New guy, quality question
Hi all, first post here. My wife and I are looking at buying our first travel trailer. We live in Washington and do lots of camping/kayaking and we're tired of sleeping in tents with all the rain ...
Forum Discussion
LeeMajors wrote:
What weight and brand would you recommend?
It's quite common to run out of payload, long before you reach the rated tow capacity.
GVWR is gross weight rating for the frame, wheels, tires, brakes, and power train. What the truck is designed to carry.
Payload is what is left out of GVWR after you deduct scale weight.
You need to know your available payload, that will tell you the tongue weight you can carry.
To get your available payload, get GVWR from drivers door sticker. Load the truck for camping (full fuel, kayaks, etc) and weigh it on CAT scale. Do not use advertising numbers for GVWR or payload. Add 100 lbs (approximate weight of WD hitch) to actual truck weight and subtract the number from GVWR. The result is what you have for any additional passengers, cargo, and tongue weight.
With that info, you can do your calculations on trailer weight.
Some tips:
Average load in the trailer (dishes, pots and pans, BBQ, camping chairs, bedding, groceries, tools, spare parts, fresh water, etc) is about 1000 lbs.
Average tongue weight is twelve percent of loaded trailer weight.
Example:
Trailer UVW is 4000
4000 plus 1000 camping load = 5000 loaded X .12 = 600 lbs tongue weight.
We have no way of knowing what your cargo (on the truck) weight is. Without that, we and you, are only guessing.
