Long or short bed for 5th wheel towing?

I have a Ford short bed which is longer than the Megacabs, however I still use an autoslde hitch.
Other wise it is no worse than my long bed I used to have.

Age old question with no right or wrong answer. What do you prefer and to what lengths are you willing to go to achieve your goal?

The short bed, you might be able to use a extended pin box, or a automatic slide hitch, or both.

You would want a 1 ton truck to tow a fifth wheel, and from what I hear, the Mega cab is 3/4 ton with coil springs in the back (like a car or station wagon rear suspension) and is not really highly recommended for loads that might try to steer the rear of the truck into the corners.

When going downhill you will notice it most, where the trailer wants to not turn into the curve, and will make the rear seem like it is wiggling. . .

When pulling up a hill, the trailer will follow the leader, and there is no problems.

Good luck!

Fred.

I thought pickups only had 8' beds. And with a cab and chassis, one could get upwards of a 12' bed. They come shorter than this?!?! wow. why? pretty useless rig they would be!

marty

We have a Dodge Ram, Quad cab, short bed. We're towing a 34 foot Open Range. We DO have the sliding hitch, but, in all the towing we've done (this is our 3rd 5er), we've never had to let the hitch slide out. Take it easy, slowly around tight corners and try to avoid tight corners.

blt2ski..........our pick up (short bed - 6 1/2 feet) is NOT useless. We can get all the wood, pipes, etc, we needed to fix up our last s&b house. We also, while towing, stow things in the bed of the pickup. :) :)

We have truck in our signature - 3/4 ton short bed. Haved towed our 5th wheel for a year now and never had to activate the slide hitch.

We looked at the Ram Mega-cab in 2013 but the payload wasn't much better than the Chevy 2500 it would be replacing and we needed payload. I got the long bed Chevy dually, 5,000 pound payload, for my toy hauler. My previous Chevy 2500 was a short bed and it pulled our 37' 5th wheel with ease. Never had to use the slider. Just make sure you have enough truck for your trailer.

donn0128 wrote:
Age old question with no right or wrong answer. What do you prefer and to what lengths are you willing to go to achieve your goal?

Donn0128, way to brake in early with the only correct answer!!!

In the latest previous thread of this question, I iterated that an 8' bed is standard, anything less is short. Guess I'm getting old. I always thought a real pickup truck is 8'.
Seems today a 6 1/2' bed is considered standard, 8' long, less than 6 1/2', short.
Don't cut yourself 'short' without good reason.

I have pulled both of my 5ers with short beds. The truck i have now is a mega cab. Unless you want to make a 90 deg turn you will not have a problem. At least i haven't had any problems with it.