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But let’s say your specific vehicle is equipped with some
of the latest options and you have a front seat passenger
and two rear seat passengers with some luggage and
gear in the vehicle as well. You may add 300 lbs (136 kg)
to the front axle weight and 400 lbs (181 kg) to the rear
axle weight. Your vehicle now weighs:
Weight is still below 7,200 lbs (3 266 kg) and you
may think that you should subtract 700 additional
pounds (318 kg) from your trailering capacity to stay
within GCWR limits. Your maximum trailer would
only be 7,800 lbs (3 538 kg). You may go further
and think you must limit tongue weight to less than
1,000 lbs (454 kg) to avoid exceeding GVWR.
But, you must still consider the effect on the rear axle.
Because your rear axle now weighs 3,100 lbs (1 406 kg),
you can only put 900 lbs (408 kg) on the rear axle
without exceeding RGAWR. The effect of tongue weight
is about 1.5 times the actual weight. Dividing the
900 lbs (408 kg) by 1.5 leaves you with being able
to handle only 600 lbs (272 kg) of tongue weight.
Since tongue weight is usually at least 10 percent of
total loaded trailer weight, you can expect that the
largest trailer your vehicle can properly handle is
6,000 lbs (2 721 kg).
It is important that you make sure your vehicle does
not exceed any of its ratings — GCWR, GVWR,
RGAWR, Maximum Trailer Rating or Tongue Weight.
The only way to be sure you are not exceeding any
of these ratings is to weigh your vehicle and trailer.
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