How concerned are you about your trucks payload

[Andy543]

Originally Posted by ETroup

CanAm RV likely has as much relevant data and test track experience matching Tow Vehicles and Trailers with the proper WD Hitch setup and then verifying on their test track.

As demonstrated in their slalom and emergency lane change tests, stability is obviously more than just getting a bigger tow vehicle. You can find videos of tests at the link below.

I wish there was some local resource to ask questions of but I am not aware of a comparable knowledge base around Orlando, FL.

If you contact them and ask specific questions, you can get specific answers especially if they have previously worked with similar setups.

https://www.canamrv.ca/towing-expertise/

Specifically, I would like to see the results of an understeer test. The SAE has a standard test for this and truck manufacturers have to certify that they can pass it. I believe many rigs with weight distribution/sway control hitches would fail such a test. This test has nothing to do with trailer sway. It measures the tow vehicle's ability to control the trailer during a hard turn and prevent a jackknife accident. I can't find any such test data from any hitch supplier. Do they have this type of data and are they hiding it?

[Dick tracy]

I've weighed it and know where the weight sits and I'm good at all axles

[ROBERT CROSS]

Originally Posted by Andy543

Specifically, I would like to see the results of an understeer test. The SAE has a standard test for this and truck manufacturers have to certify that they can pass it. I believe many rigs with weight distribution/sway control hitches would fail such a test. This test has nothing to do with trailer sway. It measures the tow vehicle's ability to control the trailer during a hard turn and prevent a jackknife accident. I can't find any such test data from any hitch supplier. Do they have this type of data and are they hiding it?

Not sure how helpful that test would be...they may fail the test but the first thing you should do to stop the sway is gently accelerate as you apply the trailer brakes. NOT try to steer out of it.

Am I rong

Bob
🇺🇸

[GettinAway]

Originally Posted by ROBERT CROSS

^^^^^^^^^^^
Opp's answering some thing that no longer exists

I was young back then, and didn't know more than I thought I did.
Fiddling with things was fun & expensive. I no longer fiddle.

“I was young and knew nothing...now I'm old and everyone else knows everything. 😂”
RLC

Bob
🇺🇸

I didn’t see any point in offending anyone. That’s why I deleted the post. Hope no offense was taken. I’m only 68. A pup to a lot of folks here. Present company excluded.

[Bobbo]

Personally, I put the folks who bought the 2500 or 3500 trucks into the "watch it very closely" group. That is WHY they bought the bigger truck. The reason they upsized the truck was because they didn't want to HAVE TO worry about it.

[foobar]

Originally Posted by Bobbo

Personally, I put the folks who bought the 2500 or 3500 trucks into the "watch it very closely" group. That is WHY they bought the bigger truck. The reason they upsized the truck was because they didn't want to HAVE TO worry about it.

Fair point. My current tow rig with a 2016 Porsche Cayenne S and a 2022 Globetrotter 20FB twin is absolutely set up correctly and the setup is verified with CAT scales (and the seat of my pants when driving, lol) because it absolutely "must" be setup and tuned correctly.

Given that I will eventually get a tow vehicle with more payload so I can carry more stuff, I have spent 9 months researching HD trucks, trying to decide diesel vs gas, brand, how much payload I need, etc.

And I have determined that many 3/4 ton trucks like F250's don't have enough payload margin to be able to simply say that "you don't ever have to worry about payload or towing setup again".

Yesterday, I took photos of 3 different "yellow stickers" on the driver door for F250's with payload limits of 1800, 1900, and around 2000 lbs respectively. FYI, these were diesel trucks (the diesel drive train costs you 800-900 lbs of payload capacity due to the heavy weight of the diesel drivetrain).

