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Old 03-28-2017, 06:46 PM   #1
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Hello and questions

Hi all! We are a middle aged couple with a one year old son, looking to buy our first trailer (tow vehicle is a Nissan Xterra - 5,000 pound limit). We like Jayco and Starcraft for the warranty, plus the off road options. The popular smallish bunkhouse layout seems like it would be easy to "cribify" for the little one. I grew up camping in canvas pop ups, so hybrids feel more like Camping to me, but living in the Pacific Northwest I'm concerned they might be too problematical and they would not dry out. I just found the Ar-One Maxx 19bhle and the Travel Star exp 186rd and really like the features, but I'm worried they may be too heavy (especially if we had to carry water). Any advice and personal experiences anyone feels like sharing would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks for reading!
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Old 03-28-2017, 06:50 PM   #2
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Hi all! We are a middle aged couple with a one year old son, looking to buy our first trailer (tow vehicle is a Nissan Xterra - 5,000 pound limit). We like Jayco and Starcraft for the warranty, plus the off road options. The popular smallish bunkhouse layout seems like it would be easy to "cribify" for the little one. I grew up camping in canvas pop ups, so hybrids feel more like Camping to me, but living in the Pacific Northwest I'm concerned they might be too problematical and they would not dry out. I just found the Ar-One Maxx 19bhle and the Travel Star exp 186rd and really like the features, but I'm worried they may be too heavy (especially if we had to carry water). Any advice and personal experiences anyone feels like sharing would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks for reading!
First off welcome!

Second, forget the 5,000 towing limit. It means nothing.

You want to look for what the max weight that your receiver hitch can support. This might be in the manual. Also look around the driver's door for data label. You need to find what your cargo capacity is.

Post that info and we will gladly help out with the weight numbers to see what your truck can safely pull.

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Old 03-28-2017, 08:04 PM   #3
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( Nissan Xterra - 5,000 pound limit). Any advice and personal experiences anyone feels like sharing would be greatly appreciated
Hey Rockhound - I had a 2007 Xterra 4x4 with factory tow that I used to pull a Littler Guy Teardrop for 5 years (1200lbs). We wanted to upgrade our trailer ,but keep the Xterra, we loved our Xterra (I'm sure you can relate), so we bought a R-Pod 176 what had a dry weight of 2500lbs. When I drove it home from the dealer I thought "WOW... that thing is heavy back there", I could really feel it. We camp a lot in the Blue Ridge Mountains as well as drive up to New York through the Allegheny Mnts. The Xterra was NOT enough TV to pull the R-Pod; we could not even use the AC going up steep hills. One time going through the Smokies it over heated and I had to pull over to let it cool down. We ended up getting an 8cyl SUV (then upgrading to a Jay Feather 24T because we now had the power to pull it, I still miss my Xterra... oh well)
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Old 03-28-2017, 08:06 PM   #4
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Don't rule out the pop up! We used one for years in the PNW. If you have to put it away wet, just pop it up on the next dry day. I never had any mildew issues. The canvas has come along way. They are easy to tow, great for small families and far better than sleeping on the ground.
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Old 03-28-2017, 09:19 PM   #5
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Quick tip... DO NOT BELIEVE ALL YOU READ... especially in forums when dealing with spec info..... example...here, and on the internet,I've seen many "different" towing capacities for my Silverado, each for a slightly different model, engine size as well as bed and type of cab are all different towing capacities. My same spec truck, but with the smaller gasoline engine can tow more than my diesel.
Look at this link it's for a 2010, but the info as to the whys and hows will be similar, check for your year.
https://www.nissanusa.com/pdf/techpu...owingGuide.pdf

This forum has many great ideas and suggestions from people with little experience who have come up with good ideas to people with more years than we'd want to count experience. Some things you can use, some you need to know exact limits of your unit... example solar prep, "on the side" is totally different than the other solar "ready" units, taking advise from a person running 30 amp service for wire sizes and you have a 50 amp service might get you in trouble.
So use the suggestions here, do your own research for your specific equipment. I've been browsing this forum a few times a week and there is a lot of great help and ideas available here.

