No wonder my truck tows like crap.
 

With all these towing threads I decided to look into my truck and boat combo a little more.

2002 Tige 22ir
Boat is 4,120 lbs according to tige.
Fuel 47 gallons= 300lbs
(Guessing) trailer 1,800lbs
(Guessing) Gear 500lbs
TOTAL is 6,720

Now my truck

2008 Silverado 1500 Crew Cab
6,600 towing capacity
normally me, my girlfriend, and two other people. Est. 550lbs

I just learned that if i had the 3.73 gears it would 7,600 towing capacity. i have 3.42.

How unsafe is this?

How good are your trailer brakes? Your transmission hates you for sure. If your not towing too long of distances you'll probably be ok. Doesn't help that its a Chevy either....lol. I'd say braking is the "dangerous" part. Maybe look into a trailer brake controller?

Well it is a double axel trailer with trailer brakes but I’m pretty sure they are not electronic. I know my truck has a wiring harness that is under the dash for an aftermarket brake controller but don’t the breaks have to be electronic to use that?

And I live in Palm desert so every where I go I have to drive 2-3hr to get there.

Do your surge brakes work well?

Probably not, I have nothing to compare it too though.

I just checked my truck weight and it is 5148 dry so with a full tank of gas and four people it would be around 5,900lbs.

My owners manul says that max total weight is 12,000lbs so 5,900+6,700= 12,600lbs I am over and sometimes i have five people in my truck with more gear.

Am i guessing right with the trailer and gear?

If its 2wd, for a couple hundred bucks you could get like 3.92 or so and be even better. You'll also need a power programer so you can adjust for the new gears.

Pretty simple fix.

the trailer is not 1800# closer to 1000#

add a tranny cooler also.

What he said.

If you have 4 wheel disc brakes and they are adjusted right the trailer should almost slow down the truck. Disc brakes are awesome. When I was selling Mastercrafts I would tow X45's with my expedition and it stopped fine. In fact I was more comfortable towing an X45 than an Elite V Centurion because those had crappy drum brakes that didn't work worth a crap. You could tell this easily by trying to backup without locking out the brakes. It was easy to overpower the drum brakes. If you tried it with the disc brakes you would lift the rear end of the truck in the air or slide the trailer backwards before you could overpower the brakes.

I have the tranny cooler from the factory.


To add to the problem. I'm getting new tires pretty soon and what comes stock are 245/70R17 and I am going to be leveling the front and getting 285/70R17. Just changing my gears to 3.73 wont do it for me would it?

I didnt know they made 3.92 and I thought that 4.10 were too much but let me know what you guys think?

what tires are you getting? bfg a/t seem to be the best. i had those, now have some michellin a/t i liked my bfg's more.

I really want the BFG A/t but Americas tire co wants like $1,200 for them. So i might ending up getting Bridgestone duelers revo 2.

i had BFG A/t on my old ford ranger and loved them

The extreme trailer that I have just has drum breaks on one of the axels. Not to mention they have buddy bearings and gush grease all the time. I hate those things.

I have a dual axel trailer with drum on one axel and it stops just fine. In fact i had some moron stop suddenly in front of me making me do an emergency stop and the trailer brakes engaged and even locked up electronic brakes or disc brakes wouldn't have done any better. I can definately feel the brakes on the trailer engaging and slowing down the carwhen I'm coming to a stop.
Also when I was looking at components for my trailer I asked the dealer about a lockout for my drum brakes and the dealer said that you don't need a lockout because drum brakes don't have as much braking power in reverse as they do when moving forward. I don't know if the dealer was lying but based on my experience it seems plausible. I do know that my parents MC with dual disc brakes will stop on a dime though.

ya but the bfg's last so darn long if you keep them inflated and rotate every oil change. good rubber costs. that sounds about right though b/c it's about 425 per on my rims which are 20". they came on the truck otherwise i would go smaller.

bfg AT's are junk. you have to keep them rotated constantly to keep them from wearing un-evenly. rotating them every 3K is such a pain. to each his own.

i have goodyear wrangler silent armor.

well you should rotate every oil change, along with an alignment. for m vehicle it tends to be about 5000 miles. to call them junk is to be uninformed. my michellin's have a better than the bfg's and ride a tad smoother, but pick up pebbles in non paved driveways which gets very annoying and they aren't brand new anymore. i live in the south where folks hunt and mud and haul boats of all sizes and 99% use bfg a/t for good reason.

Wow thats all the silverado can tow???? My little Nissan Titan "import" is rated to 10,000 lbs. I was a chevy man myself but I couldnt pass up the towing capacity on the Titan

6,600lbs is kind of sad isn't it for the 5.3 V8. I'm going to regear it but i just don't know what ratio to get if i buy the new tires that i want.

have 3.42 now with 245/70R17 and the tow rating is 6,600lbs

should i go with 3.73, 3.92, or 4.10 with the the new 285/70R17 (33") tires?

