How the ratings are read and checked

Every towing figure on this site is a row of a maker's own document for one model year, copied with its page, and every verdict of the checker compares your load with five limits: the trailer rating, the tongue share, the payload, the GVWR and the GCWR. 2,070 rows for 18 vehicles were read in October 2026; one script turns them into the table that every page and calculator uses.

The pages that rank for towing capacity belong to dealers and RV lots, who want your phone number, to magazines that print one "up to" figure per model, and to the makers themselves, who bury the full tables in PDF guides. This site copies every configuration row of those guides, with the model year and the page, and then checks your own trailer against the five limits that decide whether a tow is legal: trailer rating, tongue weight, payload, GVWR and GCWR. Nothing to sign up for, nothing for sale.

1. The documents

Ford: the RV and Trailer Towing Guide of each model year (Ford 2026 guide). Ford's server refused automated reading and its addresses now answer 404, so the guides were read on dated copies kept by the Internet Archive, and those copies are the links given. Chevrolet: the Trailering Guide of each model year, and for 2023 the trailering charts of the press site (Chevrolet 2026 guide). Ram and Jeep: the towing charts and specification sheets of the Stellantis media site. Kia: the specification pages of the Kia America newsroom. Toyota: the product information sheets (PDF) that the Toyota USA newsroom links from each model page; toyota.com and the press site refused automated reading, so the sheets were read in a browser on October 21, 2026, and the newsroom page that links each sheet is the address given, since the file opens only from it. Dealer pages, magazines, forums and window-sticker decoders were never used as a source.

2. Reading rules

A row is copied as printed: the configuration words, the conventional trailer rating, and the GCWR, GVWR, payload, curb or base weight and fifth-wheel or gooseneck ratings when the same table gives them. Nothing is interpolated. When a cell is blank the site leaves it blank and the checker asks for your own figure. When a maker prints two values for one cell, for instance a separate value for a trim series in a footnote, the row keeps the value of the main configuration and the note says which. Two identical rows are kept once.

3. The checks

The trailer must not weigh more than the rating of your row. The tongue must sit between 10 and 15% of the trailer, the range in Chevrolet's guide; Ford computes its tables with 10%. The tongue, the people, the cargo and the hitch hardware (75 lb by default, the figure Ram's charts assume) must fit within the payload. The same load plus the curb weight must fit within the GVWR, and the curb weight, the load and the trailer within the GCWR. Your door label wins over the maker's table for payload and GVWR: the certification label required by 49 CFR 567.4 and the placard of 49 CFR 571.110 describe your own vehicle with its options.

Ford and Chevrolet print a GCWR but no curb weight for each row. Their ratings are GCWR minus the curb weight of the configuration minus a 150 lb driver and a 150 lb passenger, so the checker recovers the curb weight from those three numbers and counts only the people beyond the two the rating assumes. Ram prints a base weight per row and counts 300 lb of passengers and 100 lb of options in its ratings. Jeep, Kia and Toyota print a curb weight, which the checker uses as it stands; among the Toyota sheets, only the Tundra and the 2023 Tacoma print a GCWR, so for the other Toyota rows the GCWR test stays open.

4. A worked example

Take the 2026 F-150 row rated 13,500 lb with a GCWR of 19,400 lb, a door label showing 1,700 lb of payload, a 9,000 lb trailer with 1,080 lb on the tongue, 600 lb of people and 250 lb of cargo. The trailer passes its rating, and the tongue is 12% of the trailer. The truck carries 2,005 lb against 1,700 lb of payload: 305 lb too much. The combination weighs 15,525 lb against a GCWR of 19,400 lb. The verdict is "over", and the heaviest trailer this load allows is 6,458 lb, set by the payload: the payload, not the 13,500 lb headline, decides.

5. Vehicles and years not covered

The 2027 Tundra has a newsroom page but no product information sheet yet, and the RAV4 plug-in hybrid sheet was not read, so neither is in the tables. Toyota prints some weights as ranges across grades; the row keeps the cautious end, the lowest GVWR and payload and the highest curb weight, and its note quotes the range. Model years before 2023 are covered only for the Telluride, whose newsroom pages remain online. Fifth-wheel and gooseneck ratings are copied for the Ford F-250 only; for the other pickups the site gives the conventional ratings.

6. Limits

• A rating applies to a vehicle "properly equipped", in the makers' words: the right hitch, cooling, tires and brake controller. The checker cannot see those parts.
• Ford asks to reduce GVW and GCW by 2% per 1,000 ft of elevation; the checker does not, so keep a margin in the mountains.
• State laws on trailer brakes, mirrors and speed differ and are not checked here.
• Nothing here is a safety inspection. The labels on your vehicle and on your hitch win over any page.

Corrections: contact page.