Grit dog wrote:
To the OP, no one is suggestion that you have the ultimate tow vehicle. But rather, it's adequate.
As a number of people have demonstrated above, it may not be adequate, and it may actually be dangerous.
I think there are some simple numbers here that show this is not a viable combination.
15,000 lb GCWR - 7000 lb tow vehicle leaves, realistically, 8,000 pounds of towing capacity, not 9,400. The 9,400 pound towing capacity is based on the unrealistic expectation of you only having a 150 pound driver in the truck, which is ridiculous. You may squeeze another 500 pounds out of it, but remember that the tongue weight and the weight of the hitch have to come from that GVWR number. The curb weight of the truck is not mentioned, but given that the payload of a truck like this likely inadequate for a trailer this heavy, assuming GVWR as the weight of the tow vehicle is not unrealistic at all (note posters above talking about 20% tongue weight, which itself will probably eat all of the payload before the driver even gets in the truck).
I'm skeptical what the "tow package" includes if your truck has 3.23 gears, by the way. A hitch receiver is not a "tow package."
With 8,000 pounds of towing capacity, it is not realistic to believe that a trailer with a 7,500 pound empty weight will ever be even close to within ratings. At a bare minimum, you need 1,000 pounds for your gear, water, propane, batteries, etc.
The only way to know for sure is to weigh the empty combination and load accordingly, but I'm willing to bet that GVWR is busted right out of the gate way before you get near the 15k lb. GCWR, and let's face it, a combination of vehicles with 16k+ pounds of rating and a 15k lb. GCWR is going to be very tight on numbers regardless.
With careful loading and a good hitch, it may not be completely terrifying, but I would bet that in real world use, this combination would be significantly overloaded. A 1/2 ton truck, especially a 4 door, 4wd one with all the options, is better suited to a 25' travel trailer than one that is 30'+ in length. As you'll probably note from my past posts, I will never own a 1/2 ton truck again, but ultimately it's because the truck itself is not rated to support the payload needed for heavier trailers that becomes a problem. The rationale for those ratings is soft suspension, p-metric tires, and a semi floating rear axle--all things easily solved by buying the right truck for the load.
We're all guessing as to how close or far you'll be, but I suspect you're way further than you think from this being safe or advisable.