With 1100-1200lb tongue weight, an overweight driver and passenger (say, 450lbs), a couple of teenage males in the 2nd row of seats (say 350 lbs total), a 60lb dog, a couple of e-bikes (160lbs), you are already at 2,220lbs and are over the payload limit of all three trucks I looked at and that's with a truck bed that is pretty much empty except for the ebikes. You can come up with lots of very realistic and minimal loads that push the payload over the limit.

I figure the truck needs around 3000lbs of payload capacity at a minimum in order to safely have pretty much a "throw it into the truck attitude and forget about it" attitude and actually get away with it, generally speaking.

[SVTRIDE]

For a small up-charge over a 250...a 350 gives you that "put what I want in the truck" carefree attitude, even with the oil burner motor.

[foobar]

Originally Posted by SVTRIDE

For a small up-charge over a 250...a 350 gives you that "put what I want in the truck" carefree attitude, even with the oil burner motor.

Yup. F350's cost exactly $1060 over an equivalent F250 for every single trim level. I used the ford configurator to run the same truck through every trim level to compare the pricing.

The F350 is identical to an F250 except for an extra set of spring bars over the rear axle that only activates under heavy loads. So an F350 ride quality is identical to an F350, except you get around 1000lbs of additional payload.

So I'm shopping diesel F350's (seems to be unobtainable lately here in Texas) and perhaps diesel GMC 2500 trucks (these seem to always have payload limits near or above 3000lbs, even on fully larded up vehicles with lots of heavy options).

[Colossus]

Originally Posted by foobar

Yup. F350's cost exactly $1060 over an equivalent F250 for every single trim level. I used the ford configurator to run the same truck through every trim level to compare the pricing.

The F350 is identical to an F250 except for an extra set of spring bars over the rear axle that only activates under heavy loads. So an F350 ride quality is identical to an F350, except you get around 1000lbs of additional payload.

So I'm shopping diesel F350's (seems to be unobtainable lately here in Texas) and perhaps diesel GMC 2500 trucks (these seem to always have payload limits near or above 3000lbs, even on fully larded up vehicles with lots of heavy options).

I’ve been reading and waiting for you to come to this conclusion. Honestly, I looked at your current tow vehicle and assumed you like bells and whistles. I’ve owned a few Porsches myself.

I owned a F250 Platinum as I like bells and whistles. The more I learned about payload, the more attention to detail and less enjoyable camping became. So I traded my F250 for a new 350 Dually Platinum and never looked back.

When I mention bells and whistles, I’m not just talking about your tow vehicle, I’m also talking about your Airstream/mods/toys… all deducts from payload.

[foobar]

Originally Posted by Colossus

I’ve been reading and waiting for you to come to this conclusion. Honestly, I looked at your current tow vehicle and assumed you like bells and whistles. I’ve owned a few Porsches myself.

I owned a F250 Platinum as I like bells and whistles. The more I learned about payload, the more attention to detail and less enjoyable camping became. So I traded my F250 for a new 350 Dually Platinum and never looked back.

When I mention bells and whistles, I’m not just talking about your tow vehicle, I’m also talking about your Airstream/mods/toys… all deducts from payload.

I do enjoy bells and whistles :-) But they must be useful generally or at least be fun to have. FYI, the Cayenne landed in my lap a couple of years ago when a buddy offered it to me at the same wholesale trade-in price as a dealer was offering him. It was too good to pass up.

A heavy duty truck has been in my plan from the beginning. But, I didn't want to shop for one during the Covid-19 period of pricing insanity, lol.

So, the plan remains to make do with what I have for a while (I.e. Use the Cayenne for my tow vehicle) and continue to evaluate tow vehicle options. The bonus for this strategy is that I was pretty much forced to understand all aspects related to towing safely and how to set up and optimize a WD hitch.

Back to thinking about tow vehicles ... For a brief period when diesel was so pricey, I was thinking about gas engines in a heavy duty truck. But if I am getting a truck specifically to tow my Airstream, diesel drive trains are clearly the best for that purpose. Gasoline based drive trains can get the job done, but are not the optimal option.

