My grandparents retired sometime around 1995 or so and were full-timers for until my grandma got cancer in 2009. The had a 36ft Jayco Designer Series 5th wheel the whole time which they pulled with their GMC Sierra 2500 gasser. My dad now uses the truck and had to pick up 3,500 lbs. of gravel with my brother. I was kind of making fun of him for the amount of sag on the truck. But it got me wondering about the payload so I checked it out an calculated that my grandparents were probably 200-500 over payload for the entire 14 years. Yearly trips to Arizona and then up to Montana. Trips all over Utah, 4-5 trips up and down the Pacific, at least 2 trips to South Carolina and no major problems or repairs. Listen to much to this site would have convinced people that at the very least they should have burned up the tranny by 40,000 miles, and it's a true miracle that they didn't wreck the rig on the freeway being so overloaded!
I weighed my rig and I have about 100 lbs to spare before I reach my GVWR, but if I had to throw another 300 in the bed, I wouldn't think twice about it. The best post on this site I ever read was the guy who said he wouldn't pull a trailer of any size or length with a 1/2 truck. LOL. If you don't feel confident enough to pull 6,000 lbs with a 1/2 half ton, I sure don't want you on the road pulling a 12,000 lb fiver with a dually!
