anyone towing 12000 lb 5th wheel with 3/4 ton pick up

The previous owner of my F250 diesel towed a 14K loaded fifth-wheel to Florida and back (to Nova Scotia) every winter. Way over the rated load capacity on pin weight, but he loved it, thought it did great. For me, around 9K - 10K is where there is a dividing line between gasser and diesel. Above 9K my Dodge 2500 with Hemi and 3.73 gears kind of gives up - can barely maintain highway speed in 4th gear on easy hills, slow in third gear on harder hills, and 7.5 mpg. The Ford is in fifth gear 90% of the time, down-shifts to 4th once in a while on a hill and gets 11 mpg with the same load on the same road.

I think the deciding factor should be how far you actually plan to pull the trailer. A smaller truck would be fine for short trips but not anything across country.

Bipeflier wrote:
Our 5er weighs in about 12k as loaded.
Truck is 3/4 ton Duramax

I love it! If you want to pay for the fuel it will run 100 mph into a headwind!

Trailer brakes stop the trailer just fine so don't start with the "wait until someone pulls out in front of you".

JMHO YMMV

no problems coming back to iowa

That is 12K behind a 12Kgcwr rig, with 185hp, 285lbft of torque. A bit slow, but nothing to sneeze at. Did better than the previous truck with a 14500 gcwr, and a tbi 454, 235/385 specs.....

Now you have 6 forward gears, your overall low is lower than the above trucks, along with you have something in the mid 300 hp range, with mid 300 lb ft of torque! and your worried about performance?!?!?!?!? payload maybe, but power and gearing, have fun! I'd tow this trailer without thinking twice with a typical 9200 gvwr rig if I had the typical 3000 or so lbs of payload to axel capacities as the truck in the pic has! Even a 5w could be down. If you have a reg cab, you have some 1000+ lbs of payload more than this rig!

Marty

My Everest has a 14,000 lbs GVWR. It towed just fine with my 2009 Chevy 2500 CC except I had the Duramax, Bilstein shocks, and airbags. Towing felt real stable in heavy crosswinds. Haven't towed it yet with my new dually to tell you if there is any difference.

bass n bob wrote:
I have a 2013 GMC 3/4 ton pick up (6 liter with a 4.10 rear) and would like to purchase a new 5th wheel. Campers World is telling me I will be underpowered despite the fact that the truck is rated to tow 13,900 with a 3000 pin weight and the trailer I want has a dry weight of 12,000 with a pin weight of 2185. Appreciate the thoughts of anyone towing a combination similar to this. Thanks

My camper has an advertised dry weight of 11,800 pounds. My actual yellow sticker on the camper says it weighs 12,240 pounds (400 pounds more). My actual scaled, loaded and ready for travel weight is 13,800 pounds.

On this model, my pin weight is 2,300 pounds (16%) because it's a rear dual-slide bunkhouse.

Family loaded, stuff, hitch in and pin weight weighs about 3,500 pounds.

Doing the math - you're going to be over on one or more ratings (GVWR, at a minimum) with a 3/4-ton truck. Some people are willing to exceed GVWR as long as they're under axle + tire ratings. (I'm not- but I was lucky to be able to pick a truck based on the fifth wheels we were looking at.) Are you willing to exceed your ratings?

Our 5er weighs in about 12k as loaded.
Truck is 3/4 ton Duramax

I love it! If you want to pay for the fuel it will run 100 mph into a headwind!

Trailer brakes stop the trailer just fine so don't start with the "wait until someone pulls out in front of you".

JMHO YMMV

N2SNOW2 wrote:
I have a 07 Silverado 6.0 4;10 rear 4 door 4x4 all gas 19960 loaded iowa to texas no problems ......

Look at a map, Iowa to Texas is all downhill.

1st time I hear of a salesman telling the truth. Normally the typical answer is "That truck will handle anything on this lot".

I towed a 14,000 shop trailer with a srw 3500 powered by the 6.5 diesel, it was not fun. Not enough power and stopping took some planning, time was in short supply on some occasions. I definitely needed more truck but management said no.:(