Choosing diesel impacts the tow vehicle payload enough to push me into an F350 in terms of the Ford lineup. For GMC, the 2500 series has enough payload (I.e. 3000lbs or so).

Last week was the first time I went to dealerships to test drive trucks. It was enlightening.

F350's with trim levels above Lariat seem to be non-existent, at least within 250 miles of my zip code. The Ford dealership sales manager says that the 2023 model year order books for F350's are closed for any trim above XL and XLT. I would want at least a Lariat with the Lariat Ultimate package. Also, getting an F350 below msrp will be very difficult.

GMC 2500 would be adequate for my needs, but the infotainment system is about a decade out of date. And the high hood with the scoop really messes up the field of view forward for my 5 ft tall wife. On the positive side, with the impending model year changeover, GMC dealers are discounting the trucks below MSRP if you can locate one on their lot. And their are trucks on the lots. The discount had me thinking hard about upgrading sooner...

RAM styling and reliability history has them a distant 3rd in my thought process.

At this point, I am back to planning on using the Cayenne for at least a year. My upcoming 6 week trip through the Rockies and Utah will definitely influence the speed at which I think about getting a heavy duty truck :-)

[Aluminium Falcon]

Originally Posted by foobar

Yup. F350's cost exactly $1060 over an equivalent F250 for every single trim level. I used the ford configurator to run the same truck through every trim level to compare the pricing.

The F350 is identical to an F250 except for an extra set of spring bars over the rear axle that only activates under heavy loads. So an F350 ride quality is identical to an F350, except you get around 1000lbs of additional payload.

So I'm shopping diesel F350's (seems to be unobtainable lately here in Texas) and perhaps diesel GMC 2500 trucks (these seem to always have payload limits near or above 3000lbs, even on fully larded up vehicles with lots of heavy options).

I am also curious about your potential transition from the Cayenne to a HD truck. Is it that the Cayenne started to show signs of not towing as well at or near payload or that you simply do not want to go above the infamous door jamb payload number? One thing is sure, you are really in for a totally different towing experience if and when you move to a HD truck. It will be interesting to see which one you prefer. Keep us posted.

[moosetags]

I have a 2020 Chevrolet Silverado Duramax LTZ. It has about all of the options available including the sun roof. The payload sticker shows 3136#.

Brian

[foobar]

Originally Posted by Aluminium Falcon

I am also curious about your potential transition from the Cayenne to a HD truck. Is it that the Cayenne started to show signs of not towing as well at or near payload or that you simply do not want to go above the infamous door jamb payload number? One thing is sure, you are really in for a totally different towing experience if and when you move to a HD truck. It will be interesting to see which one you prefer. Keep us posted.

Well, I have a few extra minutes this morning, so I thought I would share a bit about our overall trailer purchase journey and our strategy with respect to a tow vehicle.

When we starting thinking seriously about purchasing a travel trailer back in Dec 2021 - Jan 2022 timeframe, I was kind of stuck in place because I expected to have to buy a truck along with the trailer and I didn't know which trailer we would end up with (we hadn't really thought much about getting an Airstream at that time), so I didn't know how much truck we would need :-)

Then, I remembered our 2nd hand bargain basement Cayenne had a hitch on it. When I looked up the spec's, I was surprised to see that it was quite capable. So we hatched a plan to buy the most trailer that we could and stay within the Cayenne's rather healthy limit of 7716lbs.

Side note: EU vehicles have to stay under 3500kg = 7716lbs to avoid a bunch of regulations/taxes/commercial drivers licensing issues, so magically all consumer vehicle towing limits are listed as 3500kg, independent of the actual physical limits of the vehicle.

Now that we had our tow vehicle strategy settled, we could increase our trailer purchase budget because we didn't have to buy a truck immediately and we could go then go shopping and see what we could find that the Cayenne could tow.

