Who has a Kodiak 300BHSL? What's your tow vehicle?

DarylSue wrote:

FireLieutenant72 wrote:

TheColoradoan wrote:
If the limits are within the manufactures specifications what's the issue? Is it a "my stick is bigger than your stick," argument? I understand safety, that's why manufactures set limits which I'm within. I'm not opposed to upgrading to a bigger truck but the argument of sending out a boy to do a mans job doesn't make much sense if the "boy" is capable according to the manufacture. I appreciate your feedback but if its bei g towed within the limits I don't see much a valid argument to upgrade at this point...

WELL PUT! This argument about half tons not being able to pull anything bigger than a lawn trailer drives me up the wall. I pull mine just fine.

exactly!

again....dont underestimate the 1/2 tons set up correctly.

A lot of interesting stuff to consider. We have the Kodiak 279RBSL. Empty, it weighs 5600lbs. Tongue weight is estimated at ~700 lbs. I figure our max additional load on the trailer is 1,000 lbs. At that point our tongue weight should be 825 lbs. The tongue weight of this trailer computes to a very nice 12%.

Our TV is a 2013 Ford F150 with the Econoboost V6. The TV is rated to pull ~10,000 lbs. The combined weight is well inside the limits. In practice, we have towed 6 times so far this year, all of the trips requiring crossing at least 2 mountain passes. There have been no problems and even to me, an inexperienced tow driver, it feels effortless to tow the Kodiak. We bought the truck before we even considered owning a RV. If I knew that I would be towing, I might have gotten a HD (F250,350?) truck. But the truth is that the combination we have is fine and fun.

One other consideration (this will really upset the *power* people) is that the limits set by the TV manufacturer is not the maximum safe limit for the vehicle. It is probably 80% of that number since it is good engineering to leave a margin for safety. This is not to say that anyone should exceed the limits on your truck's sticker...just that being close to the limits does not necessarily spell doom to you and your TT.

Since we use the truck every day and we get about 18mpg without towing (9.5 mpg towing the TT), I am not sure it would make sense to get even less economy just for the sake of leaving a bigger margin.

By my calculation, we are at 70% of rated pull and about the same for weight. That feels efficient to me. And from our experience, even on 6% - 8% grades we experience no loss of power.

TheColoradoan wrote:
Just a quick update... I've towed the 300BHSL with my half ton about half a dozen times or so and it's done well however, I've decided to upgrade to a 2012 Ram 3500 Dually... I'm picking up the new truck tomorrow and will be doing my first run with the trailer back to storage so it will be fun to see the difference... The trailer kinda owns my baby 1/2 ton and I don't want to be in a sticky situation.

I didn't post in your original thread, but what you found is I think what many mis and thinking that as long as you are within GVWR and GCWR is O.K. IMO there is more to the story with three things that can have a tremendous effect on towing performance. They are wt of the TV and more importantly the ratio of TV to TT wt., the WB of the TV and the length of the trailer. In this case I think a 1/2 ton is lacking in wt and the length of the trailer was too long even for the WB of the TV which I believe was probably more than 145in. It's hard to consider of the varying combos of these three that make for better towing or even acceptable towing and this is what I consider the classic TAIL and DOG scenario. Like in my case my Van will weigh close to as much as any TT I can tow, but for me it's 138in WB puts me at about the limit I'm currently at for a 32'TT. What give me the edge is my TV weighs 2000+ to over 2500lbs more than the weight on the TT axles I while a some what short "DOG" my "DOG" has the heft to it to get the job done and make things pleasurable. Any longer trailer and I would want a heavy TV with at least a 145" WB and preferably the CC which is IIRC around 158".

Larry

2012 F350 SRW. Pulls fine, about 10-12 MPG Dependent on terrain, wind, lead in foot. Used to pull with a Tundra but GVWR worried me as I usually pack the bed full of stuff too. What sucked about the tundra was the 26 gallon tank. Although the Ford has a bigger tank, you really want the biggest tank possible if you're hauling this behemoth trailer.

I've been towing my 2013 Kodiak 300BHSL with our 2007 Expedition EL for the past year, and it's been just fine. It took a couple of short trips to dial the hitch in and to figure out how to distribute the cargo. But now, it tows very easily and will cruise at 65 mph with no issues or sway, even if it's windy.

Searching_Ut wrote:
Based on the rig we saw parked in the campground we were in last week, those Kodiaks must be pretty light, and extremely easy to tow. We had a camper nearby on the mirror lake highway in the Uintah Mountains of Utah that was using a Volkswagen Touareg to tow a Kodiak 263RLS. While I never went and talked to him, I overheard him telling another camper how much he liked the setup, and how well it towed behind his vehicle. I didn't look closely, but from the road as I walked by, it appeared he had a standard "Equalizer" brand hitch, and I must admit it didn't look overloaded when we watched him pull out.

Kodiaks are pretty light. Mine is 36' 11" and has a dry weight of about #7300 and GVW of #8500 however, I thought I could pull it without any issues with my Ram 1500 Max Tow and traveling on the highway w/ dual sway control and a decent WDH was still quite scary... My earlier post said I was going to go with a dually but I opted in getting a 2013 Ram 2500. I did my first test tow last night and wow... what a substantial difference....

With the 1/2 ton, the trailer pulled me all over the place and with the 2500 (rated at #17000) you could barely tell the trailer was there, no sway at all with the same setup...!

To make a long story short, I've seen a lot of people towing things they probably shouldn't be, but they are... My guess is they are the people that go out once a year and don't want to invest in the proper TV however, we camp just about every weekend and will be out for 3 months this winter so I had to make sure I had more then enough to handle my long, somewhat heavy trailer.

Just got back from a 300 mile round trip , I saw big trucks pulling big campers, and small trucks pulling big campers , I shook my head quite a few times as to the sizes of campers in relationship to the tow vehicle , The one that stands out the most was the ford explorer pulling a 28 ft toy hauler that passed me on 83 heading to md , I was running 65 mph with a V 10 excursion and a 30 ft sunset creek on flat road . But boy did he slow down going up the next hill ( I didnt even drop a gear going up )

Based on the rig we saw parked in the campground we were in last week, those Kodiaks must be pretty light, and extremely easy to tow. We had a camper nearby on the mirror lake highway in the Uintah Mountains of Utah that was using a Volkswagen Touareg to tow a Kodiak 263RLS. While I never went and talked to him, I overheard him telling another camper how much he liked the setup, and how well it towed behind his vehicle. I didn't look closely, but from the road as I walked by, it appeared he had a standard "Equalizer" brand hitch, and I must admit it didn't look overloaded when we watched him pull out.

Just a quick update... I've towed the 300BHSL with my half ton about half a dozen times or so and it's done well however, I've decided to upgrade to a 2012 Ram 3500 Dually... I'm picking up the new truck tomorrow and will be doing my first run with the trailer back to storage so it will be fun to see the difference... The trailer kinda owns my baby 1/2 ton and I don't want to be in a sticky situation.

We tow with an Excursion that my husband has made both some suspension and engine upgrades to.