All this becomes easier once you know the basics and how to set your vehicles up... and of course ask in these forums.

Also remember to add people weight, quick numbers 150/100/30 (you/wife/kid) You're looking 300+ lbs, then like you said, add water about 8.6 lbs per gallon. Is fuel counted in your vehicle's empty weight? is not your looking 21 gal at 6 lbs per gallon = 126 lbs.
Also you need to look at cargo weight and trailer tongue weight, supplies to car might use up cargo/tongue weight. Supplies to trailer add to trailer weight, are the propane tanks (full) and battery weight factored in? and you have to look at combined vehicle weight (both vehicles empty plus everything you put in for your vehicle (sticker usually in door)
Also check the specs for your exact model of vehicle. They vary with type of bumper, type of hitch, engine size, 4x4 or not, towing package or not. Same for trailer, options can start adding pounds. If your trailer has holding tanks for black and gray water, they add weight if they have stuff in them.

Guess in all, do some good research, suggestions and opinions here too can point you in the right directions.
You might get lucky, I had a Durango with a 5.7 Hemi and towing package for my Jayflight 28RLS, I wasn't comfortable with it towing, I had no problems taking it thru the Smokey Mountains with the Hemi, just not comfortable. My wife told me to go out and get the truck I wanted ( I love my wife)... Really???? So I'm in a 2500HD Silverado crewcab Diesel 4x4 with a towing package... She said get the truck I wanted....At least I didn't get the High Country Model.
OK Long enough, good luck in your decisions. And remember, that average life of a RV trailer is about 7 years before you trade it in on a newer one (sooner if you need more beds for more kids), maybe you can get a new tow vehicle out of it.
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Old 03-28-2017, 10:08 PM   #6
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Further stuff looking into it.
Looks like the 2 trailers are similar in weight, less than 300 lbs difference (pending cargo and water), water can make a few hundred pound difference, but that's if you're carrying a full load, you might be able to carry a little water for emergency bathroom/food, then fill when you get to the RV site/area. Our first trip (3 weeks) we ran with no water (over 750lbs lighter) next trips with Silverado I ran water full because we dry camped (no electric/water hook ups).
Will your Xterra need a transmission cooler? Does it have a towing package or need one?
Hitch type, will you need weight equalizing and anti sway features. On hitch types with antisway, some you have to unhook one part to back up the trailer up /tight turns, so you have to get out and unhook part of it others you can just back up.
You mentioned Pacific Northwest...Cold weather package/prep? how cold will you be camping in, do you have to worry about lines freezing during camping? either trailer have that?
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Old 03-28-2017, 10:11 PM   #7
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Thanks for all the advice! Our Xterra is a 2013 4x4, and we don't have a hitch yet, so if you all can advise on what brand gives the best tow, I'd appreciate it!
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Old 03-28-2017, 10:19 PM   #8
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For a good light-weight weight distribution hitch check out the Andersen No-Sway:

Weight Distribution Hitch | Andersen Hitches

Only weighs 60lbs total and for small to medium sized trailers is very effective. It's easy to hook up, quiet and no need to unhook anything in order to back up. I've put about 10,000 miles on mine over the last two seasons and it's performed very well, both from a ease of towing and anti-sway perspective.
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Old 03-28-2017, 11:18 PM   #9
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Welcome to the forum Rockhound

We need to know your payload number before we can give any real advise on what you can tow with your Xterra and that will also dictate to a large degree what kind of hitch you should look at. I'm guessing though that you are still in popup range with that tow vehicle, maybe some of the lighter hybrids, I'm not totally up to speed on their weights.

