Heres a story about a colleague, and his very recent towing experience.
Back in April, I was talking with him about 5th wheels and such, and our much anticipated upcoming trip. He mentioned he had just purchased and was going to be taking delivery of, the following week, his new Montana 5r (I don't recall the model). I congratulated him and said he was going to love it! I asked him what he has for a TV. He told me a 2015 GMC Denali diesel 4x4... I'm sure my look of
took him by surprise. We discussed weights and such. I explained to him my research regarding weights, GV/AWR's, and all the things I've learned and my experience with having had an undersized tow vehicle and the reasons I upgraded. He understood and said he would see how it goes. I did recommend to him going to a scale facility and weighing his truck, finding out what his payload limit was for his truck and how to generally calculate the pin weight of his 5r, so he would at least have an idea where he was, weight wise. Throughout the week, he would ask me different questions, and I could tell the gears were turning... we parted ways, and I wondered off and on over the weeks since, how his towing experience with his new 5r and his TV were going, but never got around to touching base with him.
Today, out of the blue, he sends me a picture of his BIG beautiful Montana hitched to a new TV... A Ford... dually!! with an attached text: I took your advice and got a dually. MUCH better than towing w/ my Denali. Thanks for all the info and help. Needless to say, I was taken aback... I humbly thanked him for updating me, and told him I had been wondering how things were going.
He replied on their first trip to San Diego and return, was sketchy at best. The Denali suspension was all over the place and made for a long and nervous trip there and back. He said this truck was night and day better, compared to the other.
I asked him if he ever had the chance to weigh the other truck while connected and he didn't, but he did weigh this setup. Dry weight of the truck 9220 (not sure if that included the ~150 hitch or not, or what cargo/passengers he may have had when weighed) rear axle 3980. The truck and trailer combined 23640, rear axle 7220, giving him a pin weight of 3240 (not sure if the hitch was on the dry truck or not), regardless, I'm confident he was overweight on his Denali by 1000 EASILY. Even he commented he was surprised how much more the pin weighed then the advertised 2810 (I don't know how much cargo he may have had when he weighed his new setup). He said he contemplated getting a SRW, but with the weights, he was happy he got a DRW. I again thanked him and challenged him to a tug-o-war with our trucks over an adult beverage
Moral of the story: Sometimes you may not know what effect/result down the road (pun intended) you might have with someone when casually discussing weights, TV's and their 5r/TT. In this case, my sharing the info I have learned (a lot from here) with him ahead of time at least planted a seed, which, after his very FIRST, first hand negative experience, caused him to re-evaluate his setup and change it for the better.
Hopefully it will help others too.