What is the "real" GVWR?

Nothing wrong with extra payload that is unused. It just says that you can load that much, not that you have to load that much.

You are confusing truck and trailer GVWR. They both have one.

Dryweight is a term used in place of UVW, empty, or unloaded weight of a trailer.

GVWR for the truck is printed on the driver side door post. The GVWR, for the truck, is maximum gross weight on the truck frame, axles, tires, and brakes.
GVWR for Tacoma trucks will be the same for all Tacoma's. They will differ on cargo capacity, depending on what has been added to the truck. IE: two wheel drive and four wheel drive will have same GVWR, but, the four wheel drive will have less cargo capacity, because the 4 X 4 parts add weight to the truck.

GVWR, for the trailer, is maximum weight the trailer frame, axles, and tires can carry. Here again, the cargo capacity is reduced by whatever has been added to the trailer. Unloaded weight (UVW), is what the trailer weighed, when it left the factory. Anything added by the dealer (battery, propane, accessories, etc) will add to the UVW weight and reduce cargo capacity, in the trailer.

First thing you need to find out, is cargo (also called payload) capacity and rated trailer towing capacity. Towing capacity should be in the owners manual, or, you can look it up online. Cargo capacity is GVWR minus the actual weight (take it to a CAT scale) of the truck (with driver and full fuel tank). The cargo capacity figure, is weight capacity you have available for passengers, tongue weight (from the trailer), weight of the hitch (about 75 - 100 lbs) attached to the truck, and anything else you put in or on the truck. This is first place you will have trouble with your Tacoma.

Truck Example:

Say your GVWR is 5890 and actual weight of the truck is 4900

5890 - 4900 = 990 lbs cargo (payload) capacity. This is the carrying capacity available for trailer tongue weight, hitch, passengers, and cargo in the truck.

When you look at trailers, keep in mind, the only time that trailer got towed at UVW (empty)weight, is when it left the factory. No end users will be at that weight.

Average camping load (dishes, bedding, groceries, camping gear, and water) is about 1200 lbs.

Average trailer tongue weight is about twelve percent of the trailer gross weight. Tongue weight on a 4500 lb trailer, will be about 540 lbs. Subtract that from 980 lbs payload, subtract 100 lbs for the hitch, and you only have 340 lbs of payload left for passengers and cargo in the truck.

Trailer example:

Dry (UVW, empty, unloaded) weight is 3000 lbs and cargo capacity is 1500 lbs. The GVWR of the trailer is 4500 lbs.

Sparkndeb wrote:
So, after months of looking for a TT for my 2013 Tacoma to safely tow< I'm still confused about the GVWR. On some models the dry weight is say 3155 lbs with the gvwr at 5890lbs. So, I can put 2735lbs in the trailer? Who carries that kind of weight? What am I missing here? I need my gvwr to be around 4500lbs or so (I think). Help!

GVWR of the trailer is a "rating" so it is as real as it can be. The manufacturer sets the rated maximum that the trailer can carry based on many factors we can only guess at. Whether or not you load the trailer to the GVWR is up to you.

The real GVWR you should focus on at this time is what your truck can tow. If you have a 1/2 ton truck then take the truck's towing capacity, subtract the weight of people, cargo and gasoline and what you are left with is net towing capacity based on the truck. Now divide that by 0.12 and the number you get would be the max weight you should be thinking of towing. That is the 'real' GVWR based on the truck's capability.

Sparkndeb wrote:
So, after months of looking for a TT for my 2013 Tacoma to safely tow< I'm still confused about the GVWR. On some models the dry weight is say 3155 lbs with the gvwr at 5890lbs. So, I can put 2735lbs in the trailer? Who carries that kind of weight? What am I missing here? I need my gvwr to be around 4500lbs or so (I think). Help!

Your assumption is correct but what you are missing is that dry weight is a nearly fictional number and is always more than stated. GVWR on a TT is the absolute most the trailer can ever weigh at any given time as established by the maker. BTW, you would be surprised how much weight you can add to a TT when you start adding gear, water, etc.

