Shouldn't I be OK? 6900lb TT, 5.7 w/3.21

Sorry yall - another one of those "can I pull this" kind of threads.

My truck is a 15 quad cab sport 4x4 with the 5.7, 8spd, and 3.21 gear. I do plan to use a weight distributing hitch, and it will have the OEM brake controller in place before I hook up to anything.

VIN decoder gives these specs:
Curb weight ft - 3183
Curb weight rear- 2301
GCWR 13,800
Max trailering capacity 7940 (not sure I completely understand that term)
(I found a Dodge chart that showed 8500 pound capacity too, so that helps confuse me)

The travel trailer that I am looking at has a GVWR of 6900 and hitch weight of 544.

As long as I stay with a trailer GVWR under 7500 pounds shouldn't I be OK? I don't want to "push it", but if I'm understanding this, 7500 wouldn't even be pushing it since it's still under the 7940 (the lowest tow rating number I've seen for this truck)

Had a camper salesman get all mad at me today when I started looking up GVWR for campers he was showing me - many of which were as much as 9500 pounds and he said he had been told to only go by dry weight plus 10%.

The 544lbs tongue weight will go up significantly when you load. That's a fact. The 7940 lbs your truck is rated to pull does not take into account a few things:
1. GVWR of the truck. The ever talked about "payload" placard. How much you carry in your truck PLUS the tongue weight.
2. The frontal resistence of a travel trailer.
3. Idiot salesmen- which you seem to have found.

Do yourself a favour- walk away from that D-bag salesman. He got pissy because he got caught. Find one that is willing to work with you and for you, not against you. FWIW- he's totally full of **** and if that's what he was told to go by, I'd turn tail and run.

One more piece to add- when you're getting that close to rating, verify the weight of your loaded truck and loaded trailer will not exceed the GCWR (total allowed for both).

Given what I know about the 1500 I would just go ahead and assume both units will be loaded at GVWR. Add those two.

This particular salesman was a nutjob, and he's not even at the dealer that has the trailer I'm most interested in.
I've got my eye on a couple of others, and I hope to get to that dealership this week - they are all around this same weight.

Gotcha. Don't believe any of the dry weights- you're on the right track looking up GVWR. Take that a step further and determine the tongue weight too- for 6900lbs, likely around 900lbs if loaded right. That goes against you trucks payload rating, axle rating, etc.

I was in the same boat as you last year. Our camper is similar and both our dealer and RAM dealer agreed it would be fine. Trucks are under rated for towing. I wouldn't tow from Florida to Alaska, but would tow within a couple states without worrying. With a proper weight distribution hitch, towing is our trailer is a great. I would suggest air bags and let rated tires.

I've wondered if I need to look into stiffer springs and/or airbags.
I don't expect any loooong trips - mostly within probably 200 miles of home, all in the southeast.

rctoyguy said:

Sorry yall - another one of those "can I pull this" kind of threads.

My truck is a 15 quad cab sport 4x4 with the 5.7, 8spd, and 3.21 gear. I do plan to use a weight distributing hitch, and it will have the OEM brake controller in place before I hook up to anything.

VIN decoder gives these specs:
Curb weight ft - 3183
Curb weight rear- 2301
GCWR 13,800
Max trailering capacity 7940 (not sure I completely understand that term)
(I found a Dodge chart that showed 8500 pound capacity too, so that helps confuse me)

The travel trailer that I am looking at has a GVWR of 6900 and hitch weight of 544.

As long as I stay with a trailer GVWR under 7500 pounds shouldn't I be OK? I don't want to "push it", but if I'm understanding this, 7500 wouldn't even be pushing it since it's still under the 7940 (the lowest tow rating number I've seen for this truck)

Had a camper salesman get all mad at me today when I started looking up GVWR for campers he was showing me - many of which were as much as 9500 pounds and he said he had been told to only go by dry weight plus 10%.