I think you got a lot of good advise already above so I won't regurgitate what has already been said. Other than to reiterate - your payload rating is Not your tow rating, and your payload rating is critical, so you guys need to find out what that is for your tow vehicle and it's going to be a lot less than 5000 lbs.

If it wasn't pointed out above (I may have missed it) the payload rating is usually found on a sticker inside the drivers side door jam. I'll attach a picture of what the sticker looks like on my truck, and you should find one that look similar on yours.

What you are looking for is wording that states something similar to the following

"The combined weight of occupants and cargo should never exceed" - followed by a number

(in my case it is 1806 lbs) - This is for a truck that has a tow rating of over 11,000 pounds. The payload number is often a bit depressing and causes a lot of us to upgrade our vehicles, but before you get ahead of yourself, please find out what that number is and report back...I know someone at least as knowledgeable as me on this stuff will help you hone in on your viable options. Ask us, not a dealer. They routinely tell people they can tow anything on the lot because it isn't their problem.
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Old 03-28-2017, 11:45 PM   #10
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On my vehicle, that sticker says that it should not exceed 882 pounds. What does that mean? Does that mean we can only tow a pop up? Sigh... Sorry, this stuff is a bit confusing to me.
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Old 03-29-2017, 12:02 AM   #11
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Don't rule out the pop up! We used one for years in the PNW. If you have to put it away wet, just pop it up on the next dry day. I never had any mildew issues. The canvas has come along way. They are easy to tow, great for small families and far better than sleeping on the ground.
What if we don't get a whole dry day for weeks? It's been two-three weeks since we've had a whole dry day here. We've had days where we get a dry hour off and on, which we thought might be enough to wipe down the tent ends of a hybrid, but not enough to dry out a whole pop up...
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Old 03-29-2017, 12:19 AM   #12
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On my vehicle, that sticker says that it should not exceed 882 pounds. What does that mean? Does that mean we can only tow a pop up? Sigh... Sorry, this stuff is a bit confusing to me.
No worries, it was confusing to all of us at one point.

Ok... so now that you have your payload rating, you know exactly how much weight your Xterra is 'allowed' to carry, per the factory.

The single, most important thing you need to factor in now, is how much of that 'available payload' you have available to you are you actually going to be using. So, it's really pretty simple in theory - you have to start subtracting weights from it.

Things to subtract first.

How much do you, your other occupants in the vehicle and your gear weigh that are IN the Xterra? That weight comes off of your available payload. So lets say that you weigh 120 pounds, your camping buddy weighs 180 pounds, you want to take a Dog and another 50 pounds of 'stuff' with you in the 'truck'.

You are starting with 882 pounds, so you subtract the weights above and end up with 552 pounds of remaining - available payload capacity before you exceed your Xterra's rating.

If 552 pounds sounds reasonably accurate for your remaining payload after factoring in your family based on my assumptions above (I'm not sure if I accounted for the Dog! lol... anyway) - you now know how much weight you can add to your truck/SUV in additon. Don't forget a decent weight distributing hitch can add another 50 pounds or so (for the smaller ones... so let's just say you have 500 lbs left over that you can put in your Xterra. That's where the tongue weight of your camper comes in.

Let's assume that you pick a camper that has a DRY tongue weight of 300 pounds. This means bone dry - no water in the tanks, no gear in the camper - empty - you can put a camper that weighs roughly 500 lbs (at the tongue) on your truck's hitch. But nobody camps with an empty camper so you're going to want to know what your weight is at the tongue of your camper when your ready to go camping.

