Quote:
Originally Posted by steve dunham
From a practical standpoint no one weighs their trailer everytime they add or subtract something to or from their trailer.
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True, but lots of people weigh occasionally and pack pretty consistently, so they know their trailer weight to a reasonable degree of accuracy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by steve dunham
I agree my method is arbitrary but it it is no less accurate than taking the average weight from some non scientific random survey.
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Accurate? The GVWR is definitely the GVWR, it's a reasonable guess at the upper limit for the majority of individual trailers which are assigned that GVWR, and has little other relationship to the actual weight of the trailer. I agree that it has some use as a planning value, in addition to being an operating limit.
The scale values from a small and biased survey of some actual trailers is a pretty accurate indication of the loaded weight of those trailers, and reasonable guess at the weight of other similar trailers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by steve dunham
For insurance purposes my insurance company uses the GVWR.
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As I was told by my insurance "We have no intention of weighing your trailer every time you leave town , we assume the GVWR is correct.
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By "correct", they mean that you will ensure that you do not load the trailer beyond that value, and if you do then you will take responsibility. This is all about liability, not actual weight.
Registered GVWR is similar: a vehicle may never get close to its registered GVWR or GCWR, or it may run up to that limit all of the time, but the value is a licensing limitation not an estimate of actual weight.
Quote:
Originally Posted by steve dunham
The theory that if I pack REALLY LIGHT I can get by with a nominal tow vehicle never appealed to me
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I don't think anyone is suggesting that - I certainly wasn't. The real-world weights asked for in this thread are not for "really light" trailers; they're for typical trailers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by steve dunham
I would be willing to bet that if you weighed most trailers, they would be considerably heavier than their owner's estimate.
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Of estimates not based on a scale measurement, absolutely. This shows up anecdotally in these forums routinely. I'm sure the request was for actual known weights, not wild guesses.
Quote:
Originally Posted by steve dunham
My trailer has a GVWR of 3500 lbs
The actual travel weight of my trailer is 3200 to 3400 lbs
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And that's typical for a 17-foot single-axle trailer. The Escape 19' has two of the same axles, with GAWR depending on year; Bigfoot would give it a 7500 pound GVWR... but it's nowhere near twice as heavy as a 17'. Some trailers are notorious for being heavier than they should be for their specs or their components, others are relatively light.... and the GVWR value by itself misses this entirely.
Quote:
Originally Posted by steve dunham
I plan for the worst and am seldom disappointed.
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Planning for the worst would mean planning for the 10,000 pounds or so which would burst the tires and let you know that the weight is that high, because there's nothing that stops your trailer from exceeding GVWR. Planning should be all about plausible estimates and reasonable margins, not "the worst". If you really plan for the worst, you should plan for your tow vehicle to be loaded to its maximum payload (perhaps including tongue weight), which in most cases substantially reduces the available trailer weight. If you carry a lot of stuff, that's a reasonable approach; for someone who travels without a half-ton of stuff in the tug, that's a worst case that doesn't need to be accommodated.