Weight watching
The photo above is the Federal Certification Tag from my fiver. Every US manufactured RV has one, usually located on the driver’s side, near the front of the vehicle. The tag includes some useful data: Date of Manufacture, Tire specs, Axle ratings and the Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR, highlighted). So how do you know if your trailer isn’t over its GVWR? Here’s an excerpt from my book The Fifth Wheel Bible. — Jerry Brown
If you are fortunate enough to attend an RV rally where the Recreation Vehicle Safety Education Foundation is offering free wheel-by-wheel weighing, try to take advantage of the opportunity. Some RV dealers also offer weight-by-wheel services. This is the definitive way to check your weights and the only way to check the balance of your trailer by axle and side-to-side. Add up the weight on each wheel to validate your axle weights as well as gross vehicle and combined weights.
Lacking wheel-by-wheel weights, you can still check your combined, vehicle and axle weights if you can locate an idle highway weight station, or maybe a friendly one that’s not too busy. You’ll need to weigh your tow vehicle separately, including a full load of fuel and the normal complement of passengers. Then with your trailer in tow, weigh your truck again, first all four wheels, then pull forward and record the rear axle weight only. Next, drive forward so the trailer wheels are on the scale and record the weight. Now do some arithmetic.
- Truck Gross Vehicle Weight = Truck weight (hitched)
- Truck Gross Axle Weight = Truck rear axle (hitched)
- Truck Gross Combined Weight = Truck weight (hitched) plus Trailer weight
- Pin Weight = Truck weight (hitched) minus Truck weight unhitched
- Trailer Gross Vehicle Weight = Trailer weight plus Pin weight
- Approximate Trailer Gross Axle Weight for two axle trailer = Trailer weight divided by 2. Divide by 3 for three axles.
Learn about Jerry Brown's new book "The Fifth Wheel Bible" at RVbookstore.com
posted by jerryriverguy at
9:49 AM
5 Comments:
Own motorhome and checking out 5th wh. Most we have seen do not have adequate axle to support loaded wt with just a few items. Most do not cover unloaded wt, but say the tongue wt makes the difference. Had a 5th wheel 10 years ago and that was not a problem. Any suggestions of who has good axle wt.
JM
By
Anonymous, at 1:43 PM
I have no specific suggestions but yoy might want to post that question over at the Fifth Wheel section of the RVTravel forum
By
jerryriverguy, at 5:14 PM
Check out NuWa. They don't skimp on quality or capacity.
By
Anonymous, at 8:40 AM
I have a dodge 2500 with a cummins turbo diesel 24 valve. GVWR for truck is 8800 lbs. The towing capacity if 10,300 pounds with the 350 rear end and automatic tranny. I am towing a Keystone Laredo 29gs with 10,900 pounds GVWR. Yesterday I was weighed with the following results. This includes both driver and passenger and full tank of diesel.
Steer axle 3,720 lbs
Drive axle 4,660 lbs
Trailer axle 7,760 lbs
Gross weight 16,140 lbs
Is this safe to tow?
By
coach, at 10:50 AM
Coach,
First, you didn't provide the unhitched truck weight, so there's no way to figure the pin weight. Also, you state a "towing capacity of 10,300 pounds" but I have no idea where this comes from. I also have a Dodge 2500 & have not seen any such capacity listed for my truck. My truck has a GCWR of 20,000 lbs. I'll make a guess that your pin weight is no more than 2,500 lbs (that's probably high), which should put you in pretty good shape for all of your ratings.
By
jerryriverguy, at 9:12 AM
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