Scoops286

I'm a rookie Truck Owner & Travel Trailer (TT) Owner and have been learning a lot recently about Payload and Towing. Hopefully this will help others new to towing and/or be a place for experienced drivers to weigh in.

A little background first,
We recently decided to switch from tent camping to TT camping and after some looking around realized we would need a truck to tow what we liked.

We bought a 2015 F150 SCREW 2.7 EB w/ 145WB last Fall to in advance of our camper purchase. Saw that it was rated to tow up to 7600lbs, figured that'd be plenty since most campers we liked were around 5000lbs.

This Winter we bought a Coachmen FE 257BHS, 28'7" bumper to hitch, Dry weight is about 5400lbs, lots of tow capacity room, comfortable with that.

This Month, take delivery with dealer set up Fastway E2 WDH & Stabilizer System for towing. Drove it home and felt like more sway than I expected.

I've been tweaking the WDH this week trying to dial it in and have been learning quite a bit. Took it to the nearest CAT Scales for weighing and on my first weigh I was over my Drive (rear) axle weight rating. I was pretty surprised that I could be well within my tow capacity but exceed a capacity elsewhere. I was able to make adjustements to WDH (added 2 washers to WDH to shift weight to front axle) and now it is much better.

The point of all of this is to be mindful of payload capabilities of your tow vehicle as much as the tow capacity. I was not when I was shopping, thankfully it still worked out, but I may have gone for additional payload had I known what I do now.

I will attach some weight and capacity details in next post.

Scoops286

1st weigh over rear axle weight by 80lbs

2nd weigh (added 2 washers to WDH), also added 200lb to gross weight while reducing truck weight (simulate camping gear packed in trailer)
Trucks payload rating is 6500, GCWR is 12800

tcp2

Did you have a second person in the truck the second time through? You seem to have gained 200lbs in total weight, even if the axle weights are correct this time.

Scoops286

Truck was about the same both times, my family of 4 and full tank of gas.
The second time I weighed I had added a bunch more stuff into the camper to help simulate how we would pack for a trip.

Ricktwuhk

Great advice!

What is the Payload on your Payload sticker? As you noted, camper is 5,400 empty, fully loaded they usually end up 1,000 or more pounds heavier. Depending on tongue weight and resulting payload impact, a family of 4 is often right on the edge.

Scoops286

Payload Sticker aka "Tire and Loading Information" occupants & cargo should never exceed 1545 lbs

Trailer info lists the tongue weight at 666 lbs, but I haven't weighed that independently.

Ricktwuhk

The devil is in the details... 666... Nevermind.

With the trailer empty, 666 is probably close. Add 1,000 pounds of stuff and you'll probably be closer to 825 tongue weight.

1,545 minus 100 for the WDH minus 825 for the tongue leaves 620 pounds for the passengers, any mods made to the truck, and anything you carry in truck. 4 heavy guys - no way. Family of 4, probably fine.

Great to see someone figuring things out to be safe!

Scoops286

From the Truck's window sticker the payload package is 6500, so 6500 - 6280 (Cat Scale Truck Total) leaves 220 lbs more than what was on it / in it / additional tongue weight from when we had it weighed last. So as much as possible, we will try to add stuff to the camper vs the truck to avoid getting hitting that 6500.

Ricktwuhk

Same math. 6,500 - vehicle weighed empty with a full tank of gas not hooked up to anything = payload capacity, so the vehicle empty should be 6,500 - 1,545 = 4,955 (no people in it). It it weighs more, it's things like a toneau cover, bed mat, etc.

Loading weight into the rear of the camper will help things also, as long as you don't load it to rear-heavy as to pull up on the tongue.

157XLT

I made a graph a while back of payload used vs remaining towing capacity. My truck has a GCWR of 16100 lbs, a GVWR of 7050 lbs, a maximum payload of 1801 lbs, and is rated for a trailer up to 10600 lbs by the Ford Towing Guide. Here is the graph:




For any given payload, the towing capacity is limited by the lowest line. As you can see, from a payload of 0 to about 250 lbs, the rated towing capacity is the lowest line. From about 250 to 423 lbs of payload, the GCWR line is the lowest. And from about 423 lbs up to the maximum payload of 1801 lbs, the GVWR line is the lowest.

Note that the GVWR line is made with the assumption that 13% of the trailer weight is on the hitch. The left side of it would go up or down if the % were different.