Don't trust math from stickers on trailers

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tron67j

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Think this video provides some thought-provoking information on trailer weights and what may be end up being tongue weight. One trailer had a light tongue weight but transferred more behind the axle. Recipe for fish-tailing if not loaded right. RV Tongue Weight Challenge! How much weight do Tr…:
 

2003F350

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Yeah, tongue weights are tricky with RVs. The advertised weight is at best a guess, you can usually tell from the layout of appliances and tanks if it's accurate. If I recall it is also an 'empty' tongue weight.

On mine it's pretty close I think, because even having a Power Wagon it doesn't squat my truck much w/o the WD bars. I do need to make some adjustments to the WD hitch though - I think they're taking too much weight off the tongue with how the dealer set it up.
 

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Why is it supersizing to him that a 36ft long camper has a tongue weight of 900lbs. He gonna loose his mind if he starts checking 5'ers
 

crash68

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tron67j

tron67j

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Mentioned this over on the Gen5 forum:
https://www.ramforum.com/threads/hitch-weight-video.172732/#post-2436503
The guy assumes all of the cargo weight add to the trailer will add to the tongue weight, this is not correct. As @dhay13 pointed out only a percentage of the cargo adds to the tongue weight and it also depends on where it's loaded onto the trailer.
Loading is such an important part of trailering. Many trailers in my extended family have huge pass throughs in the front. Combine that with some who don't load water tanks that often over wheels or near the rear and it can inadvertently weigh down the hitch more. But, man he was talking a lot. :)
 

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Overall, good stuff for people to be aware of and I congratulate the guy making the video of getting the word out. With that in mind, the video is about 80% longer than it needs to be and as Crash points out the guy is inaccurate with some things. I suspect he was just not thinking/speaking clearly in regards to assuming all the added weight goes to the tongue on that first video.

As for the comments about loading, I have to disagree a bit. I've had 6 different RVs over the years and have tinkered with loading extensively. I also have access to scales nearby and have done a lot of weighing before/after adjustments. IMO, loading front/back is one of the more overestimated weight changers out there. I routinely see people advise to load the back of a trailer to reduce tongue weight and it just doesn't make that big of a difference. The problem is everyone is assuming (hoping) for a pinpoint fulcrum like a teeter-totter but most RVs we're talking about have two axles. That GREATLY reduces the impact of moving your load around to reduce tongue weight. Sure, propane tanks and batteries placed directly on the tongue go 98% to tongue weight but moving some things from a front storage compartment halfway between the axles and the tongue to a storage area in the rear just doesn't amount to much. I'm not saying it doesn't change at all but just not nearly what people expect in most cases. I guess my point is that if a person is hoping to shuffle a few dishes around to rescue an overloaded truck, forget it.
 

2003F350

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Overall, good stuff for people to be aware of and I congratulate the guy making the video of getting the word out. With that in mind, the video is about 80% longer than it needs to be and as Crash points out the guy is inaccurate with some things. I suspect he was just not thinking/speaking clearly in regards to assuming all the added weight goes to the tongue on that first video.

As for the comments about loading, I have to disagree a bit. I've had 6 different RVs over the years and have tinkered with loading extensively. I also have access to scales nearby and have done a lot of weighing before/after adjustments. IMO, loading front/back is one of the more overestimated weight changers out there. I routinely see people advise to load the back of a trailer to reduce tongue weight and it just doesn't make that big of a difference. The problem is everyone is assuming (hoping) for a pinpoint fulcrum like a teeter-totter but most RVs we're talking about have two axles. That GREATLY reduces the impact of moving your load around to reduce tongue weight. Sure, propane tanks and batteries placed directly on the tongue go 98% to tongue weight but moving some things from a front storage compartment halfway between the axles and the tongue to a storage area in the rear just doesn't amount to much. I'm not saying it doesn't change at all but just not nearly what people expect in most cases. I guess my point is that if a person is hoping to shuffle a few dishes around to rescue an overloaded truck, forget it.

