Trailer Towing Experience and Knowledge Request

Hello All,

My wife and I would like to start shopping for a travel trailer. We have a two daughters (6 and 3 years old). We live in California but will be relocating to another state in the next 2-5 years.

We enjoy camping and traveling and are tired of staying in hotels. We would like to purchase a travel trailer to make our trips more comfortable. I flew a million miles+ early in my career and I prefer not to travel to vacation by plane when possible. Now we are shopping for a trailer.

For those of you who tow a travel trailer who drive a 2.5 gen Tundra would you be willing to share your length, weight and general recommendations?

Our general wants are: bed area for my wife and I to sleep that is somewhat private (think small bedroom), bunk beds would be preferred for our daughters and both bath and kitchen amenities. I’ve been looking at the Vibe 24DB (Forest River, see link below). Again, I know nothing about towing and am ready to learn. If there is any recommended reading you can share, please do?

https://youtu.be/wEyDUj4r82k

Our truck is a 2019 Crew Max TRD Sport 4x4 with the 5.7L with 30K miles. Thank you in advance for sharing your experience with my family and I.


-George

 

Howdy-

you may not have seen this, so I will link it here:
https://www.tundras.com/threads/what-do-you-tow-with-your-tundra.238/

This is one of the sticky topics from the Towing Forum. It shares details you are asking about.

I have looked into this as well.

You will hear from people who share that they are very comfortable pulling trailers that exceed the weight rating for these trucks. You will then have people urging caution and laying out the facts about our trucks rated capacities.

You will find what I did: our trucks have a sticker claim to pull a heavy trailer, but the fact is we are very limited by our max payload.

I may still go for a trailer, but I calculate that to get a big enough trailer for us, I will not be able to carry additional gear or people.

The basic math is this: weigh your vehicle with you in it. Then, add the weight of your family members, and then approximate other gear they will have: backpacks, hydro flasks, extra food, etc… then add the weight of a wt distributing hitch.

Subtract all of this from your max payload (sticker in your door) and what is left is the weight you can put on your hitch.

Now go look at trailers and see what their tongue weights are, remembering that most manufacturers will list the DRY/unloaded trailer tongue weight. You’ll find that it is a challenge to get a decent sized trailer that will meet your tongue weight max limit, and remember- you’re going to load that trailer with water, clothes, food, and gear.

Your level of caution is strictly about you. But- if you tow more than your truck is rated for and it causes an accident or worse- a fatality, it could mean more severe criminal penalties.

Good luck- let us know what you come up with!

 

Agree with rent before buy. You’re in the right range as far as length and weight IMO - anything beyond a 26’ box will really be pushing the limits of the truck. We looked hard at a Grand Design 265BHS before prices went crazy.

 

^this. my wife and I thought we were interested in travel trailers so we rented to make sure that was something that we wanted to invest in. I am glad that we did.

Here is our experience:
https://www.tundras.com/threads/my-first-experience-vacationing-in-a-travel-trailer.76046/

After that experience, we decided that we would want a trailer larger than what the Tundra can tow.

 

I don’t own one, but have heard you likely want to look at trailers with fiberglass or aluminum skins. As I understand it, the root of all evil in trailers is water and fiberglass/aluminum are by far the most effective at keeping water outside where it belongs. Casita seems to be the gold standard in fiberglass.

 

that is a nice floor plan for a smaller trailer. the fact that it has a slide out is a bonus in that size. however, you will be pushing your max payload when you are all loaded up.
Here are the specs for that trailer:
https://www.rvusa.com/rv-guide/2021...0267?msclkid=f4ecc73eb83111ec9ffd92abf0403b60

The spec sheet shows 629 pounds for the tongue weight, but i would add another 200 pounds for propane, batteries, weight distribution hitch, and gear. also, dont forget to subtract the weight of all the passengers from your payload.

It also looks like you have done some modifications to your truck. Those tires are heavier than stock and will subtract from your payload. Anything that you have added on to your truck will reduce your payload.

Do yourself a favor and do all the payload calculations before you buy. Also, I recommend filling up your truck with fuel and then having it weighed at a truck scale. You will be surprised how little payload that you have left. Here is what I did:
https://www.tundras.com/threads/questions-about-payload-and-gvwr.71074/

Here is a rough estimate of your proposed payload:
629 pounds advertised tongue weight
100 pounds weight distribution hitch
50 pounds propane
25 pounds for batteries
500 pounds for passengers (2 adults and 2 kids)
200 pounds for gear
that's 1504 pounds of payload. does your truck have that much available payload?

Payload = GVWR-truck weight. Don't rely on the sticker in your door jam. have your truck weighed and do the calculation.

good luck

 

I am no expert, but here are my thoughts after 4 years of enjoying our travel trailer.
Do not go too big, makes for an unenjoyable and sometimes unsafe experience. That being said, too small sucks also, nobody likes being cramped up. This is why I recommend slide-outs. I am not one to go to weigh stations and worry over every single pound of weight, my solution is a bit simpler, try to stay at a max GVWR (and hitch weight) of no more than about 70% of your truck's rating. For example, my Tundra is rated to tow a bit over 10k. My trailer is 4900 dry with a GVWR of about 7250. I wouldn't want to go bigger.
Get an Azdel or similarly constructed trailer. Wood walls are heavy, less insulated, and can rot.
Use a quality weight distribution hitch.
Learn how to tow. Practice backing up in empty parking lots, take short trips to learn how the truck and trailer handle different conditions. Do this until you are comfortable and knowledgeable enough before setting out on longer trips.
Here is my set up.

