What Are The Upsides & Downsides To Driving A DRW Truck?

G'day Rick & Terry, Grt to hear a fellow Aussie Pickup Owner. What size is your Trailer? Covered or Flat bed Trailer? Got any photo's of your Truck, Camper & Trailer? Please? We are in Perth, Western Australia. Doug

Well everyone has their own ideas.
We personally have both SRW and DRW 3500 Chevy trucks. The parking is no challenge as the cabins are the same width, just the two humps in the rear view mirrors to watch. I find the dually easier to drive in most daily applications, both on and off the road. We do take both to the shops, just depends which has not been parked in by our children. Although my DW does prefer to drive the SRW. The rear tyres on the DRW last 2 years, the front and all 4 on the SRW last 1 year...no difference per year. Our SRW is cheaper to drive because it is a 5.7 the DRW is a 7.4, I find the dually easier to load as the legs are a very good centring gauge.
With the TC is on the dually wins hands down every time.
Just my opinion.

Takes maybe a day or two to get accustomed to the wider DRW....no biggie there.

I park pretty much anywhere I want

My other car is a Corvette C6. My 2011 Silverado 3500 HD DRW is actually quite Corvette-like in terms of handling, cornering and power. I enjoy driving it just about the same as the Corvette. It's a baaaadaaazz truck!!

I thought I'd simply use it for the TC, but its a blast to drive on its own.

Sheriffdoug wrote:
Sleepy, Great picture & commentary.

Just need to settle my weight issues, Eagle Cap 1160 is 4281 lb dry plus personals, fluids, groceries, etc, will be 6,000 lb, will that work on 2012 Ram 3500 diesel crew longbed, was going to add Super Spring 1700 model and upgrade shocks to Rancho 9000xl's.

What do you think? I think it will work, and yes it will be 700-100 lb overweight.

Knowing how regulators believe that everything should be rated at only half the actual capacity I personally think that your rig will be fine if it's half again as much as rated.

This is only an example:

Meaning if a truck is rated for a 4000 pound pay load it would probably haul up to 8000 pounds... of course you wouldn't want to do that...

But: If it were mine at the 4000 rating I personally wouldn't worry about an extra 2000 pounds.

And I think the the truck would haul the extra 2000 pounds without aftermarket devices.

Choosing where the weakest point in the truck is is the trick... is it really the springs? or the shocks, or the brakes, maybe the tires...

How will you decide what and why to beef up something.... after all about everyone that has added "stuff" to beef up their trucks were guessing... often very expensive guessing.

Thats why I started with independantly controlled air bags... I guessed! I knew that the independantly controlled air bags could be easily pumped up with a bicycle pump and be useful to balance the load.

It turns out I didn't need anything else... my truck handled the Lance 1161 easily (and it was the biggest TC made at the time)

BTW... how did I know that the airbags helped the trucks ability to haul the Lance 1161? I let the air out of the Air Bags... well down to about 5 pounds... they were assisting the spings... and the caper wallowed slightly on crooked, uneven roads.... I pumped them back up... the T/TC combo settled down.

It's been 10 years... and I still have the original Airbags... with anywhere from 85 psi to 100 psi in them. NO other aftermarket devices have been added.

When you figure out why and what you are going to add I hope you'll explain your decision with us.

Sleepy, Great picture & commentary.

Just need to settle my weight issues, Eagle Cap 1160 is 4281 lb dry plus personals, fluids, groceries, etc, will be 6,000 lb, will that work on 2012 Ram 3500 diesel crew longbed, was going to add Super Spring 1700 model and upgrade shocks to Rancho 9000xl's.

What do you think? I think it will work, and yes it will be 700-100 lb overweight.

I think that some folks wouldn't have followed us on this side road in the Avenue of the Giants... Northern California.



Going between these Redwood trees wasn't as hard as making the turn to the right before the camper quite cleared these two.

Sheriff Doug... Duallys Rock... you'll be comfortable in situations like this in no time.

Co-pilot Janet wasn't driving at this time... you can see here observing... well OK!, maybe training me :E

Sleepy

With a camper, there is no downside. Running empty you need to be aware you are a little wider, but I dive mine all the time in lots of traffic with no problems. Its the same sized truck as a 150, just has extra width at the rear fenders. Loaded, they will ride so much better than a SRW truck with any size camper.

After running this thread for a few days, there are many upsides to running a DRW.