Like i said before if i had 3.73s with the stock tires the tow rating would be 7,600 I want a better tow rating but i don't want to overdo it because i drive on the freeway alot.

Is there some kind of calculator for this? lol

I had the same truck, except it had 3.73's. 24' Supra Gravity Games, probably more gear, more stereo, and heavier trailer. it sucked ass. Going up hills, it lost 20 mph. i never got double digit fuel economy while towing. I can recall a day when I took the boat and trailer back to Boatmate going through the mountains in Tennessee. The DIC said 1 mpg, I was barely doing 45mph, and was losing speed. The boat was unloaded and everything loose inside had been taken out to lighten the load for the long trip.

You guys keep talking about all these ratings and all you're doing is arm-chair quarterbacking. You don't know how well something will tow until you actually sit in the damn seat, and tow the damn boat. Then you'll know how safe or how well it tows. That's why most of us say you need a bigger truck to tow with, while the other guys say that's not needed. Keep reading Car and Driver, i'll do my own real world test.

most people have the 3.73 with the tow package. i run 285/55/20's w/ a 5.3L 4x4 and as stated above i have never had tranny temp issues when towing any distance. it doesn't tow like a dually, but it get's it done right. and i have towed my boat, with 7 people including myself in the truck, and 3 board bags on the roof for 8 hours. w/ 3 batteries and a 3some on the tower. 9.5 mpg

Preach it John.

uninformed is far from the truth. on top of the uneven wearing issues - those bfg at's fill up with mud quicker than heck.

99% use them? ha ha. there is no way that is true. what is your sample size? your 4 buddies? i know a TON of youngsters use them because of the "look cool, trendy" appeal, but they cake up extremely quick and are not very good at all for mud.

to each his own though. good luck with them.

no not my 4 buddies just gmc dealer owners, hunters, tire shops, wakeboarders, fisherman, etc.

i was just on a ford forum. it was a old but ford guys saying bfg's last longer than good year and have triple ply side walls which in some instances are better. a good tire is a good tire. i won't ever buy firestone after what happened, but a good rated tire will work for ya. gears is the big thing. unless you tow everyday nothing more than 3.73's. also was recommended to tow in tow/haul mode in 3rd gear to prevent all the shifting.

Does anyone have the 5.3L Chevy with 4.11s? just wondering how the highway driving is with that high a gear.

BFGs are the crappiest all terrain on the market. Yes I've owned them. Lucky to get 8000 miles before the wear gets bad.

I'm with Johnny. Don't talk till you towed with it.

I have a set of BFG AT KOs on my truck and have 30k miles on them with probably another 30-40k miles easily. I bought them at Costco so lifetime rotation and balancing are all included. Rotate them every 7500 - 8k miles. No uneven wear. Those with uneven wears, I'd bet that's due to alignment issue or under/over inflation.

Towed the boat, loaded the truck, full of junk and the entire family, never had any issues with the tires. They are also awesome in the snow.

You will drop mileage though because they are heavier than most AT tires.

I had the BFG all terrain's on my ford ranger and they were great. I almost had them for 50,000 miles before I sold the truck and they were still ok. I rotated them every 5,000 miles and they were great in sand, never took it in mud. I did a lot of freeway driving back and forth from college and it was my DD so I had a great experience with them. When I had my ranger on 15's they would cost me about 650 now with 17's they are like 1,100, kind of sucks. I am going for the cool factor but I just don’t want to spend that much now.

BTW - some people are probably mistakenly comparing the BFG Rugged Trail AT (OEM) against the after-market BFG AT KO. These are vastly different tires. The original BFG Rugged Trail tAT hat came on my truck lasted only 20k miles or so and they were definitely junk.

I had the BFG AT KO's.

Does any one have the nitto Tera grapplers? I was looking at these as well.

I have the Terra Grapplers on my 07.5 duramax and they work awesome in the sand, snow and mud. I only have 15k on them so I can't comment on the mileage yet. I have heard that the mileage is hit or miss with them and that rotating is the key to getting decent mileage. I think the newer ones offer a 50k mile warranty.

I'm embarrassed to ask this but how can I verify what my gear ratio is and what my towing capacity is. I have an 07 Sierra V8 which tows my packed 23 foot LSV with people riding just fine. I want to say I was told my truck had a towing capacity of 9000 lbs or something like that when I bought it. I'm not saying I'm gaining speed going up hills or anything, but it does the job.

Bu Coo. I still had my sticker but in the glove box there is a small sticker with a bunch of three letter/number abbreviations. That sticker can tell you everything about your truck. You can also take your Vin number to the dealer and they can print that up for you

It should be indicated on the rear axle some how as well.

there should be a metal tag on the rear diff cover with the code. I had a F150 to tow with but it was in the same boat (no pun intended) So I got a diesel--big difference!! I also have the Yokohama AT's load range E and love em. The tag on the rear diff will usually have a code with the lubrication requirements and the gearing stamped in, along with the sizing/splines.