FastEagle

Most people on average put about a 1,000# in a camper between food, dishes, grills, lawn chairs etc.... While in an ideal would you'd like you truck to handle the GVWR of the full loaded trailer. So if your dry weight is 3,500# plus 1,000# of stuff puts you around 4,500# of trailer.

Dry weight is what it weighted rolling off the assembly line. Probably will never weight that again, batter(s), propane, etc....

Good luck and enjoy.

Who puts 2700 pounds of stuff in a TT? Full timers and people who travel for multiple weeks and months per trip. The weekenders are more like 1000 pounds.

As said, dry weight numbers are fictional. Manufacturers love to use them for marketing purposes to outdo the competition and lure you into buying something that you may not if you knew what the actual weight would be like. The actual weight always goes up. By the time you've ordered options, the dealer adds items (propane tanks, ex.), you installed fixed items (2nd TV, ex.), done some modifications and have it all loaded up for camping, the weight goes up a lot. Typically in the 1,000 - 1,500 lb range, or even more for larger units. The added weight comes right off the advertised cargo carrying capacity and in the end, you could have very little left over. In some cases, you can even end up being overloaded.

The advertised 2735 lbs is bs. The actual won't even be close to that. Even if you could, do NOT try and load 2,735 lbs into your TT. We camped next to someone last summer who had a TT of the same make and model and similar length as ours except theirs was a toyhauler version with cargo door ahead of the axles. Identical frame & suspension. He just got the TT and was using it to take a 800-900 lb Harley camping with him. I know he was WAY over his GVWR. He probably had in the order of 2400 lbs of overall "cargo" added to his dry weight and about 700 lbs over his GVWR. Not good....

Dry tongue weight can go up a lot too, so watch your payload rating on the TV.

Without being able to take a TT for a test tow off a dealer's lot and going to a scale, you are best to use the GVWR to be safe. And for tongue weight, take 15% of the GVWR. If you don't, you can end up with too much trailer for your TV. Never shop on the basis of dry weights alone, don't believe what a dealer tells you and don't believe the "1/2 ton towable" designations.

You never want to exceed your TT GVWR all loaded up because for one thing, the axles and tires have ratings. And if you exceed the GVWR, you could possibly damage the frame. One of the best things you can do is to take your TT to a scale and get the total weight (GVW) and TV weight and then calculate the actual tongue weight.

Forget about the towing capacity of your truck. Focus on the payload capacity because you'll run out of that well before you reach the towing capacity. Do you now what the receiver rating is because you also need to look at that.

Case study: After going to a CAT scale, our 29' TT with a factory listed dry weight of 5237 lbs ended up at 6800 lbs all loaded up for camping, and with just ordinary camping gear and supplies. The GVWR is 7,000 lbs so we have just 200 lbs of CCC left. Advertised CCC was 1563 lbs. It seems like all the factory options we ordered added a lot of weight. If we travelled with just one full holding tank, we'd be overloaded. The tongue weight ended up being almost double the factory listed 518 lbs. We bought a new WDH setup based on the dry tongue weight and ended up having to buy heavier rated bars because the 800 lb ones did not work. If we have heavy stuff to take on a trip, we have to put it in the back of the truck, but at least our 3/4 ton has the payload cap. for it.

Sparkndeb wrote:
So, after months of looking for a TT for my 2013 Tacoma to safely tow< I'm still confused about the GVWR. On some models the dry weight is say 3155 lbs with the gvwr at 5890lbs. So, I can put 2735lbs in the trailer? Who carries that kind of weight? What am I missing here? I need my gvwr to be around 4500lbs or so (I think). Help!

