Travel trailer GVWR question?

[Mudfrog]

Was just looking at a trailer that's supposed to be good for offroad travels. Looked good until I got to its specifications.

Dry weight:is 5354 lbs. Its GVWR is 6147. Leaves a teensy bit less than 800 lbs left for cargo.

It has 2 fresh water tanks with capacities adding up to 42 gallons. The gray water tank holds 21 gallons which adds up to around 60 gallons if all the tanks are full, a total weight of 498 lbs.

It carries two 20 lb propane tanks. Both full would add around 70 lbs.

It also has racks to hold 5 gallon jerry cans, that if utilized, would add around 85 lbs (cans and water).

On top of that, it has a front toolbox. Adding a few tools to it would definitely add some weight to the whole rig.

Total for everything before adding regular supplies like clothing, food, water hose, tools, and incidentals is 653 lbs. What's left,, a measly 147 lbs.

Am I missing something, or is this cutting it way too close to overloading the trailer? The trailer's tongue weight is listed at 441 lbs but I wouldn't think that would make any difference in the above calculations. Maybe I'm wrong with that assumption?

[Old-Biscuit]

tongue weight increases as you use up the cargo carrying capacity
tongue weight also is part of the GVWR
Axle weight + tongue weight=GVW

Trailer might be set up for off roading provided one is looking for place to sleep inside out of the elements

[CecilD]

I guess they don't want you to eat or bring any beer! Real camping because you have to leave your tooth brush at home.

I see you didn't add in the weight of a battery. Good news - the gray water will most likely come from the fresh water tank so you will pick up 160 pounds there. You may want to expand your search.

[JMitchell]

My totally uneducated guess... Vendors are looking to show people they can tow a unit (sub 1/2 ton) while also buying the cheapest axles frames and shackles (Thus lowest GVWR) to drive pure sales.

If possible redline these brands and stay more to the 'Real RV' vendors.

[Mudfrog]

Originally Posted by CecilD

I guess they don't want you to eat or bring any beer! Real camping because you have to leave your tooth brush at home.

I see you didn't add in the weight of a battery. Good news - the gray water will most likely come from the fresh water tank so you will pick up 160 pounds there. You may want to expand your search.

It comes standard with 300 watts of solar and two 100ah lithium batteries. Doesn't specify but I was kinda thinking the manufacturer may have included the weight of these in the dry weight number.

[Toby Dog]

If the gray and black tanks are empty and the fresh is 42 gallons no matter how you split it you still only have 42 gallons. How big is the black tank?

[Marine359]

As noted by CecilID,
There’s no net weight gain of liquids if you start out with empty waste tanks. While boondocking, liquids management is an issue for us, as our TT only has 900# cargo capacity. That’s never a problem, as we scale in at 300# under GVWR with 2/3 full fresh. Not a problem until we start adding water when we go fill our two 7gal reliance jugs, which we travel with empty. After transferring jug water to fresh water tank, our net liquid weight increases over 100#. If we transfer three times, we’re over GVWR due to fluid weight in waste tanks. The solution is to empty waste tanks. We don’t empty black tank while boondocking. We can get back under GVWR by just dumping our 27gal gray tank either onto the ground where allowed or into our tote which can be towed or driven in the truck bed to a dump site. That rids us of 217#. All this is saying, if you’re looking at that trailer because it is ruggedized for off-road use, I wouldn’t eliminate it because of a meager CCC. You’re not likely to add more than 400 lbs of gear into a small trailer. So you should be fine off-roading as long as you manage fluids.

[Mudfrog]

Originally Posted by Toby Dog

If the gray and black tanks are empty and the fresh is 42 gallons no matter how you split it you still only have 42 gallons. How big is the black tank?

This is true for most cases and does help keep the numbers I quoted above down. Taking this into account, there will be around a 175 lbs more capacity before reaching the trailer's gvwr. A little over 300 lbs which is better, but not great. Adding food, clothing, and supplies is still going to cut it too close. It has a cassette type toilet so there is no built in black tank.

[Cumminsfan]

Tongue weight is subtracted from the loaded weight. So you have 588 lbs left for whatever.

[Mudfrog]

Originally Posted by Cumminsfan

Tongue weight is subtracted from the loaded weight. So you have 588 lbs left for whatever.

This can be confusing. My thinking is that the dry weight is measured with the trailer sitting by itself. I would think the GVWR would be measured the same. The weight is distributed though the axle and tongue whether it's hooked to a tow vehicle or not. On that note, might a weight distributing hitch make a difference?

By the way, the GAWR is not listed.

[Cumminsfan]

Originally Posted by Mudfrog

This can be confusing. My thinking is that the dry weight is measured with the trailer sitting by itself. I would think the GVWR would be measured the same. The weight is distributed though the axle and tongue whether it's hooked to a tow vehicle or not. On that note, might a weight distributing hitch make a difference?

By the way, the GAWR is not listed.

If you drive to a weight scale and pull your TT on it with just the axles on the scale you'll get X amount of pounds showing for just the axles.

If you take your TT to the same scale and leave the TT on the scale without being hitched then you'll get your total loaded weight.

A WDH will make some difference. But in your case probably not much.

TW is always subtracted from the loaded weight.

[Fpmtngal]

One thing I noticed recently is a manufacturer who listed a dry weight and GVWR. It didn’t have a great deal of cargo capacity because it was a pretty light-weight trailer. I got looking at the options to see what the trailer might be likely to have as a shipping weight and discovered that air conditioning and another “option” (don’t remember what it was, but I think it was something fairly heavy also) were listed under options but had a note saying they were mandatory. Did they do it that way so it would appear that their trailers had more cargo capacity than they actually have? I have no idea and I wasn’t interested in them to research further.

[TXiceman]

I would sure be worried about taking a lightweight rig off road at all. How heavy are the axles, spring, shackles and spring hangers. From what I have seen with the light weight trailer and the Lippert frame and components, I would not take one off road. Shoot, they are having frame and suspension problem on the highways.

Ken

[Mudfrog]

Originally Posted by Cumminsfan

If you drive to a weight scale and pull your TT on it with just the axles on the scale you'll get X amount of pounds showing for just the axles.

If you take your TT to the same scale and leave the TT on the scale without being hitched then you'll get your total loaded weight.

A WDH will make some difference. But in your case probably not much.

TW is always subtracted from the loaded weight.

Yes, I know you're only getting the weight of the axle when it's the only thing sitting on the scales.

The tow vehicle carries the weight of the tongue when hooked up. If unhooked, then the tongue jack carries almost the same weight (depends on how far back the tongue jack is from the hitch). So wouldn't the total weight of the trailer be the same whether it's sitting by itself or coupled to a tow vehicle.

I agree about trying to take it off road. It's made to "look" off road worthy with aggressive tires and diamond plate looking sidewalls but I doubt it would be up to tackling anything more than a dirt road.