I still love my 2011 Chev Silverado 4x4 Longbed supcab diesel LTZ, but am looking forward to new 2012 Ram 3500hd diesel crew lwb 4x4 Laramie, for new large Eagle Cap 1160 4300lb TC.

Many good suggestions & advise in this thread.

DRW & SRW, both have excellent applications, depending, what you want to do! Thank You.

Reading this long SRW versus DRW pickup thread has really been a hoot!

I'm an E450 (1 1/2 ton) DRW truck chassis 24 foot Class C owner. Most smaller Class C rigs are on the E350 (1 ton) DRW chassis, so my E450 chassis was an over-kill option for our short Class C with it's total weight of only about 11,800 lbs.. The duallies of the E450 are even 4.5 inches wider that those of the E350. I suspect that most one-ton dually pickups have a dually width of about only that of the Ford E350 cutaway van dually chassis - NOT the 4.5 inch wider width of the E450 cutaway van dually chassis.

What this means is that I have really learned to deal with "wideness" when driving our Class C - it's box at 101.5 inches is even wider than the rear duals' stance. It took me a couple of years to "get used to it", but now it's a piece of cake.

We park in two spots in shopping centers due to it's width to keep dings to a minimum, even though at 101.5 inches box width it still fits just inside the lines in a regular parking spot. We do drive through downtown San Francisco with it. We have taken it into downtown Cincinnati, too. It's ultra-stable on curves, canted roads, and in high side-winds due to it's rear dually width. We take if offroad in the desert, including rocky roads -> we just slow WAY DOWN when we do it. We carry pruning equipment along to prevent getting scratches on the sides or top. We even crawled along for 50 miles in the Oregon Outback once with no problems. One time we had an outside dual flat on the highway, then drove it about 5 miles very slowly on the inside tire. Even though the good Michelin tire was way overloaded doing this - it worked and got us to a tire repair shop. The temporarily overloaded tire went on to serve us many years after that.

I love the solid handling, secure feeling and "backup spare" that the duallies provide. I've never experienced it, but I suspect that the rock-in-between-the-duals may be an overblown concern. We've never experienced it ... however our rear dually wheel wells are steel lined anyway to prevent flying rock and shredding tire damage.

Even though our E450 cutaway van chassis has only 16 inch stock rims it's rear dual tires can be up to 235/85R16 in size (mine aren't that size), and in this size a Load Range E 235/85R16 tire is rated to carry up to 2778 lbs. each (at 80 PSI) when used in dual configuration. Hence, four of these at 80 PSI in the rear of a 1 ton dually pickup can handle 11,112 lbs. in just the rear alone. If dually pickups come normally stock with only 16 inch rims, I can't image any TC situation where four 235/85R16 tires at 80 PSI wouldn't be up to easily hauling the weight.

I wouldn't be afraid at all of going the dually route in a pickup. By the way, does a dually 1 ton pickup HAVE TO be a crew cab? Can't they be ordered with only an extended cab - or even a standard cab if desired, for use with a camper where you want the total length and turning radius to be smaller?

FWIW, our rear differential gearing is 4:58, so the V10 pulls up any highway grade at full speed at all altitudes (I've only had it to around 9500 feet) just fine as well as crawling along offroad at 5 MPH if needed. We turn about 2000-2100 RPM on the highway in OD in regular or TOW/HAUL tranny mode. At our total weight of 11,800 lbs., diesel is not needed. We go many places where diesel isn't readily available anyway, so gas provides more flexibility.

Sleepy,
I take my fold-up bike everywhere. First thing I do when we arrive after setting up is go for an explore around a town in the foldup bike to stretch
my legs. Wife gets some peace.
We are members of a Travel Trailer Club and go to different rural locations every month. There are not too many Truck Campers in Australia, so when in
an RV Park, we get plenty of interest.
Or we head down the south coast to our wine regions, Margaret River.
My wife is a social being, but I like a bit of solitude.
With the new Eagle Cap 1160, I am going to mount a Yamaha Trail Bike at the rear, for further exploring.
I use a generator via power cord away from the TC, for less noise, with a folding sound shield.
We both want more comforts & space, so as you say, less offroad, but still some
quiet scenic locations, as well.
I am into photography, in a big way, 5 Nikon SLR's, over 20 lenses, with other gear, need more storage space, so the 1160 will handle this.
Even have underwater camera gear!
I sometimes take a kayak, always a Boogie board and snorkelling equipment.