This right here is what a lot of people don't understand about RVs. Most of the weight in an RV is fixed weight - you can't move it around. Sure, you can put your clothes, dishes, food, and other paraphernalia in different spots and change the tongue weight some, but for most* RVs it won't be enough to alter the weight you're putting on the hitch. They're not flatbeds where you can control where the load is sitting, they're a house that has been laid out and built a particular way, unless you can move everything around inside you're not going to make a huge change.

* - this comment does NOT include toy haulers, where you can load up to several thousand pounds in the back. Toy haulers are the exception to the rule, since adding 2-3k in the back, behind the axles, is most definitely going to alter your hitch weight. How much, once again, depends on the layout of the trailer.
 

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This right here is what a lot of people don't understand about RVs. Most of the weight in an RV is fixed weight - you can't move it around. Sure, you can put your clothes, dishes, food, and other paraphernalia in different spots and change the tongue weight some, but for most* RVs it won't be enough to alter the weight you're putting on the hitch. They're not flatbeds where you can control where the load is sitting, they're a house that has been laid out and built a particular way, unless you can move everything around inside you're not going to make a huge change.

* - this comment does NOT include toy haulers, where you can load up to several thousand pounds in the back. Toy haulers are the exception to the rule, since adding 2-3k in the back, behind the axles, is most definitely going to alter your hitch weight. How much, once again, depends on the layout of the trailer.
Problem is with 5'ers most of your storage is the very front compartment and that usually the only outside storage there is. So if you hve 1k to 1
5k of stuff up there a large % of that weight is very close to the pin. I think thats why people say load the back inside if you can. Its not moving around the stock camper stuff its what you put in the front hold thats brings you from 1800lbs to a 2400lb pin weight.
 

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We have a TT style toy hauler. Momentum 31G. This style toy haulers are notoriously hard to get set up correctly. We bought the Weigh Safe True Tow hitch on recommendation from a friend with the same trailer. It has a gauge to show the actual tongue weight and an app that you input some measurements ie: center of ball to center of trailer axles and to center of rear axle on the truck and the orientation of the draw bar and height position. Once you have that saved, you input the actual tongue weight and the app tells you the proper amount of distributed weight. Hitch has a large thru bolt on the front mount of the weight distribution bars. Just turn the bolt until the gauge reads what the app says. I've pulled the trailer in several different configurations with and without the Honda Talon in the garage. App has been spot on so far. Pretty cool idea.


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engineering

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We have a TT style toy hauler. Momentum 31G. This style toy haulers are notoriously hard to get set up correctly. We bought the Weigh Safe True Tow hitch on recommendation from a friend with the same trailer. It has a gauge to show the actual tongue weight and an app that you input some measurements ie: center of ball to center of trailer axles and to center of rear axle on the truck and the orientation of the draw bar and height position. Once you have that saved, you input the actual tongue weight and the app tells you the proper amount of distributed weight. Hitch has a large thru bolt on the front mount of the weight distribution bars. Just turn the bolt until the gauge reads what the app says. I've pulled the trailer in several different configurations with and without the Honda Talon in the garage. App has been spot on so far. Pretty cool idea.


Looks expensive......but I guess it is a lot less expensive than fishtailing yourself into a crash.
 

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Problem is with 5'ers most of your storage is the very front compartment and that usually the only outside storage there is. So if you hve 1k to 1
5k of stuff up there a large % of that weight is very close to the pin. I think thats why people say load the back inside if you can. Its not moving around the stock camper stuff its what you put in the front hold thats brings you from 1800lbs to a 2400lb pin weight.

If you're getting 5k worth of stuff in that front pass thru...you're hauling stuff that isn't camping equipment.

Even with everything I've carried in my campers over the years, total weight in my pass thru never exceeded 1k. And that was with it stuffed full.
 

