Towing Tips from Lone Star

It is essential to know your towing capacity for your vehicle. If you try to tow more than your car will allow, you will do severe damage. You can find your vehicle's tow rating in the owner's manual. This amount is the weight of what you want to pull, including the trailer.

A vehicle's payload rating is the maximum amount of weight your vehicle can hold, i.e., cargo, whereas towing is the amount your car can "pull." If you are towing an item and hauling either cargo or passengers towing, you should never exceed the payload capacity.

The Gross Vehicle Weight Rating, also known as GVW, is the total acceptable weight when your vehicle is fully loaded, including passengers and payload. GVW includes the weight of your car, your passengers, and cargo weight combined.

The trail tongue weight is the total weight your trailer will push down on the vehicle's trailer hitch. Your trailer tongue weight should only be about 10% of your trailer's full load when towing with a conventional trailer but goes up to around 15% when using a fifth wheel or gooseneck style trailer hitch. These kinds of trailers will attach through the bed of your truck. A hitch is mounted in the bed of the car. When the trail tongue weight is too low, the trailer will sway from side to side. If the weight is too high, this will negatively affect your vehicle's towing dynamics.

The Gross Combined Weight Rating is the total amount of weight inside the towing vehicle and the trailer. Gross weight rating includes all cargo and passengers.

Lone Star Dodge Ram is here for you whether you are a towing newbie or a pro. The Lone Star Dodge Ram sales team will happily go through all the options with you. They will walk you through our inventory and go over each vehicle's tow rating. As always, you can see our entire inventory on our website.