Hello all,

First of I have a 2002 Ex Limited 7.3L with the 6637 Air Filter and the Edge Evolution CTS tuner. & Stock suspension.

I am getting ready to retire from the Army this summer and relocate from Louisiana to Georgia and after a few years of light towing, I guess its time the Ex earns her keep...lol... I need some towing advice from all the experts here. I am in the process of purchasing a 28 foot V-nose enclosed cargo trailer. here is the link for the trailer- Wagonmaster Trailers : Inventory : ENCLOSED CAR TRAILERS : 28' SCREWLESS EXTERIOR - Wholesale Specail With the V-nose that brings it to 30 feet total. Its 102 inches wide and 6Ft 6in tall. I am planning on packing up(3 bedroom house with 2 car garage) ALL my worldly possessions into it. excluding the empty weight of the trailer I should be loading somewheres between 10,000 & 12,000lbs into it plus the weight of the trailer which i think is something like 3,000lbs. So I guess ballpark is 15,000lbs. Do yall think that this is exceeding the capabilities of my truck? Also what other mods would yall recommend to make the towing easier? Thanks in advance! any advice is GREATLY appreciated.

Joe

 

Joe, First let me offer my thanks for your service.
Now onto the towing questions. 15,000# is over the rated towing capacity of every EX. However several folks on this forum regularly pull as much if not more with no complaints (at least none they are sharing....). The main issue I see in your supplied scenario is the trailer has a 10,000# GVWR and using your cargo load number of 12,000# plus trailer weight of 3,000# for a loaded weight of 15,000# (50% OVER the GVWR) is asking for trouble. My personal experiences with enclosed car/cargo trailers is they are best not pushed up to their GVWRs. I have had wheel, lug, hub, spring shackle and frame damage issues with various trailers that were loaded to less than the GVWR. A lot of these trailers just aren't all that well (over) built. Other may chime in with better results but I would be very wary of going that far over the GVWR.
U-Haul may be a better solution.
Of course maybe your cargo weight estimate is way off too.....I have never had to move my entire household.

 

Joe, thanks for your service!

Don't overload the trailer, those axles are good for 10k. Bad things will happen over 10k. Not a matter of if anything will happen but when. When I moved 5 yrs ago from a similar house (3BR/2BA) house. I loaded a 26 ft enclosed twice, front to back and side to side. Although, maybe I may have more junk laying around?

 

Thank You Joe! God bless you and yours.

 

joe,
i to was a service man and did the same thing you did .. i moved all my house " 4bedroom with 3 kids" everything weighed was 7500lbs not including boxes and wrapping paper so add another 10% but here is a trick that i learned of and did that proved useful ... let the l military move you .. they will do it and pay for it plus they will unpack it as well. and you can still get paid the perdiem and extra pay just by putting some items in your excursion or small trailer.. me i weighed empty then i filled my truck with everything i could find that was heavy and put it in to the truck " and some sand bags say 600lbs worth" then weighed full so the military could get an idea of what im hualling so they could offset me some pay for moving partially myself " or what is called partial move". i then rented a uhaul dolly put my ford focus up on it filled my ford focus on dolly with the items i would need to have for my family for a month or two . and removed everything from my excursion back in to the house for the movers to move including my new sand bags filled with play sand for the kids new sand box at our new house . then threw the kids in the excursion and moved i made some extra $$$ and they moved my crap lol .. its not cheating its called getting what you are allowed to have ..

just my 2c
some may disagree but hey i was "allowed" to do so