What to do? Weight and pull vehicle

[Thumper_ehhhhh]

This is us. We are looking to upgrade. We are 27ft ball to rear bumper.

 

[~Kristina~]

sweet. We tow a Kodiak 25QB with ours. It only has 1 canvas wing but has quad bunks in the back. The light weights are nice to tow. roo's are nice.

I was looking at something similar to yours, but we would like to keep the pop up feel without the cranking. I'm more excited about the stove/oven combo and bigger fridge than anything else in the hybrid. lol And I don't have to pop it up to load our food and cothes.

The dealer said they'd keep it in their on site storage until April, but I don't think I can wait that long to play in it. It may spend the rest of the winter in my driveway.

 

[Thumper_ehhhhh]

We have been known to camp on easter weekend. Thats the reason we wanted to have a hybrid as well we like the canvas and the more outdoors feel. Thats got old. Now we dont want to set up the bed anymore lol. It never fails it rains on the close down. Weve had ours sence 2005 time to move up in a year or so. I hope you enjoy you new trailer as much as we enjoy ours.

 

[Thumper_ehhhhh]

You will be doing all kinds of modifications to it. To make it more you. It never ends lol

 

[~Kristina~]

We got our pop up in spring 06 and have grown out of it. I wanted to ask you, what drop is your hitch?

 

[Thumper_ehhhhh]

We had our popup from 1995 to 2005 and we out grew ours too. This is my hitch yes including sway control. http://www.reese-hitches.com/products/Weight_Distribution_Hitchwith_Trunnion_Bars,7903
http://www.reese-hitches.com/categories/Dual_Cam_High_Performance_Sway_Controls,43
My draw bar points down and the hitch assembly is at the top in the highest hole. My tilt is 5 grooves. My chain is latched on the 5th link from the bar. Keep in mind every trailer is different. When I set it up everything was fully loaded and I had a friend help me. We had the truck and trailer on flat ground. I measured the trailer so it was the same at the front and back. I also measured from the top of the wheel wells on the truck. We ended up dropping the trailer 1/2 inch the front of the truck 1.5 inches and the back 2.5 inches when the weight distrubuting was put on. The truck sits level when hitched and the trailer is level too. It took us a couple of hours going up a hole tilting and down a hole then tilting. Then we set up the dual cam. Make sure the truck and trailer is straight. Adjust the cams so they sit in the middle of the v part of the bar. I have never had to adjust this again. I check it every year and all is good.

 

[snocrossmechanic]

All of the advice here is great. On thing you should do to make certain is to take the truck and trailer to a weigh station. Make sure you have the gas tank full and all occupants in the vehicle. Make sure the LP tanks are full on the RV and the batteries are installed. The people that run the weigh station will help you with positioning your vehicle on the scales.

This is the ONLY true way to get specific load per axel and tongue weight. From here you can do the math and see how much stuff you can put in the RV (including water and waste if you travel with tanks filled). If the dealership wont let you get it weighed then walk away. The placards in the RV are before any accessories are installed. Things like awnings and extra items add weight to the RV.

Good luck and don't listen to a single word the RV sales person says. Their job is to sell you a trailer not anything else.

 

[Thumper_ehhhhh]

When you weight it do it 3 times. Once all hooked up weight bars on. Move off the scales. Remove the weight bars and weigh it again. Then move off the scales and drop your trailer and just have your Tow Vechile. This will tell you your GCWR. It will tell you tounge weight and it will let you know what weight is transfered to what axel to make sure your not over loading any of them..

 

[Gatordad]

IMHO you are asking the wrong people. I know a guy that wouldn't take anyone's advice on here, he sends everyone to RV.net. However, it looks like you are in good hands.... I'd listen to the Canadian. They make pretty good beer in Canada, Labatts, Molson, Fosters to name a few.

 

[3girlsfun]

I'll definitely be listening to the "Canadian!" Excellent advice. Now, if it would ever be warm enough on a Saturday afternoon, we would go take a look around. Me and DH can suck it up, but the kids whine the entire time we are looking, so it has to be a smidge warmer.

