backwater83 wrote:
New to this forum, but looking for advice. My truck is a 2014 F350 SRW. Stated fifth wheel capacity is 15,900. I'm looking to buy a 39 foot 5er that weighs in at 14,400 with a pin weight of 2900. No way I can tow that because my cargo capacity is 3113. Once I put me and a bucket of chicken in the cab, I'm over weight. Pisses me off. I saw that Ford increased their super duty towing capacities on their 18-19 models.
The listed fifth wheel towing on the '19 F350 is 21,000. Problem solved. Its only gonna cost me 70 thousand dollars to get a truck that can tow the 5'er I want. I went to the dealer and looked at the door sticker on the '19. Guess what the cargo capacity is... 3200 pounds. What the holy hell! That's the same as I have now!! the '19 wont pull the camper either.
So I did some research. There isn't a 5th wheel out there over 14,000 lbs that has a tongue weight less than 2800 pounds. There is NO WAY the '19 truck with a listed 5th wheel cap can tow anywhere near the stated 21,000 pounds. ****, why not give it a 50k tow rating? 21,000 is just a meaningless arbitrary number that you'll never EVER be able to tow and stay in your weight rating!
I DO NOT want to buy a DRW truck. I put 50k miles on per year without towing, so yeah, it's a daily driver.
This is serious false advertising.
What do I do here? I'm trying to do things right but I feel like I'm going to have to tow overloaded just like the 70 percent of other people out there who I laugh at for towing WAY too much weight.
First off, RELAX! We =all= feel your pain as we're pretty much all in the same boat. Now, check your RAWR and your tire ratings. If you can keep your payload within your RAWR and tire ratings, go for it. Remember, these numbers are CYA driven to be pretty conservative. Hell, most 250/2500 trucks use the exact same components at their 1t brothers, but they short a leaf or 2 from the springs and put smaller brakes on them; otherwise the part #s are the same on most of the rest of the truck. I know that I was towing my old Komfort at about 1k over my combined GVW and had no problems in the 13 years I did so. My new KZ is > 800 lbs ligther, but I'm still just over my CGVW. In both cases, I was within my axle and tire ratings...easily, and never felt like the tail was wagging the dog.
As others have said, get some real-world #s from others who have the same FW as the one you're looking at and see how they work out for you.
Lyle