Knowing that we would eventually end up getting some sort of HD truck, we decided we would push the limits of the Cayenne as long as we could do so safely. Further research indicated that other folks have found that the Cayenne is a very capable and stable tow vehicle, so on we went.

After visiting several large trailer lots full of a sea of pressed wood trailers that are stapled together, we eventually ended up at an Airstream dealer.

Well, the rest is history. We really liked the feature set, appearance and storage in the 25ft and 27ft Globetrotters. Given that both fit within the 7716 lb tow limit of the Cayenne, we decided that the lower tongue weight of the 27ft and additional storage and living space of the 27ft would be the way to go.

We contacted a couple of dealers in Feb 2022 (Airstream of Austin, DFW Airstream in Fort Worth), we got lucky and discovered that both of them had 27ft trailers on order that buyers had backed out on. We could intercept both orders and change them to our preferred trim and floorplan => Globetrotter 27FB Twin's. And, we could pit them against each other on pricing so we managed to actually get 8% below MSRP back when both dealers were pretty much not making any deals.

Fast forward, we got the Cayenne hitch reinforced by Can Am RV in Canada in June 2022 during a fun driving vacation to Ontario/Lake Huron area and also purchased their customized Eaz-Lift Elite 1000 hitch and 2 husky friction anti-sway bars.

End of July, 2022... the trailer arrived at Airstream of Austin after a slight 2 week delay due to a recall by Dexter Axles. We had it for 3 days, then it was off to A&P Vintage Trailer Works for a bunch of upgrades (see other postings on that topic :-)).

Most of the upgrades had negligible impact on the Airstream payload (new insulated skylights, Maxxair fan instead of fantastic fan, Micro-air thermostat instead of Dometic, etc), but the inverter, battery bank and solar panels definitely had an impact. I could have saved about 140lbs if I went with a 660ah battery bank, but I wanted to be able to run an a/c unit for 6-8 hours to protect dogs if we happen to be out playing tourist and power gets interrupted at an RV park. I also wanted to be able to boondock for 5-6 days without charging when there is negligible solar input due to shade or clouds (and then charge the large bank up at an RV park on their nickel :-)).

So I gambled on being able to handle the extra weight of a 1320ah battery bank. Also, I got a bit lucky. Victron released their gen 2 batteries around the time we started our upgrade project. Given that the gen 2 vicron LiFePO4 batteries are half the weight of the gen1 batteries, I could double the capacity in the same weight budget as I would have been stuck with for the gen1 batteries!

I have literally weighed everything that is going into the Airstream and the tow vehicle, down to even weighing the box of toothpicks, LOL.

We should be close to the GVWR of the GT 27 FB Twin and the Cayenne once we finish loading for our upcoming 6 week trip (to be confirmed with CAT scale measurements later this week). We might end up a couple of hundred lbs over on the trailer GVWR when we fill up the fresh water tank for boondocking, but will otherwise be under the trailer weight limits.

For those that haven't followed my trailer upgrade adventures, please note that I upgraded the trailer Axle weight rating as part of a 3" lift upgrade (from 3800lbs per axle to 4200 lbs per axle) as I anticipated being in a slightly overweight situation with a full fresh water tank due to the very low payload limit of my Globetrotter (around 978lbs). I'm comfortable with this minor level of overloading, but stating this on the forum is probably going to trigger a firestorm of ... "we are going to die and kill everyone else on the road" responses :-).

To assess behavior and risk ... as a test, we have towed 550 miles with the Cayenne before in hilly and windy conditions (30mph winds with gusts up to 50mph) with a full set of tanks (fresh, black, and grey) and plenty of gear. This put us 500lbs over payload for our trailer (6.5% over trailer GVWR as measured by CAT scales). I wanted to test the Cayenne and trailers behavior under these conditions in case we ever needed to exceed the GVWR for brief periods with full tanks. We tested acceleration, panic braking and rapid lane changes on an empty rural road and everything worked great. Please note that we will "never" overload the trailer and Cayenne like this again. It was just for testing purposes to see what happens just above the limits of the tow configuration of Cayenne + GT 27 FB Twin.

