Ford versus Dodge truck for towing 40 foot 5th wheel

Yeh, I was doing that much with my 97 5.9 and it held up fine after a better clutch. Craig

RVUSA wrote:
I saw a commercial last night for the '14 ram. 30K pounds towing with 850 ft. lbs. of torque, wow. Surely thats not using the 5.9.

Hello, where have you been? RAM has been using the 6.7 Cummins starting with the 2007.5's. Not that the 5.9 cannot easily be made to that the at the rear wheels with a few mods, or as we call them bombs!

Chris

I saw a commercial last night for the '14 ram. 30K pounds towing with 850 ft. lbs. of torque, wow. Surely thats not using the 5.9.

Dually, IMO. We had a 10k 5er when I went from a srw to a drw and it was a dramatic improvement. Our current 15k 5er is equally as stable. A friend who pulls a medium size TT toy hauler just went from srw to drw and he says the same thing about how much improvement it made. I won't get into the brand war but my 2 CTDs have been awesome and even my 03 5.9 plays with 15k. Craig

Got to weigh in here. I would put my faith in a Cummins.

You know on other web sites they refer to the dully's as having training wheels!

bigcitypopo wrote:
this is going to get into a dodge/ford hate fest... I have had both trucks... in a work capacity hard use. by far ford warranty was the easiest to deal with. my cummins dodge felt like it was rattling apart after 50k miles... every little fit and finish product in it was falling apart...

I feel the ford is a better "finished" product. I am waiting to get another f350... just waiting to find the right deal. The 6.7 power plant is great.

you are always gonna run into someone who is gonna complain about either... especially one who hasn't had both of them...

Hehe. Nothing brings out the fan-boys like a "vs" thread. My personal favorites are the ones ready to pounce on any opportunity to point out perceived shortcomings of whatever it is THEY don't drive, real or not, especially when their only personal experience is "my son, brother, uncle, nephew, daughters boyfriends truck" etc etc.

I'd be perfectly fine to own a Cummins, I'm just not crazy about the Dodge wrapper. It doesn't trip my trigger. Same with the Chevy/GM. My favorite wrapper has been Ford for quite awhile, except for the Dark Period back there beginning in 1981 when they went to the new chunky body style and made me want to hurl. :) Somewhere along the line they started to get it right again and I forgave them.

Chevys I cant get around these days. I liked the older boxier body style better than whatever it is they're doing these days, but maybe they'll get that worked out like Ford did.

Dodge doesn't actually look "that" bad, but I'm not a fan of the dually and its bed length molded in fender doo-hickey thingy.

Of course that abomination that Ford just created with their new dually fender design is no better. No offense to those inclinded, but I like the old style wayyyy better. To me the new design looks like an aftermarket kit created for people looking to do a dually conversion.

As for which one is "better", I'd wager there probably isn't a tremendous amount of real world difference between the latest generation of Big 3, but I do know this much.

My last 3 trips to Disney in Florida I made an effort to drive around and count up what people were using for tow vehicles, discounting suvs, vans, and what-nots pulling pop ups and smaller TTs.

Fords every single time outnumbered Chevy/GM 2 to 1 and Dodge a solid 3or4 to 1.


I figure that campground is about as good a cross section as you're likely to find.

Ford my not be the "best" but it certainly appears to be the most popular.

this is going to get into a dodge/ford hate fest... I have had both trucks... in a work capacity hard use. by far ford warranty was the easiest to deal with. my cummins dodge felt like it was rattling apart after 50k miles... every little fit and finish product in it was falling apart...

I feel the ford is a better "finished" product. I am waiting to get another f350... just waiting to find the right deal. The 6.7 power plant is great.

you are always gonna run into someone who is gonna complain about either... especially one who hasn't had both of them...

I've been towing this 40'er for the past 7 years and it does quite well. Yes it is a SRW but it is a 1-ton which I am sure you will need. I do have ride rite air bags (20 lb of air) and I have upgraded tires this year to 19.5" Michelins.

Enjoy the road. We do.

bigdon68

emscopter wrote:
I have a 2009 F250 right now and we just purchased a 2012 40 foot Alpine fifth wheel. I am wondering if we should get a dually truck and if we should go with a Ford or Dodge. I have had real good luck with this Ford except we had to replace the transmission due to putting on a tuner which I was told made the transmission go out faster. My truck has 86,000 miles on it. We are looking at getting a fairly new used one. Any suggestions would greatly be appreciated.

Welcome to the forum. :)

Believe it or not we have some very savvy members that can help you. Others .......... well.....:R

When a question is asked DRW or a SRW for a 40' trailer and no actual weights are given this is pretty typical of how replies can go. Some are stuck with a 40' trailer has to have a one ton DRW or even 4500/5500 MDT size truck. They never look at the trailers actual weights.
Some are still stuck with truck numbers from the '90s/'00's era and some how can't seem to connect with the newer gen trucks much higher weight numbers.

You've received some good ideas and opinions and others that are ... out there.

Some trailer brands have owners forums. They usually can give you actual weight numbers for their combos or other good info that you may need or be interested in.