Jayco X213 tank location

[SilverEscape]

Does any one have pics or can describe to me where the fresh water tank is located in the X213? Ours is at the storage lot right now, plus we have the enclosed underbelly, so that hides its exact location.

I'm mainly wondering if they are behind the rear axle and will help with reducing or adding to tongue weight. We are finding this trailer is really tongue weight heavy and don't see how anyone could carry bikes like advertised. We want to take our bikes with us, but with full propane, battery, spare tire, nothing on the front bunks but bedding and some clothing in the wardrobe, some toiletries in the bathroom and some plastic bowls in the forward of the axle kitchen cupboards, the tongue weight is 690. And the overall trailer is only 4900#.

I can't pack anything else near the back as we have under the table full with our Weber Q and other items, and the sofa is full of all of our beach mats, and the cabinet above the king bed is full of clothing. There is no way else to get anything behind the rear axle.

Anyway, my hope is that the fresh water tank is behind the rear axle and I can add 300# of weight behind the axle and reduce tongue weight so we can carry bikes. I hope that Jayco was considering folks would be carrying water or something, else I am bamboozled at how they thought this heavy of a tongue was a good idea. Especially since their dry tongue weight is wrong, wrong and more wrong. I know a dry tongue weight doesn't consider a loaded trailer, but without anything on our tongue (both propane tanks removed, the spare tire removed and the power tongue jack removed) and an empty trailer, our tongue is still over 500#. Nowhere close to the 340# or whatever Jayco says on their web site.

[BCx213]

Under the dinette seat plywood near the counter...remove cushion and then 2 Philips screws

[BCx213]

Originally Posted by SilverEscape

Does any one have pics or can describe to me where the fresh water tank is located in the X213? Ours is at the storage lot right now, plus we have the enclosed underbelly, so that hides its exact location.

I'm mainly wondering if they are behind the rear axle and will help with reducing or adding to tongue weight. We are finding this trailer is really tongue weight heavy and don't see how anyone could carry bikes like advertised. We want to take our bikes with us, but with full propane, battery, spare tire, nothing on the front bunks but bedding and some clothing in the wardrobe, some toiletries in the bathroom and some plastic bowls in the forward of the axle kitchen cupboards, the tongue weight is 690. And the overall trailer is only 4900#.

I can't pack anything else near the back as we have under the table full with our Weber Q and other items, and the sofa is full of all of our beach mats, and the cabinet above the king bed is full of clothing. There is no way else to get anything behind the rear axle.

Anyway, my hope is that the fresh water tank is behind the rear axle and I can add 300# of weight behind the axle and reduce tongue weight so we can carry bikes. I hope that Jayco was considering folks would be carrying water or something, else I am bamboozled at how they thought this heavy of a tongue was a good idea. Especially since their dry tongue weight is wrong, wrong and more wrong. I know a dry tongue weight doesn't consider a loaded trailer, but without anything on our tongue (both propane tanks removed, the spare tire removed and the power tongue jack removed) and an empty trailer, our tongue is still over 500#. Nowhere close to the 340# or whatever Jayco says on their web site.

Why not flip the lower bunk up and carry your bikes there?

[BCx213]

What are you towing with?

[SilverEscape]

Originally Posted by BCx213

Under the dinette seat plywood near the counter...remove cushion and then 2 Philips screws

Thx. And that's right behind the rear axle so that's good. Water would also balance the left to right axle weight if we were heavy on that side due to food in fridge and pantry (not sure we are, haven't weighed left and ride side separately ever).

Originally Posted by BCx213

Why not flip the lower bunk up and carry your bikes there?

Yes, that's the plan. It's at the front of the trailer though so is going to increase the tongue weight that's already on the heavy side.

Originally Posted by BCx213

What are you towing with?

F-150 with Max tow package. The tongue isn't too heavy for the truck. The tongue is about 14% I think right now so don't want to be over 15%.

And we have considered carrying them in the truck bed with a rack. We will do that if the weights don't work out with them in the trailer. Carrying on rails above the bed would be okay too but all the solutions we've found to do that have been homemade or involve straps around the truck to scratch it up.

[A2B in a TLC]

How did your measure your tongue at 690? Trailer Life reported 560 fully loaded.

Ford SuperCab F-150 and Jay Feather Select X213

Just askin

Bruce

[BCx213]

Ahhhhh....I usually throw them in my truck..I have a cap on mine. I am considering installing Firestone rear air bags on my truck too.

[SilverEscape]

Originally Posted by A2B in a TLC

How did your measure your tongue at 690? Trailer Life reported 560 fully loaded.

Ford SuperCab F-150 and Jay Feather Select X213

Just askin

Bruce

They say the trailer doesn't have any cargo in it. They also have freshwater in it, and as I just found out, the tank is behind the rear axle so I'd say that would take more weight off the tongue than cargo would? Since almost all the cargo areas are over or in front of the axles. They don't specify if they weighed with a battery and the spare tire, but I'd think they would have?

Our tongue weight was after a fully packed trip. We weighed at the truck scale near our house. I just went and checked my notes and the numbers we got were:

Trailer - 2010 kg = 4430 pounds (hooked up to truck so no tongue in this weight)
Tongue 340 kg = 749 pounds WDH would likely have been sitting on the scale with it and I believe our WDH is 50-60 pounds (the Andersen so it's light).

We did also weigh prior to being fully packed for camping, at home on a bathroom scale that maxes at 550#. With only battery, tongue jack (NO propane), the tongue was around 518#. Right around 550# with one tank of propane.

I can hope that the scale was grossly miscalibrated and that when we weigh it in a few weeks I get different numbers. Or maybe the scale just has a high variance at lower weights. It's not a scale that's manned. It's just on the side of the road so I don't know its status as to how often it's maintained or calibrated.

[Greenman]

I just went outside and looked at the tanks on our 2010 213. The fresh water tank is mounted between the axles not behind them and the grey and blackwater tanks are both forward of the axles. The hot water tank is mounted just behind the passenger side rear wheel

[SilverEscape]

Originally Posted by Greenman

I just went outside and looked at the tanks on our 2010 213. The fresh water tank is mounted between the axles not behind them and the grey and blackwater tanks are both forward of the axles.

So, I wonder what year the other poster's X213 is. I know Jayco increased the tank size at one point. The article posted above is a review of a 2011 I think? And it has a 28.5 gallon fresh tank (incl hot water) and mine has a 48 gallon fresh (incl hot water). So I'm thinking they could have moved the tanks at that point.

[Greenman]

Ones perception of the salesman's use of the term 1/2 ton towable usually begins to change after the first trip or two doesn't it. In our case all the load shifting & planning led to a 2500 hd. The advertised tongue weight for the 213 is what one might call slightly optimistic to say the least.

[SilverEscape]

Originally Posted by Greenman

Ones perception of the salesman's use of the term 1/2 ton towable usually begins to change after the first trip or two doesn't it. In our case all the load shifting & planning led to a 2500 hd. The advertised tongue weight for the 213 is what one might call slightly optimistic to say the least.

Ha ha! Well we didn't go by any sales guy. We bought this truck brand new after buying the trailer. So we bought it to suit the trailer.

We don't have any worry on the truck's end at all. My worry is the bikes putting the tongue weight over 15% of the trailer weight. Isn't there some danger to being over 15%? Too light for trailer and you have swag, too heavy for trailer and...? I know you can exceed the rear GAWR but assuming you're not exceeding it, is it then okay to be over 15%?

Hard to lighten the tongue when there is nowhere to add weight to the rear due to the slide being tucked in.

I'm thinking water may be the way to go though if our tank is under the dinette. We'll also re-weigh on another scale when we pull it out of storage.

[Adam&Family]

I usually pack stuff in laundry baskets for moving things in/out of the house, and I've found that I can load four behind the axles. I guess it would also work with rubbermaid bins if they're the right size. Anyway, I put a light one under the dinette tabletop, and I slide three baskets sideways in between the couch and the dinette. It's not a lot of weight, but it's a decent way to shift some cargo weight back.