In order to stay within the trailer and Cayenne weight limits, we can only carry about 150lbs of cargo in the Cayenne in addition to the missus and I. My cargo weight tracking spreadsheet shows that the Cayenne cargo is 152lbs, so I guess I need to lose 2 lbs this week before we depart, LOL.

Anyway, this posting is getting ridiculously long and I'll bet folks are tired of reading it by now :-)

We will definitely get an HD truck in the future so I can lighten the load on the trailer by moving the generator (70lbs), the extendable ladder we use to clean the solar panels when boondocking in dusty conditions (35lbs), tools (27lbs), etc, etc, etc from the trailer and into the tow vehicle. I have identified around 220lbs of stuff we can easily move from the trailer to an HD pickup truck bed. Note: In the future, we also want to bring along things like a charcoal grill, a portable propane fire pit and other things we simply do not have the payload capacity for today. Ergo, Ford or GMC will get a bunch of our money, probably late this year or early in 2024.

[foobar]

Originally Posted by moosetags

I have a 2020 Chevrolet Silverado Duramax LTZ. It has about all of the options available including the sun roof. The payload sticker shows 3136#.

Brian

Hi Brian, that kind of payload number is exactly why we spent some time last week looking at GMC 2500's (kissing cousin to your Chevy Silverado).

Is that Chevy a 1/2 ton? If so, that's an impressive payload number.

[moosetags]

Originally Posted by foobar

Hi Brian, that kind of payload number is exactly why we spent some time last week looking at GMC 2500's (kissing cousin to your Chevy Silverado).

Is that Chevy a 1/2 ton? If so, that's an impressive payload number.

I'm sorry about that, my error. I failed to include that it is a 2500. I guess I was thinking that the word Duramax would cover it, but that is not true anymore.

Brian

[foobar]

Originally Posted by moosetags

I'm sorry about that, my error. I failed to include that it is a 2500. I guess I was thinking that the word Duramax would cover it, but that is not true anymore.

Brian

Thanks for the quick update. I haven't managed to check out the Chevy HD trucks yet. Only GMC, Ford, RAM so far.

[OrangeCrush]

Originally Posted by foobar

And I have determined that many 3/4 ton trucks like F250's don't have enough payload margin to be able to simply say that "you don't ever have to worry about payload or towing setup again".

Yesterday, I took photos of 3 different "yellow stickers" on the driver door for F250's with payload limits of 1800, 1900, and around 2000 lbs respectively. FYI, these were diesel trucks (the diesel drive train costs you 800-900 lbs of payload capacity due to the heavy weight of the diesel drivetrain).

Not exactly correct. F250 diesel with High Capacity Trailer Tow Package offered since late 2017 has an additional leaf and F350 rear end giving it 10,800lb GVWR. This compensated for the additional diesel weight. Below is the sticker from my very loaded 2022 F250 Lariat 4x4 diesel with HCTTP.

[DewTheDew]

Originally Posted by OrangeCrush

Not exactly correct. F250 diesel with High Capacity Trailer Tow Package offered since late 2017 has an additional leaf and F350 rear end giving it 10,800lb GVWR. This compensated for the additional diesel weight. Below is the sticker from my very loaded 2022 F250 Lariat 4x4 diesel with HCTTP.

My F250 diesel has a payload of 2132. One thing to note is that the fifth-wheel prep weighs a few hundred pounds that to me was a waste, so I looked specifically for a truck without (something I learned on this forum!).

[pjshier]

Originally Posted by foobar

The F350 is identical to an F250 except for an extra set of spring bars over the rear axle that only activates under heavy loads. So an F350 ride quality is identical to an F350, except you get around 1000lbs of additional payload.