My Funfinder 189FDS is an example of what you are seeing. The trailer had a listed dry weight of 3135 pounds. It actually weighted approx 3600 pounds when I brought it home. But it has a GVWR of 6025 pounds. The reason it can have such a high GVWR is because it has two axles under it, each rated for 2800 pounds. If it were to have let's say, just one axle, rated at perhaps 3500 pounds, then it would have had a GVWR of maybe 4000 pounds.
In reality, as I go camp, my trailer ( without water in the tanks ) weighs just under 4000 pounds, so you can see that since I have a GVWR of just over 6000, I have a comfortable safety margin in carrying capacity.

Regarding your Tacoma, I tow this trailer with a Frontier, which as you know is similar to a Tacoma. As has been stated, what we typically run out of on these smaller rated trucks is payload or rear axle capacity. Typically these trailers have about 12 to 14% tongue weight. So with a few things in the bed of the truck, my 4000 pound trailer has me fairly close to, but still under the rear axle capacity of the truck. The max trailer I could pull with this truck and still be within the rear axle limit would be around 4500 pounds, and that assumes not much junk in the bed of the truck, and no extra passengers in the truck. It works for me, because I travel light, and solo.

You will also need ( not optional, but NEED ) a weight distributing hitch and of course a brake controller in the truck to operate the brakes on the trailer.

A properly set up truck and trailer, that is within all stated limits, tows safely and is fun to drive. The other side of that is when you are over limits, you will often hear folks describing the drive as "white knuckle". Obviously that takes a lot of the fun and safety out of the experience.

Thank you for taking time to explain this often misunderstood formula, I wish I could have found an explanation like this years ago when I bought my first trailer it sure would have saved me a lot of grief. Maybe the moderator should put this on a sticky for people to read.
Good job!

handye9 wrote:
You are confusing truck and trailer GVWR. They both have one.

Dryweight is a term used in place of UVW, empty, or unloaded weight of a trailer.

GVWR for the truck is printed on the driver side door post. The GVWR, for the truck, is maximum gross weight on the truck frame, axles, tires, and brakes.
GVWR for Tacoma trucks will be the same for all Tacoma's. They will differ on cargo capacity, depending on what has been added to the truck. IE: two wheel drive and four wheel drive will have same GVWR, but, the four wheel drive will have less cargo capacity, because the 4 X 4 parts add weight to the truck.

GVWR, for the trailer, is maximum weight the trailer frame, axles, and tires can carry. Here again, the cargo capacity is reduced by whatever has been added to the trailer. Unloaded weight (UVW), is what the trailer weighed, when it left the factory. Anything added by the dealer (battery, propane, accessories, etc) will add to the UVW weight and reduce cargo capacity, in the trailer.

First thing you need to find out, is cargo (also called payload) capacity and rated trailer towing capacity. Towing capacity should be in the owners manual, or, you can look it up online. Cargo capacity is GVWR minus the actual weight (take it to a CAT scale) of the truck (with driver and full fuel tank). The cargo capacity figure, is weight capacity you have available for passengers, tongue weight (from the trailer), weight of the hitch (about 75 - 100 lbs) attached to the truck, and anything else you put in or on the truck. This is first place you will have trouble with your Tacoma.

Truck Example:

Say your GVWR is 5890 and actual weight of the truck is 4900

5890 - 4900 = 990 lbs cargo (payload) capacity. This is the carrying capacity available for trailer tongue weight, hitch, passengers, and cargo in the truck.

When you look at trailers, keep in mind, the only time that trailer got towed at UVW (empty)weight, is when it left the factory. No end users will be at that weight.

Average camping load (dishes, bedding, groceries, camping gear, and water) is about 1200 lbs.

Average trailer tongue weight is about twelve percent of the trailer gross weight. Tongue weight on a 4500 lb trailer, will be about 540 lbs. Subtract that from 980 lbs payload, subtract 100 lbs for the hitch, and you only have 340 lbs of payload left for passengers and cargo in the truck.

Trailer example:

Dry (UVW, empty, unloaded) weight is 3000 lbs and cargo capacity is 1500 lbs. The GVWR of the trailer is 4500 lbs.