Brand New - TT Weight question
Hello everyone, brand new here and to RVing in general. Here is my story and I hope some of you can provide some insight: I just recently purchased a 2017 Ford Explorer 4wd V6 with the class 3 tow...
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beaker305 wrote:
Hello everyone, brand new here and to RVing in general. Here is my story and I hope some of you can provide some insight:
I just recently purchased a 2017 Ford Explorer 4wd V6 with the class 3 towing package. The towing rating is 5,000 lbs. I went to an RV show last weekend and found a travel trailer that I loved and saw that it came in at 4500 lbs....500 less than my vehicle is rated for. I signed the buyers order and planned to pick it up this coming weekend. Over the past few days I have been educating myself on all things RV and came across a lot of mixed information about towing and weights. (Especially that vehicle manufacturers overstate towing capacities and RV manufacturers understate trailer weights) I'm afraid now that my vehicle won't really be able to tow this trailer and I'll be stuck once I get to the dealership to pick this up. Shame on me for not doing enough research ahead of time, but it ended up being one of those impulse decisions. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thanks!
We also have an Explorer. We have the 2015 Explorer with the 3.5 normally aspirated engine, AWD, and the tow package.
We have 5000 lbs tow rating and 1398 lbs of payload (from the yellow tire loading sticker on the door jam).
You really don't have enough truck to tow that large of a trailer. These cars, and I mean cars because they have unibody structure, not a ladder frame structure as the previous based truck based Explorers, only have a tongue weight rating of 500 lbs. This alone leaves little tow capacity since most smaller single axle travel trailers have a higher 14% tongue weight.
500 lbs divide by 14% = 3571 lbs. That is "LOADED" trailer weight. Take away 1000 lbs to 700 lbs for food, battery, water, clothes, gear, trailer options and you're "BROCURE" dry weight is only 2500 lbs to 2800 lbs. That's what my 12' boxed, no slide, pop up weighed. You are looking at trailers like Rockwoods Rpod, Rockwoods Geo Pro and Jayco's Hummingbird trailers.
Just get a good brake controller like the Prodigy and a good weight distribution hitch like Blue Ox Sway Pro.
Good luck.
