Without WDH, all of it along with a little of the front axle weight.



For the OP, the only time Dry Weight is useful is in estimating what the ready to camp weight could be. With my trailer loaded, full FWT, I average around 1500 pounds cargo. When shopping, take a look at the yellow and white stickers. White for GVWR, yellow for the CCC (Payload). Like the truck, subtract the CCC from GVWR, and add 1500 (provided of course there is enough CCC, I have seen trailers with less than 1100 CCC). Use that to get an estimate for TW.

If you never plan to fill the FWT and plan to only use full hookup parks, then subtract the water weight from your CCC. You would be surprised how quickly cargo adds up in an RV. I look around at what I have in mine and think, OK, where is all that weight coming from.

As an Example, using my trailer, which BTW I speced out for my then current 2014 with only 1470 pound payload. The GVWR is 7600 pounds, the supposed "Dry Weight" was ~4800 pounds. In reality it was closer to 5000 pounds. I travel with a full FWT because the location of it is right at the front axle and helps with keeping the trailer riding smoothly. When weighed it the first time it was right around 6300 pounds with 780 pound tongue weight. Now 4 years later and well traveled, we are sitting at 6400 pounds with 980 pounds tongue weight. With moving things around, mainly locations of where we put clothes, changing of what we carry in the cabinets etc. the weight only went up 100 pounds, but moved forward, increasing the tongue weight. These are weights that do not include the hitch though, so that must also be kept in mind. As it was last September when I last towed and scaled, with the hitch there was 1040 pounds on the receiver.

When hooked up and using a properly set up Blue Ox, I am 400 pounds under GVWR on the truck. Prior to that using a cheap Husky that I have for my horse trailer, I was over GVWR by 80 pounds on the 2014. The Husky could only move so much weight, so it is important to use a good WDH. Had I used the BO originally then I could have gotten the 2014 to be under GVWR as well. They Husky would not transfer the weight rearward more than 40 pounds.

 

Thank you, acdii. That's helpful. I just received a new 10,000 lb / 10,000 lb ball and ball mount, so that's no longer the weak link.

My goal for this thread was to reach a point where I can almost intuitively know whether a particular trailer will work with my truck -- fully loaded -- and be able to narrow it down from there. I'm almost there with so much help from this forum. Saturday's mission is to weigh it on a scale as I normally travel (with myself and the tools I store behind the seats and ball on the hitch), so I'll have a true starting point.

I'll make sure that any trailer, fully loaded, will be sufficiently below any limits, so we'll have a good experience.

Thanks again, acdii and everyone else for all the assistance.

GT

 

Ford uses .15 or 15% so why do we use .13 or 13% ?

 

Because that’s what most loaded travel trailers are, and we tend tend to load the trailer a little under gross.

 

The hitch range for bumper towing is 10 to 15% trailer weight. It's not a Ford thing, its across the board. Ford uses 10% for their ratings. Since the range is 10-15%, 13% falls right in the middle and is a good target point when balancing a load.