I have a 2010 1500 Laramie auto 4by4, 20 inch tires 3.92 axle with the tow package and would like to buy a trailer.Ran the truck over the scale with full tank of gas along with the wife. I have added a bed mat and nerf bars and the weight came in at 6300 lbs. I am only 500 lbs under gvwr . Even some 6400 lb trailers we looked at have a tongue wt of 610 lbs which puts me over. Even taking my two adult sons with their hockey gear puts me close to being over. Am I missing something or is this big truck really a wimp? The bragging of towing up 9900 lbs is severely limited by the weak point of the low gvwr.

 

I eill move this to the 4th gen Ram section. omeone there can answer your question. Welcome to DF!

 

wikipedia says gvwr is gross vehicle weight including passengers and cargo excluding any trailers

 

GVWR (Gross Vehicle Weight Rating) avg 2011 GVWR is 5300lbs, how are you 1000 lbs over this with just you and the Mrs.? Do you have heavy monster tires your forgetting about?

GCWR (Gross combined weight rating) truck + trailer max combined weight.
Tongue weight should be 10-15 % of the trailer max, so that trailer sounds fine that way.

Find out where the extra weight is coming from.

 

I wouldn't trust Wikipedia if my life depended on it....

You have to add the tongue weight to that value, that is weight being put on the truck we can't just throw that out. Otherwise we would have half-tons pulling around lifts and bobcats...

One thing you have to consider OP is that most holiday trailers don't run at their max gvwr. That is the maximum that the trailer will and can ever be. This would be with ALL tanks loaded, and cargo of that trailer just loaded till the trailer can't do anymore. Usually they leave on average around 2000lbs on top of the trailer shipped weight that you can go. I am sorry but its pretty hard to put 2klbs in a trailer, even considering if the tanks are full.

So just that in itself will help your case, I used to like to consider if everything were at a maximum rating, but I have just learned that it would be very hard to run 28+ft holiday trailers out of a half ton. Now I have more gone to a total rating, which is your 9900lbs. If you weigh both the truck and trailer and your over, then you got some thinking to do....

Just remember to use an equalizer hitch, again remembering that the hitch does not take away weight to the truck. It just redistributes it for steering purposes!

 

Amen to that, good post. Another thing you have to watch, is the loading up of the truck bed with other gear such as firewood, generator, etc. Pack as much as you can in the trailer instead of the bed. That way, the 300 lbs of bed cargo count only as 30-35 lbs as tongue weight.

 

http://www.dodge.com/towing/D/vehicle_to_weight.jsp

 

A little more research seems to suggest my 1500 Laramie has a curb wt of 5535 lbs. That is for standard equipment,any options add wt and therefore takes away from available payload. Also curb wt is for a driver weighing 150 lbs so in my case take away 80 lbs available payload. We subtracted my wife's wt,I won't mention,a bed liner and nerf bars. We would still seem to be missing 500 to 600 lbs. Have a call in to dodge engineers to explain this,but bottom line is we won't be towing a trailer with our truck. Caution to other ram 1500 owners to weigh your tow vehicle loaded to see how close you are to gvwr , then find your trailer tongue wt before you buy.

 

Yes, the new 1500s are cars with big bodies. Check the sticker inside the door -- mine says max. cargo is 1250 lbs. Add a family of 4 w/ some luggage, and you're down to 600 lbs, which is a 6000 lbs trailer w/ 10% tongue weight. Any weight you add in options takes away from payload.

Mind you, I think these numbers are conservative. Adding air bags helps, but if you need to tow/haul heavy, a 2500 is a must.

 

I've towed 7,000-9,000 trailers a few times with my 1500 without any issues. Even pulling a trailer from Florida to Colorado last year it did great. 5,500 trailer with me, my wife, the backseat full and the bed with another 600-700lbs in it.