Moving to a 5th Wheel

FootSoldier wrote:
I've been reading and trying to get on top of all the important aspects of our consideration, and I've been trying to keep my head because some of the 5th wheel trailers out there are so beautiful and easy to fall in love with. LOL!

Think we've solved the storage problem and will be able to keep the unit here at the house. We're going to build a covered parking spot out 30' or so feet from the house.

I really want to be able to garage park the truck and that is going to limit me to a crew cab/short bed truck. As to weight rating, that's what I need to know that I understand correctly?

Right now, my leading contenders for a truck/trailer combination is posted at 12,995 lbs GVWR for the trailer and the truck is listed at 11,300 lbs GVWR, with a GCWR capacity of 27,500. If I am correctly understanding, the total GCW of the rig would be 24,295 and be 3,205 lbs under the max rating of the truck.

My question; is running at 89% of GVCW rating too close to the safety line?

I would greatly prefer to own the 3/4 ton truck and have the trailer be under 35', both of the leading contenders meet those preferences.

As for love, the KZ Durango 301RLT has really caught my eye. Not too big, not too fancy, not too expensive, and just plain beautiful in my eyes. LOL! Maybe I'm already hooked?

Combined GVWR is kind of a useless rating, what will matter for you is the payload capacity which you wont know exactly untill you have the truck and can scale it with a full tank of gas and the people normaly in the truck when you go camping. then you subtract this from the truck GVRW and you have how much more weight you can add to the truck overall. but you still need to get the axel ratings and what they weight also.

for example my numbers for my truck are

GVWR 11500lbs
front axels max 5600LBS
rear axels max 7000lbs

emptry measurements with full gas and me are

front 5093lbs
rear 3483lbs

measured with 5th hooked up full fresh water and gas and the crew

front 5093lbs
rear 6117lbs
trailer 9326 lbs

so my hitch weight was listed as 2100lbs but in reality it came in at 2634lbs but the important thing is my rear axel can still handle 883 lbs so I have room if I decive to put firewood or somthing else in there.

Steve