Carbon 358 pin weight

[motorcyclekelly]

Has anyone measured the pin weight of a Carbon 358 Toy hauler? Factory specs say 3300 lbs, which seems high.

Thx

[notanlines]

I am assuming experience makes you believe that? If your rv is loaded close to max accepted rule of thumb will give you about 3800 pounds. Empty probably about 3100. Nope, I dont own a Carbon, but I have had toy haulers and these are fairly accurate numbers.
What makes you think it might be high? Welcome to the forum, by the way.

[JRTJH]

The "factory pin weight" is a "shipping condition weight estimate for the base trailer with no optional equipment. It's a weight that is required to meet NHTSA axle/pin/GVWR calculations" and has no real bearing on what the trailer pin actually weighs. When you consider that the intended purpose of a toy hauler is to add SIGNIFICANT weight (in the 358, that's up to 2500-3500 pounds) to the extreme rear of the trailer. That will alter the "ready to tow" pin weight by counterbalancing the "empty trailer pin weight"...

The "shipping pin weight" from Keystone included empty propane tanks, no battery, no optional equipment and nothing in any of the holding tanks with an empty garage. So, it's really more a "calculation of a base trailer pin weight" to be used in conjunction with the axle GAWR to reach a "GVWR for the model"... There's no accurate relationship between that 3305 pin weight and anything you'll see in a "real world trailer with optional equipment when the trailer is loaded to travel"....

Most people use a "high/low calculation" to get a ballpark pin weight. Most use 20% and 25% of GVWR and then add the weight of the hitch in the truck to reach a "best guess until you can actually tow across a CAT scale"...

For that trailer, assuming you'll load the garage to around 2000-2500 pounds, with a GVWR of 17,305, 20% is 3461 and 25% is 4326. If you add 150 pounds for a hitch, then you're looking at a pin weight of around 3600-4475 pounds for that trailer. Remember, it's a heavy, tandem axle toy hauler, not a "conventional fifth wheel with no garage"...

[wiredgeorge]

Fully loaded your 17K lb toy hauler will have a pin weight of almost 4K lbs. Once you add hitch and stuff added in your tow vehicle and passenger weight you are in dually range. Very few single rear wheel will have a payload capacity of almost 5K lbs. White/yellow placard in your door frame will tell you what your MAX payload capacity is. Best to get the toy hauler and your tow vehicle scaled at a weigh station if in doubt.

[rhagfo]

Originally Posted by wiredgeorge

Fully loaded your 17K lb toy hauler will have a pin weight of almost 4K lbs. Once you add hitch and stuff added in your tow vehicle and passenger weight you are in dually range. Very few single rear wheel will have a payload capacity of almost 5K lbs. White/yellow placard in your door frame will tell you what your MAX payload capacity is. Best to get the toy hauler and your tow vehicle scaled at a weigh station if in doubt.

Part of the pin weight depends on the toys hauled. Larger toys will offset some of the Gator the pin.
Not sure I would want to push a SRW truck that far.

[motorcyclekelly]

Thanks for the replies. Our local dealer had a used Carbon in stock, and I was wishful thinking, hoping it might be lighter weight than what was listed on the spec sheet. Alas, no matter how much we like the camper, it is still too heavy for our new tow vehicle.

For what it's worth, I got educated on pin weight vs GVWR on the tow vehicle when I took our current 5th wheel to an Escapee's Smart Weigh. 1600 lbs of pin weight with a 10,000 lb 5th wheel on a 2015 Chevy 2500HD should be a piece of cake, but we found the limiting factor was GVWR on the truck. In our case, we didn't go over max weight but only had 250 lbs margin. Again, thanks for the replies.