ShutterBugBev

Bev - you sent me a message yesterday, but somehow I read the "looking for a TV" item below and thought that's what you sent me. I see now it's 6 months old. Sorry.

Part 9 (and REALLY last!)
From reading your posts, I'm assuming you're basically camping alone, and thus you probably don't have a monster TT (certainly not over 8,000 lbs), so I'm thinking the Toyota would be just fine.

Don B.

Part 8 (and last)
You can find the GVWR value on a yellow sticker usually on the left front of the TT. (I haven't figured my payload numbers, but there's just the wife an me and maybe 100 lbs in the truck bed, so I'm not worried that I'm pushing it.) That being said, we're looking at something larger, but I want to stay under 6000 lbs (that would leave me a 20% margin on towing capacity). I don't think I'd want to cut it any closer than that. In your case, with a 10,000 lb towing capacity, 33% margin would put you at a 6,660 lb TT while a 20% margin would put you at an 8,000 lb TT.

Part 7
One comment: There are a lot folks on the forum who tend to over load their tow vehicles and don't seem to mind much. Given your recent concern with propane, I would say you're not in that company. Therefore, you will probably want to make sure you've got a pretty good margin between your towing and payload capacities and what you actually tow and load in the truck. With respect to towing capacity, my Roo 19's gross weight (GVWR) is about 4700 lbs (call it 5000 lbs) and my Silverado's good for 7500 lbs towing capacity, so I've got about 33% margin - actually more margin, as I don't have the TT loaded up to 4700 lbs.

Part 6
On the other hand, if you do a lot of around town driving without a TT and don't really do a lot of towing, you probably want a lower ratio so your overall mileage will be better. My 3.73 seems to be a happy medium between the two.

If you read all the forum questions relating to towing, you should start picking up the knowledge.

Part 5
The higher the number, the better you can get off the line from a traffic light, BUT, it means the engine will be running at a higher rpm for any given road speed. This means your fuel mileage will be worse. If you do a lot of towing, you'd probably want a higher axle ratio (for all those traffic light starts you'll do) and you probably won't care too much about your mileage, because it's already suffering simply because you're pulling a TT.

Part 4
You should also see what the rear axle ratio is. This isn't quite as important, especially if you don't have a lot of choice in the matter. They come in various sizes like 3.42, 3.73, 4.10, etc. This is the ratio of the number of times the engine revolves to the number of times the wheels revolve (e.g., for a 3.73, the engine will revolve 3.73 times for each time the wheels revolve once).

Part 3
Remember that the payload and towing capacities assume the only thing in the truck is a 150 lb driver. So any passengers, animals, baggage, generators, solar panels, fire wood, weight distributing hitch, etc that you put in the truck subtracts from the 900 lb that you have left in payload after subtracting the 600 lb trailer tongue weight.

Part 2
However, in addition to towing capacity, you need to know what the trucks payload capacity is. This is how much weight you can put ON/IN the truck. You can usually get this from a sticker on the drivers door frame. Your TT will put 10-20% of it's weight on your truck (i.e., "tongue weight"). Exactly how much, you can only tell by weighing it. But let's say it's 10% for an easy example. So if your truck's payload is 1500 lbs and your TT weighs 6000 lbs, then figure 600 lbs of tongue weight will be loaded onto the truck. Subtracting this 600 lbs from the 1500 lb payload capacity will leave you 900 lbs for carrying anything else you put in the truck.

Bev:

Apparently I can't send over 1000 characters, and I wrote you a book, so I'm sending you 4-5 messages!

Part 1
I can't say I'm an expert on tow vehicles, I basically have my own experience towing a popup with 4 different minivans for 20 years, my disappointing towing experience with my Roo 19 and 2011 Traverse, my much improved experience with my Roo 19 and my 2009 Silverado, and what I've learned on the forum.

I don't know what you're pulling, other than a "2011 Rockwood TT," so I can't give you any specific comments.