Nighduckman wrote:
My wife and I recently bought a Jayco Eagle HT 24.5 CKTS fifth wheel. After being somewhat taken in by the marketing and our Ford dealer, we bought a beefed-up F150 that, in the end, was overweight on GVR and the rear axle rating. For safety and out of an abundance of caution, after much research, we traded it in for an F250, gas engine, 2WD. We got the 4x2 instead of the 4x4 because it is a much better fit, height-wise, with our fiver and because we are not going to boondock and only camp in prepared campgrounds with decent roads. I understand we will likely get stuck once in a while, but, will have a tow strap and I understand we can usually count on a nice 4x4 owner to tow us out and/or we have GoodSam towing assistance. Again, we are not going to off road or seriously boondock. We won't be driving the rig in snow etc.
Having said all that, I am curious about the real-world experience of any others who have towed with 2WD. We are comfortable with our decision and know there will be tradeoffs over 4x4 like much lower resale and, potentially, getting stuck occasionally. But, all in all, mainly interested in what other 2WD towers have experienced. Thanks in advance.
Personally, I use 4wd several times a year. One, when we go to our annual boondocker. I don't =need= it to get it, but the road's rough enough that using 4lo makes getting in a lot easier. I also had to use it at a campground where I had to back up a slight incline on hard-packed dirt. Even with the weight of the rig on the rear axle, I started spinning. Dropped into 4wd and backed right in. I also use 4wd on dirt roads, especially when they're washboarded and I have no load. The back end will want to step out on both accel and decel on washboards, and having the front end engaged makes for a much smoother (relatively) ride. Same with towing. I use 4hi on the =maintained= dirt portion of the road into our 'docker site because, even with the FW on, the back wheels =will= bounce a bit. I simply won't have another truck without 4wd.
All this being said, I towed on the farm with 1/2t and 3/4t trucks for decades. Given that we had tractors that could unstick anything, 4wd wasn't really necessary, but it sure would have been nice for the times where you simply =had= to go into a dodgy situation and pray you didn't get stuck. I towed a large GN trailer with my old 3/4t and it would have been nice to have 4wd, especially in a field, but, again, having the tractors around made it unnecessary.
Lyle