The general rule of thumb is that 10 to 13 (roughly) percent of your ENTIRE campers weight is resting on the hitch of your truck. This assumes that you have loaded the camper properly, and you haven't over loaded it with gear and beer One of the numbers you should look at when shopping for campers is the GVWR of the camper. This tells you how heavy your camper will be, if you ever were to fully load it... well more accurately, it tells you how heavy your camper is 'allowed' to be. I'm going to suggest that you pack light

So let's say you are looking at a camper that has a GVWR of 6000 pounds. Which is a terrible idea anyway because that's over the Tow rating you gave us in your first post... but just to go through the exercise.. it helps explain why the tow rating is basically useless as others have pointed out)

12% of 6000 pounds is 720 pounds. You cant tow that. *shouldn't*
You would be adding an additional 720 pounds of weight to your Xterra, and something is probably going to break. Remember, you only had 500 pounds in reserve...

Some will say that going a few hundred pounds over weight is not a showstopper for them. I would have to leave this decision up to you ( I wouldn't do it personally)

Step down to a camper with a GVWR of 3500 lbs and the math starts looking better. 12% of 3500 lbs = 420 pounds.

Based on ALL of the assumptions I made above, you could tow a fully loaded camper that weights 3500 pounds with your Xterra and you would still have an extra 80 pound buffer. How close you get to your payload rating is ultimately up to you. Exceeding it is not recommended by default, although some of us do from time to time. The goal though is to buy a camper that will allow you to tow, with your camper reasonably loaded, without having a total white knuckle experience.

I wasn't planning on writing a post this long, but I hope that helps clarify a few things.

Bottom line, long story short, you can and should crunch these numbers yourself, but I would be looking at camper with a GVWR at or below 3500 lbs as a ball park, and pack your Xterra and camper accordingly.

Some will advise that you hit the CAT scales and confirm what all of your weights really are, and you should - but that's not realistic when you don't own the camper yet so there's some 'fuzzy' math involved to get you close.
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Old 03-29-2017, 12:41 AM   #13
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Yes, this helps a Lot. Thank you So Much for taking the time to explain it all out; very kind of you. I have some adding to do - and even leaving the dog at home, I will have to look at smaller campers. Well, more motivation to start that diet this weekend!
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Old 03-29-2017, 06:18 AM   #14
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To clarify a couple points for you.

The tongue weight (TW) should fall in the 10-15% of the camper's loaded weight. 10% is the bare minimum. As you get below that you will run into stability issues. Most of us recommend something in the 12-15%. This gives additional safety room because loads change. For instance lets say you play the balancing act and load out your camper at 10% TW by throwing cargo in the back to compensate for a full or nearly full fresh water tank which is normally located just forward of the camper's axles. You filled the fresh water tank because you were camping in a remote area. Now your grey and black tanks which are behind the axles are nearly full and the fresh water tank is empty. You just shifted a lot of weight off the tongue and you will be way below 10% TW. By building in a buffer you don't have to worry about this as much.

As mentioned we can only do fuzzy math right now but we can be realistic. Personally I like using the GVWR on the camper to calculate TW. You can't use unloaded weight from the website because that is without options like extra screws that they dropped and bounced into some dark corner never to be found again or a TV. You could use the yellow sticker on the camper that shows the weight of the camper when it left the factory but then you are putting every pillow, blanket and package of hotdogs on a scale before it goes into the camper. That isn't realistic. If we use GVWR for doing our estimates. Well that is the heaviest the camper can be with all options, food, water, and everything else you want to bring. Sure some people say that they only camp at places with full hookups so they won't ever fill the fresh water tank and push the limits of their truck. Then cousin Billybob is getting married, there isn't a hotel for 100 miles so they get the idea of taking the camper and dry camping so they fill that fresh water tank without a thought and are way over weight. Granted you can physically put more than that in a camper but that is a story for the CAT Scales. You don't want to exceed the GVWR for the camper. So I use that for calculations.

Someone mentioned the two campers were pretty close in weight so I only looked at the first one which had a GVWR of 4400. So again worst case of 15% TW. 4400 * .15 = 660lbs TW. On top of this you need to add the weight of the weight distributing (WD) hitch. It really depends on the model but lets just say 80lbs. By the time you add the hitch, ball, bars, chains and attachment points on the camper it will be ball park close.

