Towing capicity 2008 F150 HD
I am looking at purchasing a 2018 Heartland North Trail 24BHS and was wanting to get feedback on the ability of my 2008 Ford F150 Harley Davidson AWD, SB to pull this safely. TT weight is listed at 53...
Forum Discussion
blkcrow13 wrote:
Here is a link I found with information on the truck, mine is a 4x4. My concern was the GCWR of 11,000.
No, you cannot depend on external websites to determine your towing capacity.
The information required cannot be calculated by brochures, it is dependent on the exact configuration of your vehicle.
The brochures and external websites list the MAX towing capacity which IS based on the LIGHTEST VEHICLE CONFIGURATION which is a XT, standard cab, short bed with NO OPTIONS.
ALL OPTIONS AND HIGHER TRIM LEVELS REDUCE THE AVAILABLE CARGO WEIGHT BY MAKING THE TRUCK HEAVIER.
The easiest and best way to is to look at your door stickers.
You might have a yellow sticker which gives the available cargo weight, if you don't have the yellow sticker you can look at the vin tag on the drivers side which should have the GVWR.
If you know the unladen weight of your vehicle (also called curb weight) you can subtract the unladen weight from the GVWR and the result is your available cargo weight. With this method you will need to subtract weight of a full tank of fuel and the driver weight.
If you don't know the unladen weight you should go and get the vehicle weighed to find out.
The result is what is left for cargo.
If you are going to have passengers and other stuff in the vehicle you must deduct those weights from the available cargo..
Why cargo weight?
Simple, the tongue of the trailer becomes "cargo" of the vehicle.
Tongue weight for bumper pull trailers must be at least 10% to 15% of the trailer weight.. Going below 10% can cause instability of the trailer and should be avoided.
Ideally 12%-15% is where you really want the tongue weight to be.
To put into perspective here is a few examples..
5K trailer weigh should have tongue weight of 500 lbs (10%) to 750 lbs (15%)
6K trailer weight should have tongue weight of 600 lbs (10%) to 900 lbs (15%).
7K trailer weight should have tongue weight of 700 lbs (10%) to 1050 lbs (15%).
Additionally, you do need to check your hitch for max specs, yours should have a data plate which will give two different hitch weights, one with Weight Distribution and one without WD.
You don't want to exceed the hitch specs or the available cargo weight after passengers and other stuff loaded into the vehicle is deducted.
