We have been searching for a new TT for over a year and at first we were overwhelmed with the diversity of questions we had about trailers and tow vehicles, and while you will get some fan boys, this is truly a great forum to answer your questions.
You tow vehicle probably has a #1820 payload, the dry hitch weight and hitch itself will probably consume half of that. Add in your passenger's weight and you will see that you need to load the trailer with an eye towards weight in the front of the trailer.
Does your truck have the 3.92 gears, if so it will tow it comfortably but if you have the 3.21 it will shift gears much more. The average 3.21 equipped Ram 1500 has a towing capacity of around #8,500 whereas the 3.92 jumps to around #11,400. I would never put a #10,000 trailer behind a half ton truck, it just means you will have a more relaxing trip towing a trailer of this weight with the deeper reduction.
At first we were drawn in by the Grand Design advertising, and they do use some nicer looking materials inside. But their fit and finish was about on par with the others, and if you check you will find they have about as many dissatisfied customers as any other brand, primarily water leaks and poor dealer support as I recall. The best thing you can have is a good dealer, for example not Camping World.
We have done quite a bit of research and looked at quite a few trailers. To us, some of the Forest River products look to be better thought out than many of the others and their build quality is at least comparable to as well. That may be why one of their brands finally unseated Jayco as the largest selling brand last year. Americans talk to each other and word of mouth is good advertising.
In my opinion none of the trailers in this price range are significantly better than the others and a good dealer would be a primary concern.
