intheburbs

Easy. Attach a 35-foot, 8600-lb trailer.

JCUMV

Yeah, that'll do it! I noticed the same thing with mine when I hooked up my boat a couple weeks ago!

SWHouston

Looks like you still may need to get the hitch down a couple more inches. The trailer needs to be level too.

intheburbs

The hitch is a 4" drop. I was concerned about going any lower, since I was already exceeding the rating of my receiver. This was a one-time tow. A friend of a friend owns the trailer, and is trying to sell it. He let me take it on my vacation as a test drive, as I was thinking about buying it.

I use a 10" drop hitch for my cargo trailer.

SWHouston

Umm, that would be pushing it a little if you go lower.

However, under circumstances like that (and as a general rule) when buying a component, I always step up the Load Rating to the next or even higher level. ie: If your max is 7000 lbs for your GTW, there are hitches (and other components) rated at 10,000 lbs and higher.

If you decide to go with a deeper drop, knowing that the extra strength of a higher poundage rated part would at least, be comforting.

intheburbs

I'm a geek - I research everything ad nauseum before I do anything.

I bought the 4" drop hitch specifically for this trailer. It's rated 17,000 lbs trailer weight and 2,550 lbs tongue weight. The trailer is about half those numbers.

I'm also very familiar with drop vs loss of weight rating, as the 10" drop hitch knocks almost 50% off my ratings.

I was especially aware of this because the trailer has no weight distribution setup. I know I was exceeding the receiver rating by quite a bit, but my engineer friends who work at GM assured me the receiver can handle it, in spite of what's on the sticker. But I also didn't want to go with any more of a drop, with such a heavy trailer.

I stopped at the scales while we were on this trip. The trailer has 1200 lbs of tongue weight, and took an additional 520 lbs off the front axle. So the total increase on the rear axle was over 1700 lbs. I was technically over on my RAWR (5620 vs a 5500 rating), but I know that the 10.5" ff axle is rated by AA to 10,000 lbs in DRW applications, and 6,084 in SRW pickup applications. The limiting factor is the tires, not the axle.

This was one of the main reasons I bought a 2500 Burb. When I was pushing the limits on my half ton, stuff broke (at the worst times, and with a very high repair cost). My '01 half-ton is on rear end #4. Push the limits on my 3/4 ton - it shrugs and winks at me.

suburbansr4me

Those look like some pretty aggressive tires. What are you running?

intheburbs

Goodyear Duratracs.

I get several people asking me every summer if I plan to take off my snow tires.

Very pleased with them.

hbomb9000

How does this tow? We just bought a 2011 2500 Burb and are going to be picking up the trailer soon. It will be right a 9k.

intheburbs

It towed just fine. Our trip covered about 1100 miles with some rolling hills. The truck was happy to chug along at 65 MPH. Mileage was around 7.5-8.

Now, that being said, with my family on board, I was exceeding several of the ratings of the truck.

First and foremost, the receiver is rated to 1000 lbs of tongue weight. And that's with weight distribution. The tongue weight of the trailer is about 1200 lbs. Typical tongue weight is about 13% of trailer weight. So you can expect a 9,000-lb trailer to be in that same range. If I was to be doing any more towing with this trailer, I'd be looking into a receiver upgrade.

Secondly, I was overweight on my rear axle rating, gross vehicle weight rating and gross combined weight rating. As I mentioned before, I could address all three by having my family travel in a separate vehicle.

Bottom line - the Suburban 2500 is indeed a towing beast, but its two weaknesses are the receiver and the payload rating.

Here's the weigh slip - unhitched on the left (with family and gear on board), hitched on the right (without weight distribution):