[iplumb]

Now you guys have me nervous! I put a deposit on a 2015 X213 today. E-trailer recommended the Reese RP66082 strait line hitch for my set up, but it only has a max 600 lbs tongue weight. Is that enough? Jayco says dry it's only 390 lbs What size hitches are you guys using? Also I plan to tow with my 2012 GMC Sierra 1500 4x4 is this too much trailer for my 1/2 ton?

[SilverEscape]

I don't know much about aftermarket hitches because all of ours have been factory tow packages, but I'd make sure you had a hitch that did more than 600 pounds. We towed this home with a vehicle with a 500 pound tongue limit and nothing in the trailer but the bedding we purchased for it at IKEA. We had to remove both propane tanks and the spare tire and put them under the slide to try and get more weight off the tongue and the tongue was still over 500 pounds. We had to leave the battery for emergency trailer brakes so couldn't remove it.

I'd get a hitch that takes higher tongue weight and also check out your tow specs in your manual and on the door of your vehicle. Post it here and folks can help you out to see if you're okay. Some half tons are fine, and some won't be.

The GVWR of the trailer is 5500# so you could potentially have a tongue weight of up to 825# plus 100+ pounds for your WDH (we went with the Andersen because it was about 60 pounds if I am remembering correctly). So I wouldn't want anything less than a tongue weight of 1000 pounds personally.

[iplumb]

I think you Mis understood my question. My truck also has a tow package. I'm purchasing a load distrubution hitch. And the hitch that etrailer sized out has a max tougue weight of 600 lbs. Jayco specs are 390 lbs dry. Why is yours so heavy? I have a smaller Casita TT now that is fiberglass. It has a heavy tougue for its size at 400 lbs plus and it never needed a load distribution hitch, I just used a sway bar.

[SilverEscape]

Originally Posted by iplumb

I think you Mis understood my question. My truck also has a tow package. I'm purchasing a load distrubution hitch. And the hitch that etrailer sized out has a max tougue weight of 600 lbs. Jayco specs are 390 lbs dry. Why is yours so heavy? I have a smaller Casita TT now that is fiberglass. It has a heavy tougue for its size at 400 lbs plus and it never needed a load distribution hitch, I just used a sway bar.

I realized that after you were talking about a weight distributing hitch. Sorry about that. But ya, 600 pounds is a no go for this trailer.

My tongue weight is that heavy, because that's what the tongue weight on these trailers seems to be. From what I can tell, 390 is dry. And I think they mean 100% dry. Meaning no propane (add 74 pounds), no battery (add 50 pounds), no spare tire (add 30 pounds for that?), tongue jack (add 10 pounds) and you're at 554. Then add some weight in front of the axles and it goes up from there.

While it's great the yellow stickers have a weight leaving the factory including all the accessories installed at the factory and full propane, it's unfortunate that they don't also list a tongue weight with all the accessories. If they say that's how they are doing it, they are full of crap. LOL You should have seen this tongue pull down our SUV's rear end. We initially guesstimated by the measurements they provide in the manual for the SUV (however many inches lowered is however many pounds of tongue weight) and I was like "uh, how the hell are we going to get this thing home?" We were way over 500 and had a 5 hour drive ahead of us. We started pulling propane and spare tire after that. And headed straight to a scale. Not the same scale that gave my weights above. A scale that is tuned and used by truckers daily.

[iplumb]

So what size weight distribution hitch are you useing?

[SilverEscape]

Originally Posted by iplumb

So what size weight distribution hitch are you useing?

We are using the Andersen hitch which is max 1400 pounds tongue weight, max 14,000 pound trailer weight. It only comes one way so they don't offer version with different tongue weight capacities. Which is more than our truck can take for tongue and trailer anyway. Our truck can tow 11,200 pounds and the hitch sticker says 1150 for tongue weight. Our payload is the limiting factor for us.

https://www.andersenhitches.com/Cata...ion-hitch.aspx

[Greenman]

I've used the same 1400 lb. tongue weight Reese equalizer hitch on both our old 2003 GM 1500 (with towing pkg.) and now our GM 2500hd. I found that the 213 could be adequately towed with the 1/2 ton if I was careful with loading the trailer and the truck. Just like SilverEscape , I was always coming up against payload, and I was always worried about my maxed out 1/2 ton blowing up in the hot mountain Towing conditions that we frequently encounter.