 

I tow a 23' box Gulfstream and with my wife, big Yellow Lab and not much in the bed, I'm so close to going over the 7,200# GVWR we don't dare super-size meals at the McDonald's.

Edit: Forgot to mention that 114.5 pounds of rear seats are left at home so the doggie has room for a large bed. I'm about 220 driving weight and let's just say my wife is currently up in the loft riding her excercise bike. Our Lab is about 140 pounds. Yeah, she never misses a meal.

 

I have a 20 footer, we bought the longest trailer that would fit in the driveway, my kids are now 6-8, the small size is fine for 2-4 day trips we normally do. A weeklong trip was a pain in the rear tho. Just not enough holding power for long trips, if i had a camper shell it would have been more storage

your truck looks grear, however the first thing i would consider is re-gearing for those bigger tires. I went back to stock sized tires and im glad i did so for towing

 

I hope you find something that you like.

When we bought ours, we wanted to get the smallest trailer we could that had all of our must-haves, like fixed beds, bunks for the kids, an oven, and a dry bath. I wanted a fairly small trailer as we spend most of our time outdoors when camping, I didn't want any difficulty in fitting into tight spots, and I wanted something super easy to tow.

We ended up with a Rockwood Geo Pro G20BHS. Fabulous trailer and highly recommended.

 

I looked at that model, super nice

Growing up my parents went from a 22’ to a 28’ then got a 40’ pusher. They regretted the 40’ big time because they couldn't fit in forest camp grounds. 28 was even too big for some public sites. 24 is the perfect size. Im definitely gonna upgrade my 20 next year when my oldest gets closer to 10 so we can bring friends.

 

We just passed the one year mark with our Keystone Passport 240BHWE (model discontinued). We also live in CA and have enjoyed every minute of the adventures. 3 kids (9,6,3) all have enough room and the wife and I have a separate queen "bedroom". I was also new to towing and have had no issues so far. I use a Fastway E2 Trunnion WDH. Our longest trip last year was 1200+ miles to Zion NP and we are headed back next week.

 

I have owned and towed two different full size TTs with my Tundras. In my opinion both of them are really a little bigger than the Tundra should tow weight wise.
Keep you trailer unloaded weight below 5,000 pounds or you will find yourself overloaded and overweight quickly.
The two that I have owned:
2004 29' Jayco 29BHS. 5,500 dry. Loaded for camping (headed out west for about 5,000 miles) we were at 15,800 pounds combined. The rear axle was over-weight and the trailer hitch bent during the trip. Toyota did replace the hitch for $100 out of my pocket. It twisted upward due to the hitch having too much distribution dialed in. The picture below of the blue truck was the night before we left.
2019 27' Jayco 267BHS. 5,500 dry. Loaded for our last trip was 14,260. The problem is that the rear axle was at 4,320 pounds with Sumo Springs. The weight falls in line if I take the Sumos off. About 300 more pounds moves to the front axle.
Power has never been a problem. The truck rides and drives great as well. Mileage has been as bad as 6.5 and as good as 10 towing this way. Expect to average about 8 if you travel at 70mph.

Here are my two set-ups. Both of them are without Sumo Springs. I have owned three different weight distribution hitches.

I think the factory Tundra capacities are under-rated but it is what is posted on the door.
I think the factory Tundra hitch is weak and will bend if you put too much weight distribution into it. Mine did.....

 

Interesting to hear about the hitch bending upwards.

 

Right?!?!

I noticed it because the bumper was actually starting to rub the box. The rear bumper and the trailer hitch are one unit. When the hitch moves, the bumper does as well. The gap had closed to almost nothing between the bumper and the box.

If you think about it, all of the tongue weight that you are distributing transfers to that hitch as twist in the upward direction.

I believe that a big part of this was some really large undulations on some of the two-lane roads in the mountains. There were a few situations that the rear suspension traveled to the bump-stops with the WDH engaged to the trailer. This is a lot of load transferring to the hitch. However, this is unavoidable when towing and IMO the truck should be up to the challenge.

I believe that Sumo Springs or Airbags would help that situation and I did add them after I got home. But.... I was within the rating of the truck.....

 

The force on the wdh bars goes up dramatically when your truck nose points up and the trailer nose points down, that must hAve been crazy tension at that moment. My TT is only 4k lbs loaded, i tried pulling without the wdh bars. It’s not heavy enough to matter while pulling however having some weight transferred to the front axle is nicer under braking.

 

I hit some pretty good bumps in KY on 65 a few weeks ago. So hard I pulled over to inspect for damage. Now I'm only about 600# tongue weight but those dips were pretty deep.