Towing Capacity for New Travel Trailer

SoundGuy wrote:

donn0128 wrote:
Please stop concerning yourself with the dry weight. You will never ever tow a dry trailer. Instead look at the trailers GVWR. If your truck can safely tow the trailers GVWR, then it should work OK. You may never see the trailers gross weight, but anything lower will be your safety margin.

Sure, for trailers with perhaps 1000 - 1500 lbs of CCC as that means once loaded it's GVW will end up not all that far off it's GVWR. However, many trailers offer much more CCC (heck, even my own 19' Coachmen is well over a ton!) so using GVWR as a guide just makes no sense at all as there's no way one can (or should) load so much into the trailer that GVW will ever come anywhere near close to it's GVWR. Unfortunately the OP hasn't indicated what this intended trailer's CCC may be so there's really no way one could rationally suggest using GVWR as a guide. If there's any Achilles' Heel to the 1/2 ton truck it's the rather modest payload capacity, especially if that truck has to also carry the weight of a family & some additional gear in the cargo compartment as well as accommodating any trailer tongue weight transferred to the truck. Reality is, with his 1/2 ton truck the OP will run out of payload capacity long before he comes anywhere near to meeting the truck's GCWR. In addition, the OP hasn't said anything about his particular truck's axle ratio which will have a HUGE impact on just how well it may tow a trailer this heavy. :( JMO, but having been towing for 10+ yrs with 1/2 tons I'd not tow a trailer anywhere near this heavy, about 6000 lbs fully loaded I'd consider about max as that will easily result in an average gross tongue weight of ~ 750 to 800 lbs, about the most I'd want to be dropping on the rear on most 1/2 tons with limited payload capacity.

Agree. For me the GVWR of the TT is a useless number. It will NEVER even get close. No way I can load 2500lb of junk into the TT. Not enough room, and I am not married to Lucy collecting big rocks.

My 4800lb dry TT comes in loaded ready to camp around 6000lb give or take a hundred, depending on where it is going. And it is pretty well full. no room for much of anything else.

I also feel that a dry weight of 6100lb is a pretty high starting point for a 1500 series. Time it is loaded. It's gonna be closer to 7000. AND then you got to think about what is in the truck. Like fire wood, bikes, grills, whatever.