2500HD duramax. What can it handle?
I have a 2009 GMC Sierra 2500HD Duramax EFI Live tuning, air intake, EGR delete. Wanting to buy a fifth wheel but unsure if my truck will handle it. Have a 35 ft bumper hitch currently. Looking at a H...
Forum Discussion
donn0128 wrote:
Too much trailer for the truck. You can PULL way more than you can LOAD.
Remember, approx 20% of a fivers LOADED weight is going to land directly over the rear axle of your truck. 12,9 empty (which is really meaningless) translates to approx 2600 pounds hitch weight. Now, no one will ever pull a "dry" trailer, so that number is toast. Depending on your truck configuration and passanger loading you will scale ready to travel around 7500 pounds. With a 9200 GVWR that leaves you with approx 1700 pounds of available payload. See the problem here?
X2 - but with a few modifications. First, the Duramax will pull a house off its foundation... but the can't put the weight of the house on the rear axle of the truck. Most fifth wheels loaded for extended travel end up with 23 - 25% of the trailer's GVWR on the pin. As mentioned, loading the truck with fuel, hitch, passnegers and "stuff" and then heading to the nearest certified scales to get the separate axle weights is the only way to determine your true payload capacity. One of the biggest safety concerns is the load capacity of the tires on the truck - that's a NEVER EXCEED number. I'm pretty sure that the trailer you're describing is way too much for the truck.
Rob
