I have a 2010 Dodge Laramie 4x4, 3.55 automatic. The best I can tell the GVWR is 6700 pounds. Looking at a 6300 pound Catalina travel trailer and thinking the ideal tongue weight would be about 800 pounds. With the truck weight being 5500 pounds this only leaves 400 pounds for cargo + two people so I'm wondering if this is cutting it too short.
For the trailer, from what I gather from dodge teh GCWR is 14,000 lbs, so if I keep the truck under 6700 then I'd have 7300 pounds to play with. What I don't understand is whether the 800 pounds of trailer weight counts against the GCWR since that's part of the trailer. It's all a little confusing. Anyway I'm thinking I'd grow the weight of the trailer with "stuff" up to 7500 pounds total.
Looking for thoughts on whether or not this is too heavy for my truck and what you think the pulling experience will be. Definitely will have a WDH and Equilizer anti-sway.
Thanks!

 

Good question, Seems like a lot of numbers....math sucks..LOL.. I think you will be just fine, maybe should consider some airlift 1000 to help with any sag you get.

 

With a WDH you are leveraging the tongue weight with a pair of bars mounted on the receiver shank. You need to select the correct weight bars for the tongue weight you’re carrying. This leveraging reduces the actual weight on the rear wheels of the tow vehicle and puts it onto the front wheels of the tow vehicle and the trailer wheels. I’ve seen video of WDH on FWD cars and they removed the rear tires from the tow vehicle and the rear of the car stayed up in a normal position to prove how this system works. And they drove it down the road!!

I have an 800 lb tongue weight from my 7,500 lb enclosed car trailer on my Durango and when I put the trailer on and hook up the bars it drops the rear of the vehicle about 3/4”, but it also drops the front of the vehicle because of the leveraging. If I had to guess I’d say there is less than 200 lbs of actual weight on the rear of the tow vehicle from the trailer.

If you are not familiar with properly setting up a WDH you can watch video of this on the internet…just Google it. Or have a trailer dealer show you how to set one up properly and explain how to make adjustments. It’s not that hard if you have some good guidance.

Towing weight that sits lower than the silhouette of the tow vehicle out of wind is very easy on the engine and gearing. Towing trailers that sit over the silhouette of the tow vehicle are like pushing a brick through the wind. Not very aero dynamic. Because of this you want the gearing tightened up to keep the transmission from “hunting” for the next lower gear in the tow/haul mode when you encounter very slight inclines.

IMHO the best tow and daily driver combination for the Hemi Ram is the 3.92 with the 17” tires. The 3.92 gears ups the tow capacity another 1,500 lbs and the 31.7” tall 17” tires tighten up the ratio slightly more from the 33” tall 20” tires.

And NO, the tongue weight (800 lbs) does not count against the payload weight because of the WDH. Only a fraction of it would be counted.