P-pod for dry camping?

Of course you have to get sufficient weight on the tounge of your trailer. After a rpod sway survey, I recommend a minimum of 11% if actual trailer weight for that.

Toyota limits it's hitch weights to 10% of trailer weight so no you can't add 200 lbs to the tongue. Some vehicles alliw an increase if you use a wdh, check the towing section of your manual.

Staying under that limitation is very important in any vehicle but especially in a unibody vehicle. Unless of course you like very expensive frame repairs. You don't know what receiver loads the frame is actually engineered for, Toyota won't provide you with proprietary data like that. I know my Highlander is good for 500 lbs, so I limit myself to that. That turns out to be the critical limiting spec for my use case.

As for staying within specs, I think we all agree with that here, as a minimum. Some want to see more safety factor than that, that's fine too.

But myself and others here are not going to be convinced by hand waving debate. You would need to go to the scales fully loaded and actually weigh your axles, trailer, tongue, and combined rig.

Of course, you don't need to convince us of anything, the only person who can require you to weigh is your friendly highway patrol officer. Just don't expect us to agree with you on that decision.

Nope, mine says the same.

You are not understanding my point. I am talking about max hitch weight, which is 350 lbs on you vehicle, correct?

You stated that you wanted to increase your tongue weight by about 200 lbs above it's current value of around 280 IIRC. That you can't do. I can.

Originally posted by MarkW Dude your going both ways here.. You're either with factory spec's or your not.  I'm really not.  If I were having trouble with the current van as a TV (even though it was within specs), my solution wouldn't be to trade in the van on a crossover that was about the same size, weight, and power of the van but had a 5000# rating (and then -- hey why not? -- load another 800# into the trailer because now there's a safety margin).  Instead the focus will be on getting the trailer dialed in on the balance.  During our first long trip, with the anti-sway cranked down, it was quite OK, not scary (despite, 25mph winds, steep grades in the Appalachians, and lots of trucks through multi-lane urban zones).  But I'd like it to feel more solid with the anti-sway loosened up.  And it shouldn't be a problem getting a couple of hundred lbs more of tongue weight by loading some more stuff in the pass-thru or on/under the 'v-berth in the bow' just as I've done at times with the sailboat).  We've got a ton of space in the CVWR.  The CVWR is is 8900# as compared to a total of about 7400# of the combined dry weight.  So we have flexibility to carry the gear in the TV.  Which is what we did on our initial trip.  Bikes, inflatable kayak, cooler, luggage all were in the TV.  We loaded next to nothing into the trailer that wasn't there when we signed the deal and handed over the check (and we unloaded the water).   Bottom line for me (as I've said) -- stay within specs, balance the trailer.  Consider upgrading the TV only if you can't balance within specs (or if your TV is overheating or a complete snail on long grades).

Well, now that we're getting some actual spec numbers all we need is the real world weights to compare them to....

FWD vehicles are not really designed to be tow vehicles. Sooner or later, this will become obvious.