So what does this mean. I would plan for 740lbs of TW. This is why in my first post yesterday I said that the towing weight of 5000 means nothing that we should start with your cargo capacity on your truck. The 740lbs is applied as cargo to the truck because all that weight is pushing down on the suspension of the truck. Here is where you need to bust out your truck manual again. You said you had a not to exceed 882lbs. I am sure by now you are thinking there is no way to pull this camper and I agree but lets run this out so you can do the calculations as you shop around. What you need to look up in the owner's manual is how they come up with the cargo capacity. Normally it is the weight of the truck when it left the factory with an allowance for a driver and fuel compared to the GVWR of the truck. That part was left out in the earlier post. You may not need to account for the driver or at least all of a driver. The problem is they may only allow an estimate of a driver that weighs 150lbs. I know at 6'4" I don't weigh 150lbs. Heck back when I was on Active Duty in the Infantry running 5 miles a day and had around 4% body fat I was over 200lbs. They also may only account for a half tank of fuel. Also you need to calculate any dealer installed options and aftermarket options. Things like running boards, full size spare (if it didn't come from the factory) bigger wheels, as well as passengers and cargo all count against that 882 cargo limit. Also plan for your child to grow. I would pretend the 1 year old weighs 80lbs. Because you will probably have the camper for several years and he is growing fast. Another tip is to take advantage of the GVWR of a camper. By putting as much cargo in there as possible it helps. This is because only a percentage of the weight counts against cargo on the truck. So your wife may not be happy putting the diaper bag in the camper but if you are stopping to change a diaper anyhow might as well get the bag from the camper rather than from the truck. By all means carry snacks and maybe a movie or some entertainment for your son but try and limit it as much as possible.

So use that stuff you added up take it off of the cargo weight and see what you have left over for safe TW for a camper. As others have said, you are probably limited to a pop up. Lets pretend you would be good with 400lbs TW. I just picked a 12' Jayco 12UD popup and it has a GVWR of 2600. 2600 * .15 = 390lbs TW. So that would probably work in a realistic calculation at least with fuzzy math when I really don't know how they calculated the cargo capacity or what you have for weight on the passenger/cargo/accessories side. That gives you an idea of what you can look at.

The other thing I said to check was what the max weight rating was on your hitch receiver. Some times based on how they are attached to the frame it is limited. This is probably more of an issue with the bigger 1/2ton trucks since you are running into cargo limits. For instance based on cargo limits I am good up to a little over 7000 GVWR on a camper but my hitch, even with a Class IV WD hitch is limited to 1000lbs TW. There is no upgrade to fix this. So I was capped at a 6750 GVWR camper for my calculations.

I saw you asked a question on the popups that hasn't been addressed. I will start by saying I have never owned one but I have used a lot of tents. Do you have a garage big enough to pop it up to dry it out if it is going to rain for a while? If not lets say you had to put it away wet and it is going to rain for the next 5 days at home. I would set it up when you get home even though it is raining and leave it set up until it stops and dries. The problem is leaving it closed up wet not that it got wet. It isn't as bad if it is wet and set up. If it was then they would say you can't use them in the rain. If you have severe weather move through I would close it up but then open back up once it passes. It may rain for 5 days straight but it isn't normally thunderstorms for 5 days straight. If it is going to be raining that long it is normally lighter rain. While it sucks to have to open and close it all the time, just imagine how quick you will be at setting up camp when you are using it.

Hope this helps.
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Old 03-29-2017, 06:33 AM   #15
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We went through a similar discussion as we chose our Maxx. In the end, IMO it is too BIG (But... Happy wife=Happy Life)! We picked it out with 1 year old twins and the goal of getting outdoors with them. If I had could do it again I would have stuck with the original plan of one of these similar models with off-road packages:

https://www.jayco.com/products/trave...ght-slx/174bh/
https://starcraftrv.com/products/tra...ications/18bhs


Factors we wanted:

No Pop up - Easy stops anytime we want. Rests/leg stretches for the kiddos. Warmth/Cool on demand. So many stops we made last year just for diaper changes, food breaks and sanity for everyone. Easy to pull anything we needed from the camper.