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If you keep your truck payload at or below what your truck can handle you will be fine. I have a 15 cc with 5.7 hemi. My tt dry weight is 6100 lbs trailer gvw is 7600 lbs and iI am under my limitations. There is an app on line called rv tow calculator, find it and enter in the specs and that will tell you what you need to know.

rctoyguy said:

I've wondered if I need to look into stiffer springs and/or airbags.
I don't expect any loooong trips - mostly within probably 200 miles of home, all in the southeast.

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For those distances and weights, pretty sure you'll be just fine. Bags will make things more comfortable. Just steer the salespeople away from the 9000lbs units. Go in armed with your numbers.

smurfs_of_war said:

For those distances and weights, pretty sure you'll be just fine. Bags will make things more comfortable. Just steer the salespeople away from the 9000lbs units. Go in armed with your numbers.

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Yes I would get stiffer springs that is what I am going to do. And do stay away from 9000lb units

Wasn't there a similar thread recently about towing with the Pentastar....

Looking here http://www.ramtrucks.com/assets/towing_guide/pdf/2015_ram_1500_towing_charts.pdf for reference:

Towing 6900 GVWR (=max loaded weight) is fine as the truck is rated at 8060 lbs for the axle ratio. In fact, the exact same truck with just the 3.92 axle ratio is rated for 2000 lbs more, so the limit is what the drivetrain can accelerate or pull up a grade.

In recent years manufacturers have been sprinkling magic towing dust over their trucks, so these numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. In my view there is a cutover point where things get scary, which is when the towing vehicle can not be loaded to GVWR just to stay within the GCWR. That's not the case for the OP, assuming 10% tongue weight, the trailer is going to be 6200 lbs on the axle and 700 lbs on the hitch. The truck has a GVWR of 6900 lbs incl the tongue weight, so that comes out to 13100 lbs total (legal). And, the truck is still heavier than the trailer.

In comparison with the max trailer weight of 8060 lbs, the truck can only be 5740 lbs before hooking up the trailer/6540 lbs incl TW to stay within GCWR. The trailer is going to be 700 lbs heavier than the truck. And that doesn't get better with the higher towing capacity of the 3.92 gears.

Thanks everyone.. I figured I should be ok with this setup, but wanted to run it by some "unbiased" opinions.
Hitch weight, payload, etc will probably confuse me forever - but for what I'm looking to do at this point, it sounds like everyone believes I should be OK as long as I stay with a TT under 7500 as a total, loaded to the max weight - correct? Obviously the lighter I can do the better, but it looks like most of the trailers we like (realistically) are in the 6500-7500 total weight.

rctoyguy said:

Thanks everyone.. I figured I should be ok with this setup, but wanted to run it by some "unbiased" opinions.
Hitch weight, payload, etc will probably confuse me forever - but for what I'm looking to do at this point, it sounds like everyone believes I should be OK as long as I stay with a TT under 7500 as a total, loaded to the max weight - correct? Obviously the lighter I can do the better, but it looks like most of the trailers we like (realistically) are in the 6500-7500 total weight.

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Just remember this, your payload for your truck is the amount of the weight of passengers,anything you put in the bed,and hitch weight. Hitch weight is the weight of the trailer that is applied to the hitch. If you move heavy items in your trailer,toward the back of the trailer less hitch weight. If you move have heaver items upfront more hitch weight. But, if you get a good weight distribution hitch That should balance the weight evenly.

rctoyguy said:

Thanks everyone.. I figured I should be ok with this setup, but wanted to run it by some "unbiased" opinions.
Hitch weight, payload, etc will probably confuse me forever - but for what I'm looking to do at this point, it sounds like everyone believes I should be OK as long as I stay with a TT under 7500 as a total, loaded to the max weight - correct? Obviously the lighter I can do the better, but it looks like most of the trailers we like (realistically) are in the 6500-7500 total weight.

