Calculate Your Trailer Weights

We recommend weighing your trailer 3 separate times for peace of mind.
1. When you first purchase before any work has started, this way you will know exactly where you started.
2. Upon completion of your build, this will let you know actual tongue weight and if you need to load your trailer in any particular way to help balance during your travels.
3. Fully loaded and ready to hit the open road, this is especially true if you have a large trailer, or you are close to the tow capacity of your tow vehicle.

All weighing should be done without any type of weight distribution hitch connected. If you do have one disconnect it for initial weighing, you can reconnect and reweigh to see how it affects weight distribution.

Target Weight

Ideally you want your finished dry weight to be no more than 60% of your GVWR.
This will give you capacity for your equipment, water, and other things you pack in the trailer for your adventures.
Fully loaded you should try to be no more than 80% of GVWR, running at capacity for very long can bring unexpected consequences.



First things first, please visit CAT Scale and download their app to make weighing your trailer much simpler.



You will need some basic information from your trailer, locate your placard to determine the factory weights.
This will give you the dry weight as it came from the factory, this may or may not be 100% accurate.
We recommend weighing before you do any work on your trailer to get truly accurate weights.



Now it is time to visit your nearest CAT Scale. You can easily locate this using your map app on your phone or the weigh my truck app from CAT Scale.



Follow the instructions in the CAT Scale app and weigh your truck and trailer. Once you have this completed, drive off the scale, unhook your trailer someplace safe and out of everyone's way.
Drive your truck back onto the scale making sure your steer Axle is on the #1 position and your drive axle is on the #2 position.
Open the app again and once you input the scale number it should ask you if this is a reweigh or new weigh, select reweigh.



Once you have your weight information you can easily calculate information you should know about your trailer, such as tongue weight.

With this information you can also calculate how much weight your build added to your trailer upon completion, or even as you finish stages of your build. If you are using some heavier materials weighing at different stages might be a good idea that could help prevent issues down the road.

You might also want to weigh your setup fully loaded to see how tongue weight changes and how much weight you actually add to enjoy your adventures.

Try our live online form to Calculate Trailer Weight, Tongue Weight, and Build Weight.

Simply replace the numbers you see below with your numbers and hit the calculate button.

Calculate Trailer Weight, Tongue Weight, and Build Weight

Steer Axle, Truck & Trailer - SATT
Drive Axle, Truck & Trailer - DATT
Trailer Axle - TATT
Steer Axle, Truck Only - SATO
Drive Axle, Truck Only - DATO
Placard GVWR - PGVWR
Placard Cargo Limit - PCL
+ - * /	Calculate My Trailer Weight
Truck Weight with Trailer:
Truck Weight without Trailer:
Tongue Weight:
Tongue Weight Percentage:
Gross Weight:
Finished Dry Trailer Weight:
Original Trailer Weight:
Weight of Build: