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Garbage towing numbers

Cudapower

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I am going to scale mine tomorrow again. My door sticker says 7100 lbs and max payload of 1383 lbs. So according to that the truck is 5717. Mine is a Laramie, hemi, crew cab, 4x4, sure grip, trailer towing, 33 gal tank, bench seat, 18 inch tires, canvas box cover, air suspension. That is all, maybe 40 lbs of tools under the seat.
 
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5thGenLoco

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Took my limited on a trip this summer with me, the wife and 3 kids in the cab. Loaded the box up with luggage and few other things then rolled the cover down. We have a grain scale at our local elevator with display out front so you can see what your weigh is so I drove over it out of curiosity sake. I was 300 pounds over on weight according to the door jam sticker. What the heck would a guy do if he had a camper or a trailer with these trucks? I can't imagine having to buy a 3/4 ton just to pull a trailer on vacation. It really seems like they are under rated on weight for what a person could actually haul.
Something that finally came to me since I am looking at a TT is that the truck will have the fam, the trailer will carry 99% of the gear. That and removing any shell or tonneau cover before towing can add a significant amount of tongue capacity.
 

scampcat

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Is there a reason you don’t get a trailer? Even a small one? That offloads quite a bit of the capacity problem. You’re basically transferring GVWR to GCWR, which is notably higher. Otherwise, yeah…you have to trade weight for weight.
 
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Limited2021

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It's possible, I also think more of us (pickup truck owners in general) are becoming more and more aware of these specs and towing safely. When I was a kid nobody in my circle of family or friends knew what payload or GVWR was, really; you just stood back, eyeballed the ole back end and said "yup I'm good".

You know I think that you are right with saying that. I think more and more people are looking at the rating stickers. I have to be honest I would not have even cared to go over the scale to look had I not been reading information on here about it. I also would have never thought that what I was hauling for stuff in the truck would have made it overloaded either.
 

LaxDfns15

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You know I think that you are right with saying that. I think more and more people are looking at the rating stickers. I have to be honest I would not have even cared to go over the scale to look had I not been reading information on here about it. I also would have never thought that what I was hauling for stuff in the truck would have made it overloaded either.
It adds up quick. Especially if you add things like extra subs or some tools. A sub box can be over 50 pounds depending on size, so combined with subs and an amp you can be pushing 100 pounds off your payload just by making more noise. You also probably have 50+ pounds of just "stuff" you keep in the truck that you don't realize. I keep a shackle on my tow hitch, so I have an extra hitch and ball, then just extra things like portable compressor, minor tools, swapped the scissor jack for a bottle jack, etc.


A 6100 pound "empty" truck is highly unlikely. The fact that he hasn't responded since his first couple posts complaining makes me believe he had a lot of extra weight in the truck that he didn't account for.
 

Cudapower

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Thats not so - Ive just been tied up. My truck with a full tank of gas is 5940 empty weight. The heaviest thing under the seat is one hydraulic jack. I moved the spare trailer tire, the electrical cable and leveling wood to the back bumper on the trailer. I got the truck from being 200 lbs over weight to 200 under weight. But that's with nothing but people in the truck, so I sure cant pack much stuff. I am also not "complaining" I am just stating the fact that the numbers posted on the internet don't tell you but they are giving you the lowest base weight they can come up with to look good. I am trying to echo what is stated before, people need to pay attention to the door sticker and know those numbers before getting in the trailer business.
 
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HeavyRotation

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The crew cab is pretty heavy. The quad cab is noticeably quicker. Same with the Rebel, I thought I wanted one but it was a total dog compared to my quad cab Laramie. Big wheels and tires look cool but really drag on that little 5.7, the crew cabs need a 6.2 option. I tow a 4500lb trailer a lot and it handles that just fine. I need to weigh mine again, can't recall what it was last time on the scale.
 

LaxDfns15

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Thats not so - Ive just been tied up. My truck with a full tank of gas is 5940 empty weight. The heaviest thing under the seat is one hydraulic jack. I moved the spare trailer tire, the electrical cable and leveling wood to the back bumper on the trailer. I got the truck from being 200 lbs over weight to 200 under weight. But that's with nothing but people in the truck, so I sure cant pack much stuff. I am also not "complaining" I am just stating the fact that the numbers posted on the internet don't tell you but they are giving you the lowest base weight they can come up with to look good. I am trying to echo what is stated before, people need to pay attention to the door sticker and know those numbers before getting in the trailer business.
Just wait till you find out what they did with the EPA mileage estimates. Good thing you didn't get a Rebel.
 

devildodge

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We have been warning people about this since fall of 2018.

