If my truck is rated to tow up to 14,700#, would I be pushing it if I was close to about 13,500#? It’s around 10% less, it is that okay? I forget the recommendation.

You should be fine. Trailer brakes?

As long as you don't exceed the GCVW rating. (Gross COMBINED vehicle weight)

Those are some of the numbers that no matter how much I research it they don’t make sense. Is have some numbers on my inside door panel GAWR and GVWR though no GCVW. Wish I had the 3.55 diff instead of the 3.31 and I don’t have high capacity tow package just good neck set up from factory, thus I’m at 14,700 vs over 19,000 with the extras.

So, it's now Gross Combined Weight Rating GCWR

If you have a Ford: Link for GCWR

Check for your truck under RV or Trailer towing guide.

I’ve towed my gooseneck trailer with a load that put me just below my legal weight limit many times. You will be fine as long as the trailer has fully functional trailer brakes and your tow vehicle is in good condition. I suspect you will be working your rig harder than normal, so watch your temperatures and don’t push it too hard. Give yourself plenty of room to get stopped. My gooseneck trailer has great brakes, so stopping hasn’t been an issue for me. The big difference for me has been getting up to speed when getting on the freeway, give yourself plenty of time and space.

The trailer weight is one number. Another you need to be concerned about is the truck’s Gross Vehicle Weight Rating or GVWR. That’s the weight of the truck and everything else in it: fuel, passengers, the tools under the rear seat, the dog, etc. and the trailer’s pin weight.

Taking your 13,500lb trailer and assuming a pin weight of 20% gets you 2,700 pounds. An F250 that weighs 8,000 pounds and has a GVWR of 10,000 pounds would be a no go right off the bat. An F350 that weighs 8,000 pounds with a GVWR of 11,400 pounds would be OK, but you’d only have 700 pounds left for fuel, passengers, the dog, etc. This is where a dually shines with more tires and a stronger axle giving it a GVWR in the neighborhood of 14,000 pounds.

Even if you are below your GCWR, another thing to be aware of, and probably one of the most common, unrealized, issues is exceeding the GVWR when towing. The GVWR includes the weight of the vehicle plus cargo, passengers, etc. What is often overlooked is that the tongue weight on your hitch (conventional towing) or pin weight (gooseneck towing) counts toward your payload. A majority of the time, people will exceed their GVWR long before exceeding GCWR.

Good to know. I think I may be better off going with a lesser trailer after all, which was the direction I was heading initially.

That number has more to do with keeping your combined load under the CDL limit.
Many states will pull you over and they add up the GVWR on the tag of the truck and trailer, not the actual weight your carrying.
It's a big $$$ ticket and big money for those states.

manufacturer tow ratings are extensively tested and just fine. I would have no issues recommending (and do) run at the max the mfg. told me was OK. But as this thread outlines you have to meet all of the available parameters axles, truck and combined. And no you don't want the 3.55 towing 14K lb.

I have the 4.10:1 axle ratio for heavy load rating. Be careful.

quote:

Taking your 13,500lb trailer and assuming a pin weight of 20% gets you 2,700 pounds. An F250 that weighs 8,000 pounds and has a GVWR of 10,000 pounds would be a no go right off the bat.

Pin weight of 20%? Is that not extreme? For a ball hitch, with a heavy trailer 10% appears excessive. I often tow 8,000 lbs. and 800 on the ball is not needed. Truck and trailer handle well with 300 lbs. on the ball, and I often do curvy, steep mountain roads.

The normal standard for gooseneck towing is 10-15%. And in most goose necks I have used getting above 10% is really unusual. I have no idea the brand of truck involved but if its a ford I have quite a bit of experience. In ford the only way to have a 3.31 axle is to have the 6.7. you will be fine. And assuming you are in a ford 250 there are none of them that gvw 8000 pounds. The lowest number is just under 10K as ford offers that as an option because in many states over 10K is a different classification. If you have one of those you probably have 1900lb to play with in payload depending on specific model. You should look at your truck for the actual numbers. 10% on the gooseneck at max gvw of the trailer is 1470 so you have roughly 400lb for everything else. In any case this is a well understood set of numbers if you post the brand and truck config we can help, but you can also do this math yourself easily enough.

20% is the low end of 20%-25% recommended for 5th wheel and gooseneck trailers.

It’s recommended that tongue weight for conventional trailers be 10%-15%. Because the hitch point is behind the rear axle (I think over 3’ on my truck), a weight distributing hitch is required with heavier trailers to take weight off the rear axle and distribute that weight to the front axle and trailer axle/axles. Our travel trailer had a tongue weight of 1,500 pounds which would cause the rear of the truck to sag and front of the truck to lift. The rear axle acts as a pivot and the entire truck seesaws over that pivot. Some people suggest airbags to level the truck, but they don’t take weight off the rear axle. The right way is to use a weight distributing hitch. From experience, a properly setup WD hitch makes a huge difference in towing a heavy conventional trailer.

