nickbar24

to start off, i have a '12 eb, 157"wb, 3.73 rear end (i don't think max tow). its got a 6" lift on 35" mud tires. I'm thinking about buying my first camper soon (travel trailer). i know there are many factors to concider, like the correct hitches, weight of the trailer, length, etc. the camper would be parked year round at a campground, once i get it there. you pay a yearly fee and as long as you plan on being there long term it never really has to leave come winter time. you can build porches around it and what not. anyways if i don't plan on towing it more than once or twice a year at the most how big could i go? i want about 30' and enough room inside for me and my girlfriend, and maybe a few guests to make it worth it, shower, closed off bedroom(s) etc. any advise while shopping for one? hoping for some positive feedback, thanks guys

p.s., a bigger truck is not an option

chaselee

I just recently bought a 31' Bunkhouse and my truck pulls it just fine.

smokeywren

Your "tow rating" was 9.500 pounds before you lowered it significantly by installing the taller tires. Probably around 8,000 now.


But that's not your limiter. Your limiter is the payload capacity of your F-150. In other words, people and stuff in the pickup plus tongue weight and not gross trailer weight is your limiter.


You can probably PULL a lot heavier trailer than you can HAUL the hitch weight of that trailer.


Whether you tow it once or a bunch of times a year, one mile or 10,000 miles, overloaded is overloaded. Don't tow overloaded.

Here's what I would do:

Load the F-150 with all the people and cargo that will be in it when towing, including pets, tools, campfire wood, jacks, etc. Drive to a truckstop that has a CAT scale and fill up with gas, then weigh the wet and loaded F-150.

Subtract the weight of the wet and loaded F-150 from the GVWR of your F-150. The answer is the max tongue weight of any TT you can tow without being overloaded.

Divide that max tongue weight by 0.125 and the answer is the max GVWR of any TT you want to consider. That 0.125 = 12.5%, which is the tongue weight of the average TT. Some have more and some have less, but if you use 12.5% you'll be close.

Go shopping for campers that do not exceed the GVWR you have calculated above. You probably won't find any that meets your desires. But without a heavier-duty tow vehicle, you must "make do" with what you have.

Example: My 2012 Ecoboost with 6.5' bed weighs about 6,500 pounds when wet and loaded for the road. My GVWR is 7,100, so that leaves 600 pounds max hitch weight. Divide that by 0.125 and that's 4,800 pounds max trailer weight I can tow without being overloaded. In fact my tongue weight is 650 pounds, so I'm slightly overloaded with my TT that grosses only 4,870 pounds when wet and loaded on the road.

My F-150 weight includes cab steps, bed steps, tailgate steps, spray-in bedliner, toolbox full of tools, and a camper shell and one passenger. So maybe you can get your truck weigh down closer to 6,000 pounds.

That's the bad news, assuming you want to tow that trailer a couple of times a year. But let's change the requirements to hauling that trailer to your campground and leaving it there.


The new, empty trailer would have a lot less tongue weight than one that's loaded for camping. So plan on towing the empty (dry) trailer only to the campground, then leaving it there year-round. So now you can use the dry weight instead of the GVWR of the trailer for your calculations. Compare the payload capacity available for hitch weight to the advertised hitch weight of the trailer specs instead of 12.5% of the GVWR of the trailer. That will give you a lot more trailer GVWR to shop for.