Still have people coming here reinventing the wheel only to finally say what has already been said over and over.

I have removed myself from most discussions. It is feeling pointless to help anymore.

Watching people go in and out of campgrounds these days...i try to travel on Thursday to and Monday home
 

blakei

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Is the RAM lookup tool working for anyone? I've tried to look up a couple of trucks on two different computers and it doesn't seem to do anything when I click FIND...
 

devildodge

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Is the RAM lookup tool working for anyone? I've tried to look up a couple of trucks on two different computers and it doesn't seem to do anything when I click FIND...
Sometimes you have to clear your cache or cookies. If you are copy and pasting...you may need to make sure the letters are letters etc.
 

5thGenLoco

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We have been warning people about this since fall of 2018.

Still have people coming here reinventing the wheel only to finally say what has already been said over and over.

I have removed myself from most discussions. It is feeling pointless to help anymore.

Watching people go in and out of campgrounds these days...i try to travel on Thursday to and Monday home
People either don't understand, or choose not to understand towing capacity. I was on another site looking at the Apex 208 and there was a guy towing one with a Honda Pilot. The Pilot has a tw capacity of 500, already under the listed dry weight tw of the 208 (516), which we all know is well under the real world tw. But it "towed fine" so he went with it. Some people are willing to roll the dice and hope for the best.
 

jdefoe0424

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People either don't understand, or choose not to understand towing capacity. I was on another site looking at the Apex 208 and there was a guy towing one with a Honda Pilot. The Pilot has a tw capacity of 500, already under the listed dry weight tw of the 208 (516), which we all know is well under the real world tw. But it "towed fine" so he went with it. Some people are willing to roll the dice and hope for the best.
I've seen/heard that using a WDH with a unibody vehicle can be sketchy too if it wasn't really designed for it...you can look up the shop in Canada that preps campers to be towed by Tesla's!

The manufacturers are partly to blame, they're putting the big tow numbers out there to get the sale. Then the issues start...
  • The dealerships know little or nothing about how to look up specifics on the vehicle their looking at or themselves don't understand how to explain the capacities to the customer
  • The dealerships don't care to explain the exact capacities to someone who may have expressed interest in towing a camper while purchasing the vehicle.
  • People don't care to understand payload and the connection with towing. Or how options and aftermarket parts affect their payload, or that the extra crap in their vehicle affects their payload.
  • There's also people who believe that trucks have always been underrated and can tow and haul more than what the manufacturer says...the biggest difference is before 2013 it was the manufacturer that published the specs based on however they wanted to rate them. SAE published the J2807 standard in late 2000's so that's what the manufacturers should be using to obtain the numbers they publish..but I don't pay enough attention to know if they all do or not.

We're men...we can't be wrong. So if someone says that we can't tow something...then we sure as hell will! But with my family in the truck, I'm after safety and being within the limits posted on my truck.

@devildodge understands what you're saying, I've seen him post so many times on towing related threads that he's got to be getting sick of it.
 

Redfour5

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Sometimes you have to clear your cache or cookies. If you are copy and pasting...you may need to make sure the letters are letters etc.
Just pure numbers letters into the search box, no hyphens etc. And 17 of them only. Same with the Build sheet search function. They are finicky. I even put appropriate case...just in case. Actually for someone looking to buy, I'd pull up both websites and as you look at individual vehicles from a shopping standpoint, you can plug the VIN's in and shop that way for highly specific information. I notice some dealers don't put Monroneys on their sites.. But sometimes you can go into the RAM website and it will show the vehicles at dealerships and the RAM site has the Monrony (window sticker). I'm one of those people who drill down when looking...
 

silver billet

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Just pure numbers letters into the search box, no hyphens etc. And 17 of them only. Same with the Build sheet search function. They are finicky. I

It makes me nervous when I see a website behave like this, if they can't get something so extremely basic like simple data formatting and validation right.....
 

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