2011 Chevy Tahoe

[Kidkaden]

looking for a good travel trailer to pull with a 2011 Chevy Tahoe 8200 pounds, was looking at a 2013 sunset reserved 31 SS, but decided that it is too heavy at 69oo dry, looking for something to pair with the 2011 Tahoe would like two doors kitchen outside and a bunkhouse room, please let me know if anyone out there is towing with a 2011 Chevy Tahoe or something similar, or if you have any input on pulling the Sunset Trail 31 SS, thanks

 

[asquared]

I think that Sunset trail is going to be too heavy for your Tahoe. Where you need to start is your true towing capacity and not my Tahoe is rated at 8200 lbs. Sadly you will never be able to tow a TT anywhere close to max towing capacity due to the easy tongue weight required by TT and the large frontal surface area (think like you are towing a giant sil behind you.).

to figure out what you can really tow, load your tahoeup with a full tank of fuel, all occupants, pets, and cargo you intend to have in it when towing, take it to the local truck scales http://www.catscale.com
and weigh it. Put the front axle on the 1st scale, rear axle on the 2nd scale pad and then it will give you each axle weight plus a total vehicle weight. Now take that total vehicle weight and subtract it from your gvwr to get your available payload. Subtract the total scaled weight from the gcwr and get your adjusted towing capacity. The adjusted towing capacity is the max trailer weight you can tow. The available payload is what you have left for tongue weight and anything else you plan to put in the truck (ie firewood, bikes etc).

on average people add between 1000 and 1500 lbs to their trailer, some more, some less. We are a family of 3 and add approx 1500 lbs to our TT. You don't know how much you will add so you are safest figuring things out using TT gvwr. You want the TT gvwr less than your max adjusted towing capacity. You also need to keep the trailer tongue weight less than your available payload. The tongue weight should be 13-15% of the loaded trailer weight. You can use the TT gvwr to calculate tongue weight for now. Find a TT in all of these ratings and get a good quality wdh like equal-i-zer or Reese dual cam and you should be ok.