Need help narrowing down 5th wheel

Trying to stay at 45 could get tough, especially if you want new.
For a lower cost 5er check out kz their reviews are above average and their price point may be close to your target.

Will do, do you think 55 will be enough?

Look at used like a 2019 or 2020 model, a lot of folks bought RVs and are getting out of them. Start a search on RV trader, you may be able to find what you are looking for below budget, and 1-2 years old is just like new, and in some cases better since the original owner had all of the warranty issues taken care of :)

I will try that thanks for the input!

I would seriously consider prep-pandemic used. The quality has greatly suffered the past few years. A Forest River parts rep even pointed this out to me. If a manufacturers representative says they are selling junk, I would listen.

Do yourself a favor, take the wife to PPL Motorhomes at 59 and West Belt and look at used campers. Not just the 5th wheels but TTs as well. Ignore the smells, filth and floor plan. Pay close attention to the build quality of the units 5 years old or older. Keep in mind a lesser priced, entry level unit will look/feel cheaper than a high end unit. Look at materials used and how well, or not, they are constructed and how well it held up, or didn't.

Then go look at a new unit you would consider buying and pay close attention to the quality of materials and construction. As you walk around looking at it, think how well this would hold up compared to the used ones. What failed on the used ones and what didn't.

We have a well constructed 32ft 2013 KZ. It's held up well and still looks/feels like new inside with well constructed materials and a clean fit and finish.

I was at a KZ dealer buying a water heater switch and had time to look through their new units. I could not believe the shoddy constructed junk they were trying to sell. Cheap materials, poorly assembled. One had the king dinette upholstery busting at its seam. The fit and finish was horrible. It was like they handed a monkey a staple gun. And that's just what you can see

Yes, I have read articles of how bad the build quality has been especially during the pandemic.

I've had multiple people steer me towards KZ so I will definitely check them out.

2112 wrote:
Do yourself a favor, take the wife to PPL Motorhomes at 59 and West Belt and look at used campers. Not just the 5th wheels but TTs as well. Pay close attention to the build quality of the units 5 years old or older. Keep in mind a lesser priced, entry level unit will look/feel cheaper than a high end unit. Look at materials used and how well, or not, they are constructed and how well it held up, or didn't.

Great advice here, I forgot PPL was right in OP's neck of the woods. You might even find a unit that you'd be interested in owning.

We just bought a 2008 Heartland Big Country. It needs some updating, and we'll spend some time and money fixing it up, but it's well made.

Our Terry TT was also a 2008 model, and that was supposed to be the "new" Fleetwood, where they re-dedicated themselves to their legacy of quality from the 90's. Well, the recession got them right after we bought the unit and that rig turned out to be a giant POS over the 12 years we owned it.

We added every option they offered when we ordered that Terry new in 2008 and it stickered at just under $30k. This Big Country was just under $60k brand new. Heartland is still around, Fleetwood is not. I see that Big Country 5ers now start at $104k MSRP....I know nobody pays the MSRP but it's a way to compare apples-to-apples.

Also, a 28' RV is going to be really small once you shove 8 people in there. Mine seems small with just the two of us.

What will limit you on trailer weight is the rear axle GAWR on your truck. You need to load it for normal travel, passengers, cargo and full fuel and get the truck weighed.
GAWR - actual rear axle weight = maximum loaded trailer pin weight.

Do not use any sales literature for pin weight. Take the trailer GVWR (sticker on left front corner) and multiply by 0.22 (22%) to get an estimated loaded pin weight. It typically runs about 20% but can be as high as 25% of the trailer GVWR. A SRW truck will reach its rear axle weight limit long before it will reach the advertised maximum towing rating.

Now that you have an idea of how much trailer you can tow and carry in the bed, I would look for gently used 2- to 5-year-old used trailers. These will have the factory bugs pretty well worked out of them.

Putting 8 people in a 35-foot trailer will get pretty tight. Our 40 foot 5we is set up for cocktails for 6, dinner for 4 and sleeps 2.

For reference, our 5er weighs about 19,200# and the pin weight is 4100#. So, for estimating, if you get a 5er that has a GVWR of 16,000#, expect a pin weight of 3200# to 3520# when fully loaded.

The main thing is to not buy too much trailer for your truck.

Ken

BurbMan wrote:
Look at used like a 2019 or 2020 model, a lot of folks bought RVs and are getting out of them. Start a search on RV trader, you may be able to find what you are looking for below budget, and 1-2 years old is just like new, and in some cases better since the original owner had all of the warranty issues taken care of :)

Don't forget to search RVT, as well. Their search engine is =far= superior to Trader's, with many fewer false positives. Only downside is that Trader is still the 600 lb gorilla as far as postings.

Make sure you use their advanced search tools to filter down to an exact model, unless you want to do a more general search.

Another useful tool that I've used is called SearchTempest (www.searchtempest.com) that searches ALL Craigslist listings in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, as well as evil-bay and Amazon. Depending on what you're looking for, it's possible that it will return a huge load of irrelevant hits, but you can pare it down by using "-x -y -z", etc., to reduce the number of hits. Personally, I open =all= tabs at once and just close them as I look at them.

Lyle