In my experience with the F350 Platinum and F250 King Ranch (diesel) for towing, your observations are correct except perhaps the ride/spring pack. I used a caliper on the springs on the 2017 F350 compared to the 2020 F250 and found the F250's slightly thinner. My perception is that the F250 ride is better unladen, but that could be wishing as well as my education about lower tire pressures when not towing.

I do miss the 3400# payload of the F350 as my DW collects rocks. I installed Sulastic spring hangers on the F350 which seemed to help temper the "bite" and wheel hop induced by some bridge transitions at speed.

But with a few years under our belts we figured out the F250 payload was adequate with ample safety margin found in the axle weight ratings and the fact that the brakes, transmission, coolers, front axle, tires and related systems are identical between the F250 and F350. The standard F250 is shipped with the 12 bolt Ford Sterling rear axle. The F350 with a heavier 14 bolt Dana rear axle. The F250 is available with the Dana rear axle and a 10,800 GVWR, but they are rare and as you say order banks are closed mostly.

[Aluminium Falcon]

Originally Posted by foobar

Well, I have a few extra minutes this morning, so I thought I would share a bit about our overall trailer purchase journey and our strategy with respect to a tow vehicle.

When we starting thinking seriously about purchasing a travel trailer back in Dec 2021 - Jan 2022 timeframe, I was kind of stuck in place because I expected to have to buy a truck along with the trailer and I didn't know which trailer we would end up with (we hadn't really thought much about getting an Airstream at that time), so I didn't know how much truck we would need :-)

Then, I remembered our 2nd hand bargain basement Cayenne had a hitch on it. When I looked up the spec's, I was surprised to see that it was quite capable. So we hatched a plan to buy the most trailer that we could and stay within the Cayenne's rather healthy limit of 7716lbs.

Side note: EU vehicles have to stay under 3500kg = 7716lbs to avoid a bunch of regulations/taxes/commercial drivers licensing issues, so magically all consumer vehicle towing limits are listed as 3500kg, independent of the actual physical limits of the vehicle.

Now that we had our tow vehicle strategy settled, we could increase our trailer purchase budget because we didn't have to buy a truck immediately and we could go then go shopping and see what we could find that the Cayenne could tow.

Knowing that we would eventually end up getting some sort of HD truck, we decided we would push the limits of the Cayenne as long as we could do so safely. Further research indicated that other folks have found that the Cayenne is a very capable and stable tow vehicle, so on we went.

After visiting several large trailer lots full of a sea of pressed wood trailers that are stapled together, we eventually ended up at an Airstream dealer.

Well, the rest is history. We really liked the feature set, appearance and storage in the 25ft and 27ft Globetrotters. Given that both fit within the 7716 lb tow limit of the Cayenne, we decided that the lower tongue weight of the 27ft and additional storage and living space of the 27ft would be the way to go.

We contacted a couple of dealers in Feb 2022 (Airstream of Austin, DFW Airstream in Fort Worth), we got lucky and discovered that both of them had 27ft trailers on order that buyers had backed out on. We could intercept both orders and change them to our preferred trim and floorplan => Globetrotter 27FB Twin's. And, we could pit them against each other on pricing so we managed to actually get 8% below MSRP back when both dealers were pretty much not making any deals.

Fast forward, we got the Cayenne hitch reinforced by Can Am RV in Canada in June 2022 during a fun driving vacation to Ontario/Lake Huron area and also purchased their customized Eaz-Lift Elite 1000 hitch and 2 husky friction anti-sway bars.

End of July, 2022... the trailer arrived at Airstream of Austin after a slight 2 week delay due to a recall by Dexter Axles. We had it for 3 days, then it was off to A&P Vintage Trailer Works for a bunch of upgrades (see other postings on that topic :-)).

