Do you weigh your truck and trailer separately and combined before every single trip?
Asking for a friend.
Unless you are constantly changing what you are carrying in your RV, there is no need to weigh before each and every tow.
Once you know the max weight of your trailer loaded (ie.- water tanks full and all of the stuff you will ever take with you), you'll know where you stand.
When I had my previous Heartland Trail Runner TT, I was towing it with a 1/2-ton truck and the TT was barely within the tow ratings.
Which is what many of the so-called 1/2-ton towable 5'vers are when empty...not loaded.
All it took for me was that one time when I had that white knuckle almost didn't stop...and that was the last time my old Dodge ever towed that trailer.
The next time that Trail Runner hit the road was behind my brand new (and current) 3/4-ton Chevy...and I immediately realized the difference between towing right on the edge (and taking our lives in my own hands) and towing with a vehicle that was properly equipped to handle the load.
And when I upgraded to my current Heartland Prowler 5'ver a few months later, I chose that trailer not by being 10 pounds under the tow rating, but more like 3000 pounds under the tow rating (and this is when it is loaded, not dry weight)!
I had originally found a Heartland Elkridge 5'ver and a Heartland Sundance 5'ver, both with the exact same floor plan as my Prowler, but the dry weight of the Elkridge was over the tow rating of my truck and the Sundance was right on the max tow rating.
And this is where it seems that most people will talk themselves into believing that they will be ok with an under-sized tow vehicle!
What most don't get is the fact that the tow rating of a vehicle doesn't mean that this vehicle is rated to handle an RV as long as it weighs one pound or less below that number, not to mention that their tow vehicle will run out of payload long before they reach that magic max tow weight rating!
The Prowler doesn't have all of that fancy ornate woodwork, no 6-point auto leveling system, it isn't insulated for living in the North Pole... and has only one AC instead of two or three like the others.
But it has a huge towing cushion on my truck that takes all of the intensity out of rolling down the highway.
Tell your friend not to make this mistake and don't listen to the RV salesperson when they say that their 1/2-ton will tow this or that.
Come here with the real numbers (ie.- number on the sticker inside the drivers door of the tow vehicle and NOT the dry weight of the trailer) and you will get the real truth about the tow ratings and what they can tow with it.