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There is also the length factor. My 32' trailer is lighter than what you're shopping for and we have 10,200lb towing max so lots of headroom, but it is SO long and it is being towed by a light duty half ton, that anything over a moderate wind, including some big rigs passing, can make for white knuckles. Short of a Hensley/Propride hitch my setup is as good as it can get. I've gone to great expense to change items on the trailer to be more robust. But in the end, it's a half ton pulling 32' of sidewall down the road. That's 256 square feet on each side which is prone to a lot of forces.
Don't just consider weight. Consider keeping the length to 25-27' MAX for a 1500. We would have traded down 2 years ago but we would lose 50% of the value and thanks to an unexpected job change, I can't afford that.
Just some more perspective. Stay safe!

You should be fine.

Just make sure once you take delivery, get the trailer loaded with all the stuff you'll be keeping on it and head over to some CAT scales. You'll want the following:

Total trailer weight
Tongue weight and axle weight of trailer
Front and rear axle weights on your truck
Front and rear axle weights on your truck AND trailer axle weight after hooking up

This will tell you everything you need to know. Most importantly, it'll tell you how dialed in your WDH is. Don't trust the dealer to set it up properly. They know jack **** and don't care about your safety. The WDH should move about 10% of the tongue weight back to the trailer axles, and 90% distributed about 40/60 front/rear to both truck axles.

Your truck should be level, the trailer should be level. Take measurements on your wheel wells from the ground before and after hooking up. The front should show no difference in height hooked or unhooked while the rear may drop around 2".

With your tongue weight you shouldn't need bags to level. If it's not sitting level with the WDH then something isn't setup right. Ball angle would need to be adjusted.

Air bags should really only be used to reduce bounce. Air Ride 1000 helper bags are great for this. They won't effect ride height.

Also- the total weight includes full freshwater, grey water and black tanks. You usually don't have them full, so this leaves you some room. 7500# trailer should be still fine, if you leave the tanks empty.

Our trailer is 33' long and we have never had issues with high wind or passing trucks. I fact, we have travelled a lot over the Mackinac bridge in 35+ mph winds and no issues whatsoever ever. Hitches and even weight distribution are the key. We never tow with our tanks fuel either. Improper loaded 3/4 & 1 tons could have issues also if loaded wrong.

pcschwenke said:

Our trailer is 33' long and we have never had issues with high wind or passing trucks. I fact, we have travelled a lot over the Mackinac bridge in 35+ mph winds and no issues whatsoever ever. Hitches and even weight distribution are the key. We never tow with our tanks fuel either. Improper loaded 3/4 & 1 tons could have issues also if loaded wrong.

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We are trading down next year because of the length. 30ft is hard on the truck, I think. Like already said- the truck is not heavy enough for the forces from the sides. Not talking about a few miles with some wind gusts, but in general. New designs, technology and light weight materials makes it more flexible. For instance, my wife, 2 dogs and I, we don't need bunks. They just take up room and destroy layout flexibility. We looked at a 26ft coachmen legacy and you will be surprised, how much room you can have in a trailer nowadays. Length is not everything today. And we looked at everything from 19-30ft to see, what is possible and what fits us best. So beside weight, keep in mind- the longer the trailer the more forces tear on your truck.

Lots of good tips here y'all, and I really do appreciate them all. I'll keep length in mind as well as weight - but we do want bunks (although a full bunkhouse is probably out due to weight).
Seeing some of the smaller models lose the sofa and just have a dinette - need to decide if we need the sofa... That should mean lighter and shorter.

We looked at Forrest River models like Coachmen, Grey Wolf, Wildwood, Pioneer, etc- made all by Forrest River. You get a 27ft trailer with nice bunks in the back- so big, in each can sleep 2 adults easy. Including couch, dinette, etc. The loaded weight was ~7600 and had one slide out. My current one has the weight and length and It's OK. 1-2ft does not make a big difference in driving, but it sure does in weight.
Like I said- they design them things today absolutely great- nothing like traditional anymore. The only thing you also should take a look at- and it's a individual preference- I'd rather look at a aluminum skin than a fiber glass. The older fiber glass tend to crack. nothing un-repairable- but only the circumstance that they do is for me a rather not. But it's a optical thing- do you rather like the smooth outside or don't care about the tin-roof design.