Most of the upgrades had negligible impact on the Airstream payload (new insulated skylights, Maxxair fan instead of fantastic fan, Micro-air thermostat instead of Dometic, etc), but the inverter, battery bank and solar panels definitely had an impact. I could have saved about 140lbs if I went with a 660ah battery bank, but I wanted to be able to run an a/c unit for 6-8 hours to protect dogs if we happen to be out playing tourist and power gets interrupted at an RV park. I also wanted to be able to boondock for 5-6 days without charging when there is negligible solar input due to shade or clouds (and then charge the large bank up at an RV park on their nickel :-)).

So I gambled on being able to handle the extra weight of a 1320ah battery bank. Also, I got a bit lucky. Victron released their gen 2 batteries around the time we started our upgrade project. Given that the gen 2 vicron LiFePO4 batteries are half the weight of the gen1 batteries, I could double the capacity in the same weight budget as I would have been stuck with for the gen1 batteries!

I have literally weighed everything that is going into the Airstream and the tow vehicle, down to even weighing the box of toothpicks, LOL.

We should be close to the GVWR of the GT 27 FB Twin and the Cayenne once we finish loading for our upcoming 6 week trip (to be confirmed with CAT scale measurements later this week). We might end up a couple of hundred lbs over on the trailer GVWR when we fill up the fresh water tank for boondocking, but will otherwise be under the trailer weight limits.

For those that haven't followed my trailer upgrade adventures, please note that I upgraded the trailer Axle weight rating as part of a 3" lift upgrade (from 3800lbs per axle to 4200 lbs per axle) as I anticipated being in a slightly overweight situation with a full fresh water tank due to the very low payload limit of my Globetrotter (around 978lbs). I'm comfortable with this minor level of overloading, but stating this on the forum is probably going to trigger a firestorm of ... "we are going to die and kill everyone else on the road" responses :-).

To assess behavior and risk ... as a test, we have towed 550 miles with the Cayenne before in hilly and windy conditions (30mph winds with gusts up to 50mph) with a full set of tanks (fresh, black, and grey) and plenty of gear. This put us 500lbs over payload for our trailer (6.5% over trailer GVWR as measured by CAT scales). I wanted to test the Cayenne and trailers behavior under these conditions in case we ever needed to exceed the GVWR for brief periods with full tanks. We tested acceleration, panic braking and rapid lane changes on an empty rural road and everything worked great. Please note that we will "never" overload the trailer and Cayenne like this again. It was just for testing purposes to see what happens just above the limits of the tow configuration of Cayenne + GT 27 FB Twin.

In order to stay within the trailer and Cayenne weight limits, we can only carry about 150lbs of cargo in the Cayenne in addition to the missus and I. My cargo weight tracking spreadsheet shows that the Cayenne cargo is 152lbs, so I guess I need to lose 2 lbs this week before we depart, LOL.

Anyway, this posting is getting ridiculously long and I'll bet folks are tired of reading it by now :-)

We will definitely get an HD truck in the future so I can lighten the load on the trailer by moving the generator (70lbs), the extendable ladder we use to clean the solar panels when boondocking in dusty conditions (35lbs), tools (27lbs), etc, etc, etc from the trailer and into the tow vehicle. I have identified around 220lbs of stuff we can easily move from the trailer to an HD pickup truck bed. Note: In the future, we also want to bring along things like a charcoal grill, a portable propane fire pit and other things we simply do not have the payload capacity for today. Ergo, Ford or GMC will get a bunch of our money, probably late this year or early in 2024.

Thanks for the background information on your thought process. I am somewhat of a nerd when it comes to tow vehicles and find it all very interesting! At some point, when I have more time in my life to travel farther, longer and with more stuff, I may look at a HD truck myself. I am just not there yet and will not be for a few years.

Once you get your HD truck, I would be interested in a comparative analysis of your towing and driving experience between the fast and nimble Cayenne vs the big, powerful diesel HD truck. Talking about HD trucks, I know that Ram is third on your list, but do not dismiss that 6.7 L Cummins diesel engine. It is still the best out there!

Safe travels!