So confused with tow capacities

[oceanluver]

We are currently looking into a GMC 1500 Sierra or Chevy 1500. We want the max trailing package but the websites are so confusing. The trailer we are looking to pull weighs 8100lbs dry. It is impossible to find a truck here with the 3.73 axel ratio. We would have to get the 3.42, even when I try to build and price directly from the website I can't get the 3.73 ratio to be an option. Do you think the 3.42 ratio is sufficient to pull it. They have a 9,600lb max trailering capacity.

[blt2ski]

"ANY" place that has a scale will weigh you. Sometimes free, other times they will charge you. When I bought my 05 dually, now sold, I hit a local rock/gravel/cement plant quarry that I buy material from regularly. Went across the scale to see what it weighed with out all the goodies I know would be on it, like the ladder/wood/pipe rack, cross bed tool box, line-x, I needed to add a 15K reciver hitch.........My base wt was right in there with GM's base wt per all the door and glove box camper load stickers. I'm not going to say exact, as the scale goes in 20 lb increments, and the stickers were to the lb!I was with in a 20 or 40 lbs difference. I've been this way with 5 different trucks, so the door stickers are what I would call close enough with out a scale one can use it IMHO and not be off enough to really make a difference.

If you look in the Yellow pages, or some other online type phone list/book, you can many times find places listed under scales/weights or equal for vehicles.

Marty

[oceanluver]

LarryJM wrote:

blt2ski wrote:
A family of 5 that weighs maybe 400 lbs. Heck, my ex and I weigh that much. Much less when my boys were 9, daughters were 7 and 4! Probably another 150-200 between them.

You better go to a 2500 with 2400-2500 lbs of payload minimum. UNLESS< you are all under 5.5' or there abouts. I'm 6', my sons are now still shorter than me at 5'16", daughters are 5'8" and 5'10". My ex is in middle of daughters in height.

Your 2 yr old, probably is 50+ lbs, INCLUDING the car seat. Also include books, food etc you need to keep the kids quiet etc. So they are NOT what there bathroom scale wt is, probably at least 25-20 lbs above that wt, including you and spouse. Do not forget her PURSE!!!!!

Marty

You make an EXCELLENT POINT on being sure to account for all the "EXTRAS" that come with a passenger especially the young'ins when traveling. Just a bottle of water is a lb so it adds up quickly. Too many folks not only GUESTIMATE the scale alone weights on the light side, but never include these extras associated with each passenger.

Larry

Very true, I didn't think of those things either. I have no idea where we could get weighed on LI. I asked my Uncle who was a long haul truck driver for 30+ years and he says there really isn't anywhere on LI to get weighed except maybe the landfill and I don't know if they would do it there.

[LarryJM]

blt2ski wrote:
A family of 5 that weighs maybe 400 lbs. Heck, my ex and I weigh that much. Much less when my boys were 9, daughters were 7 and 4! Probably another 150-200 between them.

You better go to a 2500 with 2400-2500 lbs of payload minimum. UNLESS< you are all under 5.5' or there abouts. I'm 6', my sons are now still shorter than me at 5'16", daughters are 5'8" and 5'10". My ex is in middle of daughters in height.

Your 2 yr old, probably is 50+ lbs, INCLUDING the car seat. Also include books, food etc you need to keep the kids quiet etc. So they are NOT what there bathroom scale wt is, probably at least 25-20 lbs above that wt, including you and spouse. Do not forget her PURSE!!!!!

Marty

You make an EXCELLENT POINT on being sure to account for all the "EXTRAS" that come with a passenger especially the young'ins when traveling. Just a bottle of water is a lb so it adds up quickly. Too many folks not only GUESTIMATE the scale alone weights on the light side, but never include these extras associated with each passenger.

Larry

[oceanluver]

azwildcat99 wrote:

oceanluver wrote:
In NY anything over 5500lbs needs commercial plates, or you need to have a cap on it, with seat buckles in the back and permanent camping gear. Ridiculous. Some dealers said they can grease someone's palm to get you a cap receipt and register it with passenger plates and other dealers said no you need to be commercial. Very annoying.

Wow! I just read the NY DMV regs and I can't believe that is true. Essentially every 1/2 ton and above crew cab pick-up in NY is a commercial vehicle unless it has a camper shell as they all weigh more than 5500lbs gvw. Crazy!

Regardless you can get a camper shell and be okay even with a 3/4ton as the truck must have seats, not the bed. Notice the "or" clause.

Glad I live out here in the Wild West :B

NY DMV
---------------------------------------------------------------
Pick-up Trucks (Part 106.6 (c)) - you can register a pick-up truck in the passenger class if the pick-up truck complies with all of these requirements
* the pick-up truck has an unladen weight of more than 5,000 lbs. and is used for non-commercial purposes

* the pick-up truck does not have any business advertisements

* a permanent camper top completely encloses the truck bed, and which has one or more side windows

* the pick-up truck has seats, seat fittings, or permanent camping equipment installed in the truck bed

Wish I lived in the Wild West 🙂 I tell my husband all the time we need to get out of this Liberal Land we live in but unfortunately his job is tied to NYC. Ughh, it will have to wait until retirement.

[oceanluver]

bigcitypopo wrote:
Commercial plates doesn't mean anything... cA all trucks are Comercial plates, unless you go to dmv... Turn them in and request reg plates. Trucks are utility and thus assumed they are a working vehicle.

I'm not in CA, I am in NY and in NY the DMV laws are different.

[azwildcat99]

oceanluver wrote:
In NY anything over 5500lbs needs commercial plates, or you need to have a cap on it, with seat buckles in the back and permanent camping gear. Ridiculous. Some dealers said they can grease someone's palm to get you a cap receipt and register it with passenger plates and other dealers said no you need to be commercial. Very annoying.

