07/31/2026
🚨GVWR is not how much you can haul.🚨
This comes up on the lot every week. Somebody sees 7K on the sticker of a utility trailer and figures that's seven thousand pounds of cargo. It isn't. That number is the trailer and the load together, at the most it's rated to weigh going down the road.
So the question to ask — of me or of anybody selling you a trailer — is what does the trailer itself weigh empty. Subtract that from the rating. What's left is what you can actually put on the deck.
Two more while you're at it. What's your truck rated to tow, and what's the ball and hitch on the back of it rated for. The trailer is usually not the weak link. The hitch is.
None of that is complicated, but nobody tells you, because a trailer is something most people buy once every ten years. Ask. If a salesman gets cagey about the empty weight, that tells you something too.
