Weight surprised me! Tow vehicle & Trailer !

[Artemus Gordon]

I ventured to the Cat scales over the weekend to finally get my actual weights. My F450 without me, came in at "9427 lbs." complete with full tank of fuel and my Yamaha 3000iesb generator, inside its custom steel box, hitch etc. The 3750 with 1/2 tank water and fully loaded was lower than I had expected at 14,350 lbs. I feel better about knowing the true numbers. We will still do some trimming to improve MPG. I can't help but wonder, if the small basement of front living room units, help reduce weight. I can tell you that we have everything imaginable in the Montana, just figured we were a great deal heavier!

[DQDick]

Always good to know the actuals. We weigh with Smart Weigh every other year and make adjustments accordingly. Smart Weigh will give you the weight on each tire.

[JandC]

Your Montana weight is actually pretty light at 14,350 lbs loaded. The last time I was over the scales I ended up at 15,240 fully loaded with very little water in the fresh tank.

[WeBeFulltime]

Why did you not include yourself and any other passengers that are normally in the truck when towing? Good to know those weights but did you not get axle weights so you would have that information and calculate your pin weight?

[CWSWine]

I always like to double check my math and use this website. If you know you weight of your truck and truck plus 5er you can get all the info you need.

http://www.towingplanner.com/ActualW...WheelCatScales

[Irlpguy]

I agree with J&C your trailer weight seems low, I do not have a washer/dryer and my 3402RL weighed in at 15,255 (axle - 12,456 + 2799 pin weight)with no water in tanks.

When weighing I always weigh steering axle, drive axle unhitched but with myself and my wife and all that we will carry in the truck, then re-weigh same axles plus trailer axle hooked up. These are needed to determine your pin weight. I only concern myself with the GVWR of the truck and the GVWR of the trailer axles.

The website mentioned by CWSWine makes everything easy but I have just used plain old math and reach the same conclusion.

Would be interesting to know your pin weight.

[richfaa]

How often do you tow the Montana without you in the truck and your Montana weight is low. We are long timers our 13 3402 came in at 15,100 lb ourF350 full fuel myself and Helen Bird, hitch and everything in the truck ..Everything came in at 9012 Lbs.

It is good t o know your actual weigh and it usually is way more than you expect it to be. The first time we weighed our 06 3400, same truck we were 1000 lbs over GCWR....but it pulled it fine.

We did serious weight reductions on the 3400 and on the 3402 but we are still over GCWR.

[Artemus Gordon]

Well to answer the questions, I know how much I weigh, and actual weight of my wife with our two dogs...right down to the lb. The total adds another 605 lbs*. Since those are variable weights, they are easy to add into equation. I did not take everyone with me to the scales.. Lol. I too agree it seemed light, but again we don't full time, and as I stated, lack of basement space might have helped us be more frugal. With or without the factory ordered suspension upgrades installed on our truck, we have lots of room before its max weight is reached.

*Now keep this in mind, we have two big dogs...and my wife is very very light, as I have been instructed to state....!

[JandC]

I know many folks will go over the scales hooked up, then drop the trailer, go weigh the truck, then hook back up. I always found it more convenient to just drive over the scales at some point while getting fuel during a traveling day. Then within the next several days we always seemed to be camped with a mile or so of a truck stop with scales. I would just leave the truck loaded and scale it by itself.

I know I spend $20 by doing it this way instead of just $10.00. But to me it is worth it not having to drop my Montana in a truck stop parking lot and then hooking it back up again after weighing my truck. As far as weighing each tire I really never bought into that. My G614's can handle a little more weight even if it may not be distributed exactly evenly.

[mlh]

What is really needed is for Keystone to put these campers on a diet. If the HCs can be a ton or more lighter the Montenas can loose at least a thousand pounds.
Lynwood

[Artemus Gordon]

Keystone makes that RV. It's call Cougar!

[richfaa]

We weigh at rallies every couple of years. We will weigh at the FCRV rally In Oklahoma this summer once you get a good set of weights
you pretty much know were you are and how much you can vary. It is that first weigh in that is a throat clutcher you never think you weigh as much as you really do. The very first weigh in of our truck was 9215lbs we removed a bunch of "stuff" some of which we had no idea we had in the truck I think we removed 100lbs of tools we never used .We are now at 9012lbs.We are long timers so we do run heavy on the Montana. We try to purge every summer. We really need a newer truck to get the GCVW up but that is not going to happen.

[mlh]

I had a 2955 2001 model it weighed about 9600 pounds and every year the 2955s got a little heavy heavier. If they can make my 36 foot HC that weighs 9200 pounds they can make the Montanas that weigh less without backing up to the Cougar class unit. Not there is wrong with a Cougar but it not in the same class as the Montana.
Lynwood

[Dam Worker]

Some of the weight difference between HC and Montana is in different suspension, electric four way levelers instead of six way hydraulics and all cable run slides instead of just the bedroom slide. Frame might be a bit smaller also. At least that is what I remember and my memory can always be wrong.
I think they called it helium technology or something like that. The reason I was looking back then was that they were a wide body, I wish the Montana was a wide body. :-(

Tom Marty

[mlh]

Tom your memory is spot on.
Lynwood