take it to a scale and get it weighed." What am I missing? I don't have a truck capable of towing the rv The few friends I have don't have a truck capable of towing the rv. So besides running the numbers listed and leaving leeway what does a guy do?

We bought our RV and had it delivered to our "resort/CG" as part of the deal. We store our RV at the CG and they would move it onto a site or into storage for $10 each way. Now that we had the RV we wanted I started to search for a truck. Many people said just get a 3/4 ton and you're all set. You can drive yourself crazy looking at all the spec sheets. Trucks 2004 and older are rated different than the new trucks and since I did not have $50-60,000 to spend on a new truck I ended up buying a bigger truck to meet my needs. Better to have too big a truck than too small.

The sticker on my RV said it weighted 10,500# empty and 14,000# GVWWR (rounded off numbers) so I guessed around 12,000# with all our junk loaded to camp. Rule of thumb is a 5er is 20% pin weight and a TT is about 15% hitch weight. So I needed to carry a 2,400# pin. Rounded to 3,000# cargo capacity and started looking for a truck in my budget with at least a 3,000# cargo capacity.

I started with a trucks GVWR found on the driver's door pillar. A diesel crew cab dually weights around 8,000# (ball park) so a 11,500# GVWR - 8,000# is about 3,500# cargo. The dealer should be able to give you the curb weight and then I'd add 500# to it before subtracting from the GVWR for a fudge factor. If you are concerned about what the truck weights you can always stop by a local scale on the test drive and pay the $10 to weight the truck.

Once you feel pretty good about the trucks cargo capacity you need to look at the GCVWR or the total the truck can handle with a trailer. In 2004 most trucks topped out at 20,000# newer trucks are much higher. So for example a 20,000# GCVWR - 8,000# (truck) = a 12,000# trailer

Once it's all yours and you are ready to co camping a quick trip across the scales will confirm you are all within spec.

Hope that helps.

[2oldman]

kaydeejay wrote:
Would really help if you told us what the "rig" was.:?

Agreed, but I read the OP as a hypothetical question. Maybe not.. But, his saying that he doesn't have a truck capable leads me to believe it's a specific rig.

[kaydeejay]

Maybe I read your first post wrong - I thought you were asking how to size the truck you need:S Did you really mean to ask how to find out the weight of the RV?

If you already HAVE the RV, then get the GVWR off the placard on the left front corner.
If it is a TT, then figure 13% of that number will be the worst case tongue weight.
If it's a fiver, then figure 20% of that number will be the pin or hitch weight.

Would really help if you told us what the "rig" was.:?

[GaryWT]

I have never been to any scales myself. But as a couple others I don't understand why some do not understand that you currently do not have a truck to tow with, seem quite obvious from your post. I look at max weight of trailer and tongue or pin weight and tow value and payload figures of the truck. If everything fits here, most all other numbers should fall in place.


I owned a 150 with a tow amount of 5700 pounds prior to towing. This limited me to a pop up or hybrid for the most pat. Upgraded to a 150 with a tow figure of 8600 and payload of 1700. With those numbers I bought a trailer with dry weight go 6000 and loaded at 7200. All was good but the trailer ended up not working for us so we upgraded to a trailer that was 6400/8000. I know this pushed our limits big time but this towed great, better than the previous trailer. After a year ungraded to a 350 SRW which can tow up to 12,000 and has a payload of over 3,800. All is real good now.

Good luck in finding something that works for you.

[2oldman]

Thanks for clearing that up for me.

I really don't understand the weighing thing myself.. although I certainly have weighed after getting a truck I felt was sufficient. Before buying, the numbers printed on the spec plate should be good enough. If you need to weigh to shave the margin that close, perhaps you need a bigger truck.

I just wish more people paid attention to the specs instead of towing overweight.