Comfortable weight for my 2018 to tow?

I’m looking at a few travel trailers. They are between 17 to 21 ft. 2500 to 3000 dry weight. My truck is rated to tow 6400( I think is over rated) ( I’ve watched the flt do Ike Gauntlet towing 5600lbs and the 3.5 is screaming)what is a comfortable weight to tow.

 

More to it than just weight.

Dimensions and shape of towed object being a big consideration.

Tongue wt., trailer brakes, stabilizer bars and driver experience play too.

 

TFL was towing up a really steep grade at high elevation with extra gear inside the truck. They were downshifted to 2nd trying to maintain 60mph. On flat roads you should feel much more comfortable towing in 4th gear and you should be a lot safer driving 55-60mph.

 

cool. Wear I live we do have a 7% grade that is about 5 miles but it tops out at 1700 feet. The TFL guys really like to load the trucks. Most stuff I’ve seen on YouTube owners say 3500 is comfortable to tow. They get laggy about 4K and above weight.

 

Look at your payload and let that decide for you. The drive train will pull 6400 lbs, it is the suspension that will max out 1st. My trucks payload is 1200 lbs. A 5000 lb trailer is the most weight you can tow without adding a weight distribution hitch and would have about 650 lbs of tongue weight. That would leave me with 550 lbs for passengers and cargo. I have a 180 lb cap on my truck and I weigh 220. That only leaves me with 250 lbs for my wife and anything else in the truck. The way I see it about 5000 is the realistic limit and I'd personally like to keep it closer to 4000.

A 6400 lb trailer along with a WDH would give me almost 1000 lbs tongue weight. I'm overloaded with just me in the drivers seat and no other passengers or cargo.

And the terrain matters. I might be inclined to tow a bit more if I lived at sea level and never planned to travel to mountains. If I needed to pull the load up steep grades above 7000' I'd reduce what I planned to tow, or buy a bigger truck. Most gas engines lose about 3% of their power for every 1000' above sea level. At 7000' the engine will only be putting out about 80% of the power it would at sea level. At 10,000' only about 70%

 

The Ike Gauntlet is exceptional in most cases. I drive that section of I-70 regularly, there are runaway truck ramps all over it, you have everything from minivans to Lorries bogged down on that road

 

Bottom line is even when your trailer is loaded it will be 2000 or more pounds under max tow weight. You should be fine. Just have to watch how much weight in your truck , passengers, payload etc.

 

The Ike Gauntlet is several miles of a 7 percent grade on I- 70 in Colorado that tops out at over 11,000 feet. Years ago I pulled 3000 pounds with a 1999 4-banger Tacoma over it and could not keep it at 30mph.