Like all of us, we worried about tongue weight, especially since we have tongue heavy trailer, the Intech Sol Horizon, so today we went to the CAT scales!
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We've been traveling with full water tanks to rear load the trailer some to keep the tongue weight down. I have a crane scale setup which I've covered before, so we know when we're legal (and safe!)
But I've never been to the CAT scales before, so today we did just that. The trailer was dry, unloaded, because I wanted a baseline. Here's what we got.
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Lets run some numbers...
Towing:
Steer - 2,240
Drive - 3,040
Trailer - 3,020
Gross - 8,500
Subaru Only:
Steer - 2,680
Drive - 2,240
Trailer - 0
Gross - 4,920
Total Trailer Weight = Gross Towing - Gross Not Towing = 8,500 - 4,920 = 3,580
Tongue Weight = Total Trailer Weight - Trailer Axle = 3,580 - 3,020 = 560
The trailer was completely emptied and had the following options: external kitchen, stove and fridge, power awning, power tongue jack, dual propane, probably 80% full. Fresh we empty, black was as empty as a flat campsite lets you. (We find raising the other side helps with emptying it, but we were trying to beat a storm with gusts to 45mph so we didn't do that.) Additons are the Hughes internal surge protector, 2 Sicrocco fans, and 206Ah LiFePO4 Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery Pack, which, if I recall, weighed about 10lbs more than the lead acid battery it replaced.
This is good! It is good because it means my driveway crane scale got 550lbs right before we drove to the CAT scale. So I can always measure tongue weight at home!
So the good news is that we can be safe and legal, the bad news is that we have to load carefully. The next step is to weigh all the stuff we took out of the trailer and make sure we don't exceed the trailer's 4,000lb weight limit. That's not impossible, but we need to leave all the cast iron cookware and my anvil collection at home.
We've been traveling with full water tanks to rear load the trailer some to keep the tongue weight down. I have a crane scale setup which I've covered before, so we know when we're legal (and safe!)
But I've never been to the CAT scales before, so today we did just that. The trailer was dry, unloaded, because I wanted a baseline. Here's what we got.
Lets run some numbers...
Towing:
Steer - 2,240
Drive - 3,040
Trailer - 3,020
Gross - 8,500
Subaru Only:
Steer - 2,680
Drive - 2,240
Trailer - 0
Gross - 4,920
Total Trailer Weight = Gross Towing - Gross Not Towing = 8,500 - 4,920 = 3,580
Tongue Weight = Total Trailer Weight - Trailer Axle = 3,580 - 3,020 = 560
The trailer was completely emptied and had the following options: external kitchen, stove and fridge, power awning, power tongue jack, dual propane, probably 80% full. Fresh we empty, black was as empty as a flat campsite lets you. (We find raising the other side helps with emptying it, but we were trying to beat a storm with gusts to 45mph so we didn't do that.) Additons are the Hughes internal surge protector, 2 Sicrocco fans, and 206Ah LiFePO4 Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery Pack, which, if I recall, weighed about 10lbs more than the lead acid battery it replaced.
This is good! It is good because it means my driveway crane scale got 550lbs right before we drove to the CAT scale. So I can always measure tongue weight at home!
So the good news is that we can be safe and legal, the bad news is that we have to load carefully. The next step is to weigh all the stuff we took out of the trailer and make sure we don't exceed the trailer's 4,000lb weight limit. That's not impossible, but we need to leave all the cast iron cookware and my anvil collection at home.
