1,780 payload minus the weight of you, your wife, and anyone else in the vehicle, minus the weight of any stuff you bring, family pet, floor mats or bedliner you add after purchase, minus 100 pounds for a weight distribution hitch.

Take the result and divide by 0.13 for 13% average hitch weight.

Example:

You weight 200, wife weighs 110, two kids weigh 150 total, dog weighs 50, new bedliner and floor mats weigh 50 total and a 25 pound cooler.

200+110+150+50+50+25=585 + 100 pound wdh = 685

1,780 - 685 = 1,095

1,095 / .13 = 8,423 for the fully loaded trailer. That means your brand new dry trailer plus batteries, propane tanks, linens, clothes, food, ... Roughly a dry trailer weight of 7,000.

Other restrictions - your hitch has a max weight printed on it that would be the limit IF you were in the truck alone before payload was hit.

There are also limits for axles, but payload is usually hit first.

People have also discussed how the length of a trailer can be an issue, you'll see that referenced in some posts when someone says they want to get say a 34 foot trailer and everyone says too long.

Hope this helps.

 

 

I usually am working up the stamina to make a post explaining this, and then I realize Ricktwuhk has already beat me too it.

 

Does the factory payload (1780 in this one) not include a 150# driver like it use to??? Just curious as I don't see that mentioned in these explanations

 

It absolutely does not include a driver.

 

The tow rating (max trailer weight = GCWR minus the weight of the empty truck) assumes a 150-pound driver. But the payload capacity (GVWR minus the weight of the empty truck) does not.

So don't confuse tow rating with payload, or GCWR with GVWR. I don't think payload capacity has ever included a driver. If someone stated that payload capacity considered a driver, I suspect they were confusing tow rating with payload.

 

All the other comments have been on point so far and I won't repeat them. The only thing I will say is in your journey of looking at the trailer tongue weight, trailer GVW, the truck's available payload, GVW, GCVW, and GAWR, the tow rating advertised by any truck manufacturer is the last number to worry about. The payload and axle ratings will be overloaded long before you reach the actual tow rating.

The other piece of advise that I can give is, whatever hitch you end up purchasing, spend time with the truck and trailer loaded to set the hitch up properly. This can change the towing experience all together in both a good and bad way. If you're interested, I have a spreadsheet available to plug in numbers for proper set up.

 

Somebody needs to get a copy of SAE J2807-201602 and read through it to determine whether or not any additional weight is calculated into the GVWR.

I found the following statement in an article regarding the J2807 standard, which does not apply to the 150 if, for the SAE, 3/4 ton is not the actual capacity but the historical useage of the term...

In addition to a vehicle’s base curb weight, the “Tow Vehicle Total Weight” (TVTW) for testing for ¾- and 1-ton trucks allocates 150 pounds for the driver, 150 pounds for a passenger, the weight of all tow package equipment, and 100 pounds of optional equipment (hitch ball, weight distribution bars, and such) split evenly between the front and rear axles.

This seems to EXCLUDE 150's from the additional weights, so that the payload rating for our trucks is a wet rating with no additional capacity for equipment or persons, but... someone is going to have to read through the document and see if this is clarified.

Regarding "Like it used to be", before 2013 or so, there were no standards for this. Mfg's rated their vehicles... however they felt, and direct comparisons were not possible. Whether or not a mfg included weight for a driver and/or passenger, you would have had to contact them.