Can my truck tow this?

Grit dog wrote:

twodownzero wrote:

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.

Well there ya go making up numbers about vehicles you don't have knowledge about to support your "case".
It doesn't sound so dramatic if you use the actual numbers and they actually work though.
Carry on with the supposition and unsubstantiated paranoia...

If you knew nothing else than the truck has 8,000 pounds of towing capacity and the trailer weighs 7,500 pounds empty, and the only answers were "yes" or "no" to the question presented, the only responsible answer is "no."

Deductive reasoning is not "supposition" or "unsubstantiated paranoia." The curb weight of these trucks is not an unknown. Meaningful estimates of tongue weight are not hard to produce. Realistic expectations about towing capacity are possible without weighing the combination.

If you want the short answer for the original poster, the answer is no.

The rationale for why the answer is no is more complicated. It is hypothetically possible that this trailer could be towed, empty, with driver only in the truck, with the right hitch, and assuming the stated weights are accurate. It is unrealistic to believe that will be the case with water, propane, additional passengers, and basic household goods in the trailer, based on some simple arithmetic. If you want to call that supposition, then I wonder if you'd call a weight ticket the same thing. After all, if you didn't calibrate the load cell, it's lying, too, right?

discovery4us wrote:

I always get a chuckle out of those that say not to tow with a half ton. My current F150 has better tow ratings than my chevy 3/4 ton has. Trucks have advanced leaps and bounds.

Axle shafts and bearings are no bigger today than they were 30 years ago. I'm not sure what year 3/4 ton Chevy you're talking about, and whether we're talking about a 6 or 8 lug 3/4 ton, but it is very likely that is not the case. GCWR might have increased because engines have more power than ever, but that simply does not tell the whole story about the vehicle's capability.

It really does people a disservice to have these low payload capacity trucks have the horsepower they have, because it's one thing to have a setup that moves well in traffic because it accelerates well and yet another thing to control, steer, and stop that mess in bad weather, wind, and other adverse towing conditions. That's when these things become dangerous. I can't imagine wanting to experience that while I am on vacation, supposed to be enjoying my leisure time.