[A/S] A'Weigh We Go Results

[Jack Canavera <jpcanavera@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,
I took the Safari for a RV safety clinic held by a
local RV dealer here in St. Louis on Saturday.  The
folks from A'Weigh We Go weighed my van hitched to the
Safari.  Then they weighed the Safari hitched to the
van, and finally the van unhitched.  Each wheel was
weighed by 4 separate drive on scales.

I discovered a couple of things that I didn't expect. 
First the Safari came in lighter than expected.  My
tag on the closet door shows 5510 lbs. unloaded
weight.  The weigh in showed the trailer at 5380 (full
LP, no water except water heater).  This surprised me
since the only standard options on the Safari were a
microwave/convection oven and a CD Player.  I have the
microwave and the cassette player.  I added non
standard options which was the spare tire and carrier,
power hitch, and 2 Fantistic Fans.  

The second surprise was the side to side weigh in of
the trailer axles.  I guessed that the
bath/fridge/slide out cabinet/water heater (left side)
would have been heavy side.  Instead it was the right
side, stove/sink/double wardrobe/furnace side. 
Difference was about 150 lbs.or so.  No clothes in the
closet.

The equalizing hitch when in use adds about 200 lbs to
the front wheels of the van and 400 to the rear
wheels.
Bottom line the Safari was well below is 7,200 lb GVW.
 The van, with full fuel tank and two passengers has
about 400 lbs. left in its GVW capacity when hitched
to the Safari. Not too bad since the only other things
I add to the van when we go out is a couple of lawn
chairs my outside Astroturf mats and a small cooler. 

Lots of good information was shared on tire life, air
pressure and how it affects tire life, cautions about
using the shiney black stuff on the sidewalls, and the
importance of placing your tires on wheel blocks
correctly when leveling the trailer from side to side.
 Other ideas were using metal valve stems on tires
with air pressures greater than 60psi, and using metal
caps with gaskets on valve stems.

The advent of the slide out seems to statisticly
affect the occurances of overload found in all RV's. 
Motorhomes seem to have the highest occurance of
inbalance in weight distribution.  Our speaker spoke
about how he weighed in his new motorhome after he
first picked it up.  It seems that on day 1 his left
front tire was carrying 250 lbs. more than its rated
capacity.  The manufacture upgraded his tires at no
charge.  Its obvious that weighing in on a standard
truck scale will not give you that important wheel
load.  

I left my specific weights on each trailer wheel at
home but if you are interested, I will post them.  

Other interesting information was that the
organization has weighed about 14,000 trailers in its
history.  Statisticlly about 65% are found to be
overloaded, either by tire capacity or GVW.  Another
interesting fact was that using standard radial
trailer tires, the load rating of the tire decreases
as you exceed 70 mph.  Apparently traveling at 75 mph
you lose 10% of the load rating.

Regards,

Jack