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Originally Posted by rubberduckie
Picked up the new camper. It’s a 2014 Dutchman 282 RBS. The unloaded weight is 6,727 lbs.
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Dry weight is almost useless. Add the cargo weight capacity to get approximately the GVWR, and use that as your wet and loaded trailer weight. Then use 15% of your wet and loaded trailer weight to determine your approximate hitch (tongue) weight.
The Dutchman 282RBS has shipping weight of 6,727 and a cargo carrying capacity of 2,953 for a total of 9,690 gross trailer weight. Wet and loaded tongue weight could be as much as 1,450 pounds.
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I am towing with a 2013 Ford F-150 Super Crew with the Eco Boost. ... 3.31 Ratio Regular Axle... 7200# GVWR Package
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GCWR 15,100, tow rating 9,200 (when tow vehicle weighs 5,900). But your wet and loaded F-150 4x4 SuperCrew is going to weigh a lot more than 5,900, so your tow rating is going to be a lot less than 9,200. So even with nothing in the truck but a skinny driver, you'll exceed the GCWR of the truck by quite a bit. (Tow rating = GCWR minus truck weight).The GCWR indicates whether you can tow a gross weight up a normal interstate hill or mountain pass without overheating anything in the drivetrain, and whether you'll be the slowpoke blocking traffic when climbing a mountain pass.
But exceeding the GCWR is not your main problem. Your GVWR is only 7,200, which means a tongue weight of over about 700 or 800 pounds will overload your suspension and brakes. If you try to load the trailer to 9,690 pounds, you're going to kill your truck
My F-150 EcoBoost has about the same available payload as yours. And I'm overloaded with my TT when it weighs 4,780 pounds including 560 pounds of hitch weight. So I'm guessing you'll be
SEVERELY overloaded over the GVWR of your truck when you tie onto that wet and loaded TT with your wet and loaded truck.
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The first is can I use my cruse control?
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I use cruise control almost all the time when traffic allows. For steep grades, pay attention to the tach and don't allow much over 5,000 RPM before you kill the cruise. When in hills or mountains, be sure tow/haul mode is turned on.
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Second concern is going through the mountains Virginia and West Virginia. Not sure if I have enough truck.
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You don't. Pay close attention to the temp gauges. If you have the digital tranny temp gauge in the display, choose the screen that includes that gauge. It's much easier to read than the analogue tranny temp gauge on the dash. I use the digital gauge and
never allow more than 225° tranny temp. I've never seen over 220° in my EcoBoost, but then my TT grosses less than 5,000 pounds. If it gets up to 225°, then find a good place to park it for a bit, keep the engine running and the tranny in neutral or park, elevate the engine idle RPM to 1,200 or so, and sit there twiddling your thumbs until the tranny temp falls back to less than 220°. Heat is the tranny killer, and you don't want to cook your tranny.
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Any advice or recommendations would be appreciated.
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I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but you don't have enough truck for your trailer. You need to trade for either more truck or less trailer. As someone above mentioned, you need an F-250 to tow that trailer without having to worry about being overloaded.