Swaying and avoiding accidents. Help!

Well sir I guess this is where we differ. I had rather someone be aware that it has happened to someone else than to have no clue. Fully load their trailer only to have it piled up on some hill or worse yet on someone else's grill.

The only reason I had it weighed in the first place is because of concerns expressed on this board. Boy am I glad I did. I now know that the full sized truck was needed and that we should pack most if not all of our stuff in the truck.

It would be my guess that you are concerned that I am bad mouthing TM thus the reason for your outrage. I'm not. Would I buy another TM, you bet! But you can bet you last dollar that I will have it weighed before I take it because carting all that stuff from the truck to trailer and back again gets old.

Weight is an issue, and I;m not confident that the weight stickers reflect everything, even minor additions.  My 3225 is supposed to be a little over 3400 pounds when empty but when I weighed it, it weighed over 4,200  pounds loaded with stuff!  Since I wanted it to weigh less than 4,000, I took everything out of it, with the exception of the sheets, but all the food, cans, utensils, tools, small propane tanks for the little grills, etc., and it finally weight in at 3,980.  I have no ided to this day what could have made the unit so much heavier than the sticker, but it certainly made me wary of relying on the weight sticker for any future trailer.

Hey guys

I would love to know how much my 2003 2619 weighs fully loaded.  Where does one go to weight it?  I have seen many scales along major highways for Commercial trunks.  Do they allow you to use their scales?

I pull my TM with a Grand Cherokee that has a weight limit of 6500 lbs.  I use a weight distribution hitch and last summer drove cross country from Florida to Colorado, Utah, NM and Arizona with no problems, even going up high elevations (4.7 V8).  I did find that keeping the transmission out of overdrive did help alot when necessary and also saves your torque converter from continuous back and forth shifting......you may want to try this with your MiniVan

Good luck

George

[Bill]

Scales turn up in strange places.  The big scales you see on Interstate truck stops are meant to measure 100,000 pound trucks, and I have some reservations about their accuracy down in the 3,000 pound area, but others tell me they have had good luck.

In my town there is a scale at the dump - er, excuse me, landfill.  The idea is that if you drive in with a pickup truck of trash or construction debris, you weigh your truck on the way in, then unload your trash, then re-weigh your truck on the way out, and pay by the pound for the difference.

Other folks have found scales at coal distributors, sand and gravel plants, stockyard/cattleyards, and so forth.  I think that, at any of these places, if you drive into the yard and pull over to the side, then get out of your vehicle and go talk to the person on duty, you will find that he or she will be glad to help you.  Maybe for a fee, maybe free.

When you arrive at the scale, you should know what weight parameter you are going to check. You won't make a friend of the operator if you fiddle-futz around on his scale trying to decide what you are doing, while other customers wait.  For example, all I care about is the weight on the trailer wheels in the towing configuration, so I drive forward until the tow vehicle is entirely off the scale.  I then flag the operator to make the measurement, and then drive off the scale and out of the way.  In your situation, you might want to measure tongue weight, or gross trailer weight, or gross combined weight of the trailer and tow vehicle, or whatever - and that's all fine, but you'll get more co-operation from the operator if you know what you want before you drive onto his machine.

Weighing is a good idea.  As others have expressed, I was surprised at how much my TM weighed when ready to roll - that is, with the factory options, and with all my stuff.  I am still under the axle limit, but not by much.

Bill

[Denny_A]

Windbreaker,

Regarding my last reply, you wrote:  "It would be my guess that you are concerned that I am bad mouthing TM thus the reason for your outrage."

"Outrage" it was not. I said you may had been a little disengenuous (or - Not straightforward or candid) when you stated "Robin, I think your dealer was a little on the short side." then shared your 3500 lb weighing of the 2720. One may infer that comment to mean the buyer is being duped with weights PROVIDED BY TM. But the DOT regs require them to provide an accurate empty weight on  Weight placard attached to the trailer. If the dealer added hudreds of lbs undeclared weight after receiving the unit from the manufacturer, then the dealer would be at fault (legally) for not ammending  the "Trailer Weight Information" placard prior to sale.

When I challenged the comment (1st para), you went on to clarify your exchange with TM. I.e., they were mystified. Had you also supplied the rest of the story, then "straightforward and candid" criteria would have been satisfied.

Bottom line - I felt obligated to ensure that your original comment was not left to stand without dialog. If you took it as "outrage", that's your call.

Denny_A