Hi - I posted this one the Escapee FB page and was advised to post it here. Thank you!
We've just purchased a 2021 34' Montana High Country 295RL (14,300 lb. GVWR) and a 2021 7.3L Ford F-250 (10,000 lb. GVWR with 14,700 lb. towing capacity) and have been checking all the numbers again and getting conflicting results and lots of unanswered questions. Based on one calculator, with our factory-supplied numbers, we're over 121 lbs. on the GCVWR.
What we can't figure out is the likelihood of us actually being overweight on the road. As everyone says, water is heavy and you don't travel with a full tank, but we do want the option of boondocking and might sometimes need to travel with water, so should we be factoring a full tank into our fifth wheel's GVWR?
Also unclear is whether the fifth wheel can ever safely be over its GVWR, even parked. Is passenger weight part of the "carrying capacity" (3,065 lb. in our model), or is carrying capacity only what is being hauled down the road? Do we need to leave 300 lb. "free" for passengers while camping? If so, and that weight transfers to the truck during travel days, that might bring us under weight for towing.
We're also having trouble calculating the hitch/pin weight. Keystone says the hitch weight is 2,300 lb., but we're assuming that is based on the shipping weight and will go up if we're fully loaded. That seems to be about 20% of the unloaded shipping weight of 11,235 lb., so should we expect the hitch weight to be 20% of the GVWR (about 2,860 lb.) when fully loaded?
We've read dozens of articles, used every calculator and app we can find, and just become more confused. We thought this 3/4-ton truck and "lightweight" Montana High Country combo would work based on our prior research, but are scrambling now to make sure that's 100% right before we have the hitch mount installed in the truck this week.
Thank you for any help/opinions you can provide!