Ribtipram

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My 5'er has a dry pin wei
If you're getting 5k worth of stuff in that front pass thru...you're hauling stuff that isn't camping equipment.

Even with everything I've carried in my campers over the years, total weight in my pass thru never exceeded 1k. And that was with it stuffed full.[/QU
not sure where the 5
If you're getting 5k worth of stuff in that front pass thru...you're hauling stuff that isn't camping equipment.

Even with everything I've carried in my campers over the years, total weight in my pass thru never exceeded 1k. And that was with it stuffed full.
My 5'er with 1k in the hold has a pin weight of almost 3000lbs on the truck bed. Point being that if you could get 500lbs of stuff somewhere else behind the axels that 500 would come mostly off the pin weight because its something you added to the front. Not sure where the 5000lbs came from lol.i guess where im going is by loading the back you will not lighten your pin weight. But by throwing as much crap in the back that you can you will not be adding to it.
 
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tron67j

tron67j

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Years ago a guy I knew cracked me up. He was towing way too much with a S-10 pickup and it was sagging, which made him mad. So he kept moving weight behind his trailer wheels. He took a tool box from his truck, walked in the trailer, and he must have hit the sweet spot because him and the box were enough to lift the rear wheels of the truck just to the point they didn't really touch. Just got a chuckle thinking back to that.
 

2003F350

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Years ago a guy I knew cracked me up. He was towing way too much with a S-10 pickup and it was sagging, which made him mad. So he kept moving weight behind his trailer wheels. He took a tool box from his truck, walked in the trailer, and he must have hit the sweet spot because him and the box were enough to lift the rear wheels of the truck just to the point they didn't really touch. Just got a chuckle thinking back to that.

Again, it's different with a flatbed. With a flatbed you can adjust what percentage of the weight goes on the tongue (and if the object is heavy enough you can make that a negative percentage).

With an RV it's just not really possible, given how much fixed weight you have in the trailer. It's not an apples to apples comparison, it's not even apples to oranges. It's more like apples to boulders.
 

2003F350

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My 5'er has a dry pin wei
not sure where the 5

My 5'er with 1k in the hold has a pin weight of almost 3000lbs on the truck bed. Point being that if you could get 500lbs of stuff somewhere else behind the axels that 500 would come mostly off the pin weight because its something you added to the front. Not sure where the 5000lbs came from lol.i guess where im going is by loading the back you will not lighten your pin weight. But by throwing as much crap in the back that you can you will not be adding to it.

For your average RV, you're absolutely right, loading the back heavy doesn't really help you, because you've got a LOT of fixed weight that you just can't move.

When it comes to a toyhauler, though, with a big garage behind the rear axles, it IS possible to actually reduce your pin weight slightly. I once had a 42' Cyclone toyhauler, and pulled it with an '04 F350 Dually. Hitched up empty, it squatted my truck a good 1.5". Adding our stuff for camping in regular storage locations probably squatted it another half inch. BUT, putting our 3 quads, or a 1500 lb golf cart (had a fiberglass body kit on it) actually UNSQUATTED my truck a good half to 3/4 of an inch from being loaded for regular camping. It depended on what we took with us on our trips.
 

Ribtipram

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For your average RV, you're absolutely right, loading the back heavy doesn't really help you, because you've got a LOT of fixed weight that you just can't move.

When it comes to a toyhauler, though, with a big garage behind the rear axles, it IS possible to actually reduce your pin weight slightly. I once had a 42' Cyclone toyhauler, and pulled it with an '04 F350 Dually. Hitched up empty, it squatted my truck a good 1.5". Adding our stuff for camping in regular storage locations probably squatted it another half inch. BUT, putting our 3 quads, or a 1500 lb golf cart (had a fiberglass body kit on it) actually UNSQUATTED my truck a good half to 3/4 of an inch from being loaded for regular camping. It depended on what we took with us on our trips.
Man we been really thinking about a toy hauler
 
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