The hitch point for goosenecks and 5th wheels is directly over the rear axle. When you hitch the trailer up, only the rear sags. My 5th wheel has a pin weight of 2,800 pounds. On a 5th wheel, that weight is pretty much built in. I can do a little load balancing by loading everything in the toy hauler section in the back and not using the front storage compartment, but it doesn’t change much.

I verified all my weights on a CAT scale.

A gooseneck gives you much more flexibility, but 20%-25% pin weight is still the recommendation.

Edited to add:

Ford’s Super Duty towing guide says at least 10% tongue weight for conventional trailers and at least 15% pin weight for gooseneck/5th wheel trailers. I swear it was at least 20% when I bought my truck 10 years ago.

Here’s what GMC currently says:
For gooseneck and fifth wheel trailers, which are designed to handle larger loads, proper tongue weight is between 15 and 30 percent of the loaded trailer weight.

I have never seen anyone recommend 25%. I'm not saying that's not what you have because you measured it. But I also don't want to have a big argument about it but I jsut say I have never seen that as a recommendation. But its beyond silly for most trailer designs. But as you point out the issue is largely out of your control. I tow big horse trailers and the mfg. recommends 10-15% and it is impossible to get to that in real life as you simply cannot load the front of the trailer adequately due to design. My measured numbers are between 8-13% on actual loaded trailers with of course different weights of horses. I tow race trailers and the same applies for those, I have no way to move the load forward and I generally hover at 10% even with the toolboxes and nitrogen tanks fully forward. Ford (if that is the brand involved here) recommends 10-15%. If the OP wants to know he can hopefully get the mfg of the trailer to tell him. But i wouldn't go into this assuming 25% without validating it somehow as that would be a serious and probably unnecessary restriction.

Every 5th wheel we looked at had a kingpin weight of at least 20%.

Ford says for goosenecks and 5th wheels it should be at least 15% while GMC says between 15% and 30%.

I don’t know enough to argue with them or anyone else. I just try to keep my towing within the GVWR, axle rating, and tire ratings of the truck, the GVWR of the trailer and the GCWR of both.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
Every 5th wheel we looked at had a kingpin weight of at least 20%.

Ford says for goosenecks and 5th wheels it should be at least 15% while GMC says between 15% and 30%.

I don’t know enough to argue with them or anyone else. I just try to keep my towing within the GVWR, axle rating, and tire ratings of the truck, the GVWR of the trailer and the GCWR of both.

I’ve had a few LQ horse trailers. All have been 20% and above on pin weight. All different manufacturers (Featherlight, Lakota, Exiss). My current LQ trailer empty weight is around 9K. The pin weight a little over 1,800. I think these type trailers with Living quarters in the front may be an exception though. Loading the rear with 3 horses doesn’t affect pin weight much because the horse stalls are pretty much over the trailer axles.

I don't get that math. an empty horse trailer of 9K probably has a gvw of 12.5K or 14.5K. That's between 12 and 14%. nothing like 20%. I have 2 currently and have had 3 more LQ decent sized horse trailers, none of them have been anywhere near 20% in real life. And never anywhere near 25 or OMG 30%. One of my current featherlights struggles to get to 10% when the gypsy vanners are in it.
I agree with trapper189 that in the end its just keeping it all in the box where you stay inside what the allowable tolerances are...

Okay now I’m a bit confused again. My truck is a 2020 F250 crew cab 4x4 with 6.75’ bed and it is a 6.7L turbo diesel with the 3.31 and gooseneck factory installed. Does NOT have the high capacity tow package. Based on VIN lookup, charts review, and a call to Ford, it’s rated for 14,700#. My GVWR is 10,000#. GAWR front axel is 5990# and rear is 6340#. I’m not sure of the weight of the truck itself (maybe around 6500#???) and I’m not sure what pin weight means?

After some deliberating and crunching numbers, I have decided that I am going to go with the smaller of the two trailers I was thinking about. It’s not that much smaller as it’s only 2 feet less in length though 700 pounds lighter making it 9000# (dry weight). Loaded up with a couple horses and gear (water tanks, saddles, feed, bedding, tools, etc.,) I am looking now at being in the 12,500# to just under 12,800# max. That’s about 2000# off the max rating of 14,700#, but again I don’t know how much the pin weight is and what that means and I don’t know how the truck weight affects it all. I know that with my family and our gear in the truck itself we would be an extra 550-600# max.

I feel like it should work fine with this trailer as I’ve seen many 250’s towing similar sized rigs though I hate to even come close to over loading so that’s why I inquired on here.