On my page, “What Can I Tow?“, I introduce 2 methods for figuring out how much you can tow with your truck/SUV and stay within its ratings (and arguably, safer and with less liability risk). I have created online calculators for each of these methods:
- Weighing the Truck and Crunching the Numbers – by weighing your truck as it’s ready for camping, you’re able to then take the maximum vehicle weight and subtract the actual weight of the truck. This gives you what is available/leftover for pin (in case of fifth wheels) or tongue weight (in case of travel trailer/bumper pulls).
- Starting with the Cargo Carrying Capacity (aka Payload) and Working Backwards – by taking the maximum weight of cargo and occupants from the Tire Load Capacity sticker, you are able to work backwards to determine what is remaining for pin (in case of fifth wheels) or tongue weight (in case of travel trailer/bumper pulls).
Here is a towing calculator that I built that works well – http://herboldracing.com/towing
Try it out!