 

[Thumper_ehhhhh]

Heck all them canadians are good for is beer, canadian bacon, toukes, maple syrup, and Tim Hortons. Oh and canadian club whiskey. Oh and hockey, basketball, the lightbulb, phones. lol As for trailers we know not lol trailerlife.com is a great place for info in towing. I just did alot of research.

 

[LarryJ]

Where is the RVNet expert, Lars, when you need him? Doesn't he know these things? Cousin Eddie eats squirrels, Lars knows weights & towing capacities.

ON EDIT: I originally edited this post on 1/9/2011 at 6:17AM at the direction of a moderator to remove what was considered a sarcastic/argumentative statement in the first line of the original post which I did so the post shows as it reads now as of that 1/9 edited date. I have added this comment because of some information provided to me that seems to say I would post something not so nice and then go back and edit it to make myself look good and that is simply not what happened at least here. I now wish the mod would just have deleted the one sentence like I did so this would never have been an issue, but hindsight is .... Oh Well.

There are a host of factors to properly marry a TV to a specific TT. I'm not sure we can address them all, but below are a few of my thoughts ....

1. The critical numbers you need are GVWR of both the TV and TT, combined AWRs for the TT, RAWR and FAWR of the TV, and the GCWR for the tow vehicle. Sometimes you can bust the GVWR of either the TT or TV by a few hundred lbs as long as you stay within the AWRs (axle weight ratings)

2. I would recommend you stay to no more than 80 to maybe 85% of the TV GCWR, especially for a vehicle that old. I personally would use the GVWR of the TV minus 80 to 85% of the GCWR to determine the max GVWR of the TT you should be looking at.

3. Before even looking at a trailer you need to load up your TV like you would when towing with all passengers, cargo, and get it to a CAT scale and get the individual axle wts.

4. I haven't touched on the TV or WDH/Sway system, but those have to be considered and the point about the poor quality of the OEM round tube receiver is know and I would address that before towing with a GM product like you have.

This is just one forum with a few members and you should expand your search for the knowledge and experiences of others and RV.NET is another resource which has the same pitfall of this forum only not so much IMO, but not the only one.

Larry

 

[stacktester]

The funny thing about tow and load ratings is they're on the door of every vehicle. Common sense would tell you that pulling a 30' tt with a Durango probably wouldn't work. If you have an Explorer or the like you ain't pulling more than a small hybrid period. You've got the 1/2 ton towables next and then once you reach a certain weight you're into the 3/4 ton and up tv's. Some questions about weight distribution are legit as it never hurts to have something to make things safer. Larry's information is nothing more than a quick look on an open door wouldn't tell you. A little common sense is all it really takes. What's funny is the people on rv.net don't know it all either. What it basically comes down to is people having experiences with different trucks and trailers and what works best.

 

[ftwildernessguy]

I am amazed I have towed for 30 years not knowing half the numbers Larry insists are necessary, not to mention what all the acronyms mean. "If you can't impress them with your knowledge, dazzle them with .....well, you know."

 

[Thumper_ehhhhh]

to the admin who deleted my message. Can you at least pass it along to the person it was intended for. I put up with the crap for a long time. It needs to be read.

 

[AuburnJen92]

Last edited by LarryJ; Today at 06:17 AM.

This also needs to have on it...

reported to moderators at 6:10AM before I edited the comments so I didn't look bad.


I said nothing bad. I should not have had anything removed. I still claim to be an expert on cogmognifyerexpliflivators. So there.

This is not an attack on said person above. It is stated facts.

 

[2goofycampers]

to the admin who deleted my message. Can you at least pass it along to the person it was intended for. I put up with the crap for a long time. It needs to be read.

There is always a PM.

 

[ftwildernessguy]

There is always a PM.

Lars blocks PM's.

 

[Thumper_ehhhhh]

Looks like he read it. If i read the above correctly. The guy knows his stuff. I just wish he would join the conversation instead of tring to trump it all the time.

 

[big kahuna1]

Looks like he read it. If i read the above correctly. The guy knows his stuff. I just wish he would join the conversation instead of tring to trump it all the time.

You can believe that if you want to. But for your own good and your family's...I wouldn't. Have you ever heard of the saying "I am not a real Doctor but I play one on TV". Well, need I say more?