Solid ends - While I love the idea of a hybrid, the wife always felt like she was going to be a gift wrapped treat for a bear in the pop-up when we had it. Might dry off easier if part of it is inside when closed and you run a humidifier on it. Hybrid can increase interior space quickly, but at the cost of environmental factors.

Sleeping for the rugrats - Two pack-n-plays would not fit in the campers in the size we were looking for, so I wanted to temp modify a bunk into a crib. A smaller model could fit one pack-n-play between the seats at the dinner table. It would be easier to baby-proof if you go this route.

Scrub em off - She wanted to be able to clean up the dirtballs at the end of the day. This made things handier, being able to clean them up.

Easy to tow - save gas, not too much to manage. I am a big believer that you get a camper too big and you won't take it anywhere. We made it out for close to 35 nights which ended up being cheaper than any hotel cost across the year.

Easy to store - they charge you by the foot at RV storage places. Not only that, pulling into gas stations and parking lots was not to hard.

At the time we had a Jeep Grand Cherokee and a 2010 Xterra Off-Road. I have used the Xterra around town a few times but have not done a longer hauls with it. Frankly, while possible, mountain passes here in the west would not be a good time with it. The models listed above are skinnier (lighter smaller) but still met our requirements. We use the upper bunk for storage and it keeps everything off the floor from our heathens. With the humidity up there a outdoor tarp or canopy for your trips would extend you outside in the rain, but you can store it below the bed or in the back of the X for the ride home.
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Old 03-29-2017, 06:39 AM   #16
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Oh you also asked about a hitch.

I would start by finding a camper that will work for you first. If you ask here what hitch to get, 10 people will reply with 5 different hitches all being the best.

Bottom line is lets figure out the camper first because a hitch has to be sized to the TW of the camper. Then we can look at hitch options. If you buy a hitch that is too big you can actually damage the camper. For instance having a popup camper with 400lbs of tongue weight but a WD hitch with spring bars rated for and designed for 1000lbs of tongue weight because you got a good deal on Craig's List. Well there is so much spring pressure there you can bend the A Frame on the camper as things can't flex properly going over bumps and such.
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Old 03-29-2017, 10:32 AM   #17
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What if we don't get a whole dry day for weeks? It's been two-three weeks since we've had a whole dry day here. We've had days where we get a dry hour off and on, which we thought might be enough to wipe down the tent ends of a hybrid, but not enough to dry out a whole pop up...
This winter has been unusual. Once or twice I had to push my popup into the garage and partially popped it up (a couple of feet) then pulled the canvas out of the sides to dry. Also, we tended to camp mostly in the summer months when weeks of rain was not likely.
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Old 03-29-2017, 11:31 AM   #18
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I've always liked this spreadsheet - if you are honest w/ your weights it'll calculate a lot out for you and give you a pretty good idea. Much better then spitballing, not as good as a CAT Scale (though you can refine the data you enter in this spreadsheet by going to a CAT Scale).

http://rvitch.com/files/TowingCapacityWorksheet.xls
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Old 03-29-2017, 11:46 PM   #19
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Pretending son weighs 80 pounds, him plus me plus hubby equals 490. I'm going to search the Xterra manual now and see what I can find on weight.

I'd like to be able to camp pretty much year-round, even in the rain. All these months of rain make me coocoo, and I think it's better to get out than just stay indoors all the time (which we end up doing unless we're camping or wandering around RV lots ��).
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Old 03-29-2017, 11:52 PM   #20
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Whoa! I was just re reading my last post, thinking, shoot, are we that fat? (We're all short.) No, I miscalculated: it is really 375.
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