Can I Tow This With My Truck?

I'll tell you the same thing a friend of mine told me years ago, shoulda bought a 3/4 ton in the first place. and he was so right. I did buy a 3/4 ton and it tows so much better than the 1/2 ton ever did.

Lan.N wrote:
My wife and I are making some changes in our lives trying to inch ever closer to our dream of traveling around the U.S.

If this has been your dream why did you buy a 1/2 ton truck?

You can buy a bigger truck now or a bigger truck in a few years but the bottom line is you won't be happy towing a 32' trailer with a 1/2 ton.

You'll be maxed out with that combo IMO, just going by the numbers. Will you get down road with it? Sure.. How you feel while towing it is really up to you and what your towing expectations are.

Pedal to the floor, winding the engine out over 4000 rpms, getting less than 10 mpg, feeling 32' of trailer behind you.. Are these conditions you expect, or will it concern you?

Sounds like you've never towed before, so these things can be daunting to the nerves the first time you experience it..

I got lucky in my youth, I was exposed to driving and towing stuff before I even had a drivers license... Then, I worked construction in my 20's and drove and towed all sorts of overloaded and interesting combos all over the country.

Anyway, you are going to get a lot of questions on "tow ratings" and "payload" and lots of other stuff about the vehicle.... None of that really matters until you know what it's like to tow in general.. I've seen people not be able to tow a simple utility trailer around the block without running it over every curb.. To those that towed way overloaded and did just fine.. ;)

Good luck with it all! It'll be quite the experience no matter what!

Mitch

What's the payload capacity of your truck? There's a sticker inside the driver door sill that says weight of cargo not to exceed ____ pounds.

What's the tongue weight on the trailer? Fully loaded, I bet the tongue weight will be closer to 1K pounds.

Without knowing more, 33' is a pretty long travel trailer for a 1/2 ton truck. That 6K pounds of dry weight will probably end up closer to 8K pounds by the time you're loaded up. And forget about the 11K advertised towing capacity. It's marketing BS.

I'd say you're right at the edge of what will be a comfortable towing experience for your truck. I consider anything over 30' to be a large TT and pushing into 3/4 ton truck territory. When we travel, I rarely see large TT's towed by 1/2 ton trucks, and I think there's a reason for that.