Can You Weigh Before You Buy?

Here's another one of those "campfire topics" that come up among RVers. How much does your rig weigh? For those of us with fifth wheels, it seems like we can find plenty of places to put "stuff," and if you're a fulltimer, it doesn't take long to stuff, and stuff, and stuff--to the point our rigs look like overloaded thanksgiving turkeys.

Is your rig weight safe for your tow rig? Imagine the chagrin of the fellow whose story was related on an RV forum. After living in a motorhome for some years, he decided he wanted to swap over to a little fifth wheel. OK, little, meaning a 38' fifth wheel. He figured he had a plenty big tow vehicle--a one ton pickup with a 18,000 pound rated fifth wheel hitch. Having made his transaction with the dealer, transferred his possessions from the motorhome to the fifth wheel, then showed up to pull his new fiver home--and the dealer refused to let him tow it off the lot. Seems the dry weight of the new fiver was 17,000 pounds, and worried about liability issues, the dealer saw to it the trailer was towed to the buyer's home.

Every truck manufacturer sets a towing weight limit for their trucks. Go over the limit, what can happen? Truck systems, meaning engine, braking, and frame all figure into the picture. Too much weight puts too much stress on those systems. Get in an accident with an "overload" condition and you may well find out your insurance company isn't standing behind you.

Here's a tip from the Recreation Vehicle Safety Education Foundation: Weigh it before you buy it. Yes, new rigs are supposed to be equipped with a sticker that shows the weight of the rig and information on the total allowable rig weight, sadly that sticker can be "off" considerably when options are added. Ask the dealer to have the rig towed to a public scale and weighed in. THEN take into account how much "stuff" you're thinking about adding. The foundation also provides a few statistics on some things we all have to carry:

Water scales in at 8.3 pounds per gallon. Gasoline 5.6 pounds. Diesel 6.8. Propane 4.2.

How much stuff will you "stuff" in your rig? The foundation says their experience says the average RVer adds about 2,000 pounds of personal baggage. For us fulltimers, we'll typically tip the scales at 3,000 pounds. After moving "stuff" out of our fifth wheel into our new trailer, we'd have to say hard as it is to believe, that 3,000 pound estimate is probably pretty close.

Keep it to the limit. Keep it safe.

photo (in part) mandj98 on flickr.com