Weight check

Hey everyone!  First I just wanted to say thanks to many of you on this forum who have provided information that was crucial for me to help figure out what I could tow with the vehicle I have.  I settled on a Jayco Hummingbird 17RK pulled with my 2011 Ford Flex SE (non-EcoBoost FWD).  FWIW, the ford pulls the trailer (loaded) with no problem, at least on flat roads (I haven't made it up to the mountains yet).  I recently took my rig to the land fill and weighed it and I wanted to double check my numbers against the prevailing wisdom of this forums many knowledgeable members! 

Here are the numbers from the scale:

GCW:  8760
TV GVW:  4760

This is the kind of place where there is just a scale you can drive on with no one to really help you out.  When I weighed the entire rig, I stopped before I pulled the trailer on and got this weight:  5280. 

Now for the weight ratings:

TV:
GVWR:  5970
GAWRfrt:  2890
GAWRr:  3130
GCWR:  9357
CCC:  1160

TT:
GVWR:  3750
GAWR:  ???? <- I'm not sure where to find this
CCC:  705

The receiver.  I have a Draw Tite hitch that is rated for 4000 lbs with 400 lbs tongue weight rating. 
I am running a weight distribution hitch.

So the math I did was very simple and looked like this. 

GCW - TV GVW = GVW of the TT
-or-
8760 - 4760 = 4000 lbs

By these calculations I appear to be 250 lbs overloaded on the trailer.

For total weight, I took GCWR - GCW (9357 - 8760) and still have 597 lbs left (not that I'd like to push that). 

I also used the weight I got when just the TV was on the scale (but with the TT hooked up) which was 5280 and subtracted the GVW of the TV and ended up with 530 lbs tongue weight which seems to be overloading the receiver by 130 pounds.  However, I realized after the fact that I had about 120 lbs of gear behind the rear axle of the TV so I'm hoping that moving that weight forward will resolve most if not all of that tongue weight problem.  If that is the case, that only leaves the 250 lbs of gear in the trailer I need to worry about.

Some more information. The TT was weighed with all tanks empty and I intend to travel that way.  The TV had about a half a tank of gas when weighed both times.  Before I weighed the rig I had come back from an outing and had traveled about 75 miles and the TV had no problems pulling the weight or stopping it FWIW.  I full time in this rig as of about a month ago and consider it fully loaded.  I don't intend on making any big (read: heavy) purchases to stow onboard especially in light of my weight findings (assuming my calculations are correct).

So might I trouble you all with your thoughts on the 250 lbs overage and if moving the gear forward of the rear axle in the TV will resolve the tongue weight issue as well as a sanity check on my math and method.  Those, right now, are my main concerns. 

Thank you all in advance for your input.  It is greatly appreciated!

You don't have enough weights to know everything, but it does appear the trailer is overloaded. One thing confuses me, though. You say the tow vehicle scaled weight is 4760, but you also say you stopped before pulling the trailer onto the scale and read 5280. Where does the 4760 come from? Did yu unhotch the trailer and weigh the Flex alone?

If the TV weight you got is that the TV weight with the trailer hitched, it includes the trailer tongue weight. Likewise, the trailer weight you calculated is without tongue weight, cause the TV is carrying it. That means the actual trailer weight is way over the 3650 GVWR, even more than what you calculated.  The tongue weight is probably around 400 lbs, so the trailer actually weighs around 4400 and is several hundred lbs over.  That seems really unlikely unless you loaded it with lots of bricks, so I'm wondering if if your scaled numbers are accurate.

Thank you for your post Gary!  As for the 4760 weight, yes, I went back down to the land fill after parking my trailer at "home".  I am with you on the weight of the trailer.  I was surprised that I was over and after hearing you state that I miscalculated the tongue weight in the numbers I'm even more surprised at that number.  I really didn't load the trailer with anything other than the absolute essentials.  About the heaviest thing I have on board are my tool bags that weigh in at about 65lbs.  More tools than I need but I really didn't want get rid of those and I need some tools on the road.  I guess I really need to find a scale that can weigh each contact point independently to get a better gauge of where I'm at weight wise.  What woudl you recommend?  I know there's a Cat scale about 30 minutes from me and I recently found this service about an hour from my location:

https://www.escapees.com/knowledge/smartweigh/program-info

You mentioned that I didn't have enough numbers to calculate the weight, can you let me know what I'm missing?

Thanks again for your help Gary!

As I am reading this, you have the total rig wt, (GCWR,) the wt of the TV  with and without the TT, and that should be all you need.

Your GCW is well within specs, as you noted 8760 vs 9357.
Your loaded TV with TT attached is within specs  5280 vs 5970.
Your TT is overweight, as noted  8760 - 4760 = 4000 vs 3750
Your tongue wt is 5280 - 4760 = 520.  This is a bit over the hitch rating, but well within the capabilities of the TV and certainly a reasonable 13% of GVW.

You need to remove a little weight from the TT, as you said.  If the weight is removed from the FRONT of the TT and / or weight moved to the BACK of the TT, your Tongue wt will fall in place.  Weight removed from in front of the axle or added behind the axle will both reduce tongue wt.

You are very smart to get this weighed.  While none of these weights are crisis levels, they need adjusted.  You are already way ahead of many campers who have no clue about proper weights, then wonder why things go wrong.

You mentioned that I didn't have enough numbers to calculate the weight, can you let me know what I'm missing?

Click to expand...

I was referring to the lack of truck weights with and without the trailer attached. I know understand that you DO have that, so there is enough information.

The 520 lb tongue weight is consistent with the trailer gross weight, about 13%. That's fine for towability but apparently over the hitch rating. Is 500 lbs the max hitch capacity using Weight Distributing hitch? Or is that the 'weight carrying" limit?

Those of us here who regularly advise on such things (often called the "weight police")  harp that owners ALWAYS under-estimate the weight they load into their RV. Statistics from the RV Safety Foundation, who conduct weigh-ins at many RV rallys each year, bear that out. Records consistently show that more than 50% of RVs are overweight on at least one axle.

Thanks guys!  I'm hoping that maybe I didn't have my holding tanks as empty as I thought I did because it really doesn't seem like I have that much on board.  Besides being overweight, my other biggest concern is the capacity of the receiver.  Basically this is what I bought:

http://www.etrailer.com/Trailer-Hitch/Ford/Flex/2011/75679.html?vehicleid=2011307221

It's rated for a 400 lbs tongue weight which I am very much over it would appear.  I don't want the thing getting ripped right off my TV as I'm going down the road. 

I plan on going out to the Escapees RV park where they weigh each wheel and can tell me more.  I'll make sure I flush holding tanks real well before I go there because I know that can add weight quickly.  At least I'm still under the GCWR.  I can always load up the TV with totes full of stuff from the TT when I'm on the road. 

Again, I thank you both for your valuable input.  Once I get it weighed, I'll update this thread for informational purposes in case it can help someone else.

Cheers!