Wow! I just read the NY DMV regs and I can't believe that is true. Essentially every 1/2 ton and above crew cab pick-up in NY is a commercial vehicle unless it has a camper shell as they all weigh more than 5500lbs gvw. Crazy!

Regardless you can get a camper shell and be okay even with a 3/4ton as the truck must have seats, not the bed. Notice the "or" clause.

Glad I live out here in the Wild West :B

NY DMV
---------------------------------------------------------------
Pick-up Trucks (Part 106.6 (c)) - you can register a pick-up truck in the passenger class if the pick-up truck complies with all of these requirements
* the pick-up truck has an unladen weight of more than 5,000 lbs. and is used for non-commercial purposes

* the pick-up truck does not have any business advertisements

* a permanent camper top completely encloses the truck bed, and which has one or more side windows

* the pick-up truck has seats, seat fittings, or permanent camping equipment installed in the truck bed

[bigcitypopo]

Commercial plates doesn't mean anything... cA all trucks are Comercial plates, unless you go to dmv... Turn them in and request reg plates. Trucks are utility and thus assumed they are a working vehicle.

[oceanluver]

In NY anything over 5500lbs needs commercial plates, or you need to have a cap on it, with seat buckles in the back and permanent camping gear. Ridiculous. Some dealers said they can grease someone's palm to get you a cap receipt and register it with passenger plates and other dealers said no you need to be commercial. Very annoying.

[Majja13]

I would take the 250/250 for a truck. And I thought in NYC you were still ok for residential plates with a 2500/250.

[oceanluver]

blt2ski wrote:

oceanluver wrote:

blt2ski wrote:
A family of 5 that weighs maybe 400 lbs. Heck, my ex and I weigh that much. Much less when my boys were 9, daughters were 7 and 4! Probably another 150-200 between them.

Marty

I was off by 20lbs, right now we weigh 420 minus car seat. All 3 kids weighed in at the Drs office yesterday at 125lbs. I weigh 115 and my husband weighs about 180. We are not big people. LOL My 2 boys are both in the 25th percentile for weight. They are tall/lean kids. My daughter is tiny like me too.

Sounds a little like mine, 25% for wt, but 125% for ht for twins and child 4. #3 was in the 80th for ht, and 50th for wt. So we are a bit larger on both ends of the scale. Because of this, I have a tendency to use heavier wts than most. We also packed about 2000 lbs into the trailer for gear, food etc. 6 sets of clothes, sleeping gear, cook and eating utensils will add up about the same, no matter the size of the people. Plus because we usually went where there was not hookups, i left with a full tank of water. At the end of the day, better to be guessing a bit on the heavy side vs light!

Have fun with the new rig etc.

Marty

Thank you and we usually camp with hook ups so no need for water. I usually buy wood locally as well because you aren't really suppose to move wood more than 60 miles because of environmental issues (introducing potentially invasive species) so I try and do the right thing there. 🙂

[blt2ski]

oceanluver wrote:

blt2ski wrote:
A family of 5 that weighs maybe 400 lbs. Heck, my ex and I weigh that much. Much less when my boys were 9, daughters were 7 and 4! Probably another 150-200 between them.

Marty

I was off by 20lbs, right now we weigh 420 minus car seat. All 3 kids weighed in at the Drs office yesterday at 125lbs. I weigh 115 and my husband weighs about 180. We are not big people. LOL My 2 boys are both in the 25th percentile for weight. They are tall/lean kids. My daughter is tiny like me too.

Sounds a little like mine, 25% for wt, but 125% for ht for twins and child 4. #3 was in the 80th for ht, and 50th for wt. So we are a bit larger on both ends of the scale. Because of this, I have a tendency to use heavier wts than most. We also packed about 2000 lbs into the trailer for gear, food etc. 6 sets of clothes, sleeping gear, cook and eating utensils will add up about the same, no matter the size of the people. Plus because we usually went where there was not hookups, i left with a full tank of water. At the end of the day, better to be guessing a bit on the heavy side vs light!

Have fun with the new rig etc.

Marty

[therink]

Load your truck as if camping, firewood, bikes, tools, 100lbs for hitch, tools, toys, etc. Go to a scale and weigh your truck. Subtract the scaled truck weight from the truck gvwr posted on tag in door jamb.
That will tell you how many lbs you have left for hitch weight.
Most 1/2 ton trucks exceed payload long before they exceed tow rating (what it is rated to pull). Also, the max tongue weight that your hitch is rated for is another thing to confirm (likely 1000 lb).

[oceanluver]

blt2ski wrote:
A family of 5 that weighs maybe 400 lbs. Heck, my ex and I weigh that much. Much less when my boys were 9, daughters were 7 and 4! Probably another 150-200 between them.

Marty

I was off by 20lbs, right now we weigh 420 minus car seat. All 3 kids weighed in at the Drs office yesterday at 125lbs. I weigh 115 and my husband weighs about 180. We are not big people. LOL My 2 boys are both in the 25th percentile for weight. They are tall/lean kids. My daughter is tiny like me too.

[oceanluver]

Wanted to thank everyone for there advice. We found a 1500 with a max towing package with a payload of 1967lbs and a "tow rating" of 11Klbs we have decided to go with a smaller camper rather than the bigger truck. It wasn't practical for everyday use to go with a 3/4ton , since here in NY we would have to get commercial plates and would be limited to only the interstates (which is what we would have to use when towing) and it is not practical for the everyday use when my husband has to go to work and needs to use the parkway system. If you live in the NYC metro area you do not want to be limited to which roadways you can use.