Towing capacities aren't realistic, completely unachievable

[backwater83]

New to this forum, but looking for advice. My truck is a 2014 F350 SRW. Stated fifth wheel capacity is 15,900. I'm looking to buy a 39 foot 5er that weighs in at 14,400 with a pin weight of 2900. No way I can tow that because my cargo capacity is 3113. Once I put me and a bucket of chicken in the cab, I'm over weight. Pisses me off. I saw that Ford increased their super duty towing capacities on their 18-19 models.

The listed fifth wheel towing on the '19 F350 is 21,000. Problem solved. Its only gonna cost me 70 thousand dollars to get a truck that can tow the 5'er I want. I went to the dealer and looked at the door sticker on the '19. Guess what the cargo capacity is... 3200 pounds. What the holy hell! That's the same as I have now!! the '19 wont pull the camper either.

So I did some research. There isn't a 5th wheel out there over 14,000 lbs that has a tongue weight less than 2800 pounds. There is NO WAY the '19 truck with a listed 5th wheel cap can tow anywhere near the stated 21,000 pounds. ****, why not give it a 50k tow rating? 21,000 is just a meaningless arbitrary number that you'll never EVER be able to tow and stay in your weight rating!

I DO NOT want to buy a DRW truck. I put 50k miles on per year without towing, so yeah, it's a daily driver.

This is serious false advertising.

What do I do here? I'm trying to do things right but I feel like I'm going to have to tow overloaded just like the 70 percent of other people out there who I laugh at for towing WAY too much weight.

[MikeRP]

I think that towing with a SRW heightens your awareness about safety. I think about capacity numbers,,speed, assured clear distance, tpms, equipment condition and the like. If a DRW makes you feel like hey I got it - then in the end the safety record between the two may in favor of the SRW.

Now I’m not sure I believe what I just wrote above but it’s a good thing for all to consider. In General I’m not sure that a 5th wheel is for a beginning RVer that has never towed anything. Also all of us need to drive our tow vehicle all the time like we we will when towing and that way it will be easier when you are towing heavy to have a safer less tense experience better instincts.

[laknox]

bid_time wrote:
rhagfo - Interesting observation. You sum up your first two paragraphs by saying, in essence, your first TV towed it fine with no issues. Then go on to say your second TV tows it better. I suspect if you moved up to a class 8 it would tow it even better. But you didn't move up to a 8, so you drew a line at a DRW. Maybe some people are ok with drawing the line at "tows it fine with no issues".

Personally, I've drawn the line on the size and weight of my FIFTH WHEEL! At just under 32', I'm about 2' beyond my target length, but I =reduced= my GVW by 860 lbs, while gaining 3' of length, 2 slides and 18" of height. Yeah, I lost a lot of CCC, but we never travel really heavy, so it's not a huge worry. While I'd certainly like a newer truck and, if I do get one, it'll be a 3500 SRW, I don't =need= one that big. Main reason is that I also tow a 21k GVW GN trailer on occasion. Didn't stop me from taking the GN to our ranch N of Bakersfield to pick up a small tractor, weighing in ~4,500 lbs. Total weight was ~9k lbs. My '02 2500HD handled it nicely.

Lyle

[goducks10]

When I was a kid we had a 16' Aloha that was towed with a 66 Ford Custom 500 289 3 sp auto.
The local gas station welded a hitch on the car. That was back when you had full service gas stations and no lawyers.
Amazing how times have changed.

[laknox]

memtb wrote:
Yes!!! Times have indeed changed! I was telling my wife of this thread. She told me about her first home (1st marriage). Her father in law towed a 8x 42 (yes pretty small) mobile home ( late 50’s early ‘60’s) with all furnishings from Ft. Pierre, SD. to Kemmerer, Wy. with a 3/4 ton Chevy ( don’t know if he had an equalizing hitch )......About 700 miles (Pre-interstate). Must have had better trucks and tires back then.....or better drivers! 😉

One of my mom's aunt and uncle towed a 30' Airstream with Buick cars for decades. When they quit putting big blocks in them, he switch to a Suburban with a 454. It was a gutless POS and he sold the truck and trailer for a MH. Drove that for another 10-15 years but hated having to tow a small car behind it. Had that until he dropped dead one day at the diner eating breakfast, in his late 70's.

Lyle

[TXiceman]

Maybe you need to look at dual rear wheel trucks. They have lots more cargo capacity and handle much more pin weight.

A loaded 5er will have a pin weight around 20% of the trailer GVWR. Forget the trailer brochure weights.

Ken

[StirCrazy]

backwater83 wrote:
New to this forum, but looking for advice. My truck is a 2014 F350 SRW. Stated fifth wheel capacity is 15,900. I'm looking to buy a 39 foot 5er that weighs in at 14,400 with a pin weight of 2900. No way I can tow that because my cargo capacity is 3113.

have you scaled your truck? if you haven't you need to so you will know what payload capacity you have. I have the 11500 gvr 2014 f350 platinum and with a 38 fifth on it that has a pin weight of 2800lbs I still have 1000 lbs of weight left on the rear axels with me and the dog in the truck. people get hung up on payload, when they do the commercial they are talking about a 2wd single cab bla bla with the right options. my trailer is about 14300 loaded but I added more batteries up front and such which increased my hitch weight a bit. I never go buy payload but rather the truck axel limits as that is what is important as the payload is a advertising term and nothing more. my 1999 f250 was 300 lbs over the rear axel rating with this trailer, I did the one trip which it towed fantastic and then bought a 14 f350 so I wouldn't have any leagle things to worry about. I sugest filling up your fuel and scaling your axels empty then look at the door sticker and see how much actual payload you have, it may be more, it may be less.

Steve

[jaycocamprs]

JIMNLIN wrote:

We got a nice 2001 Ram 2500 CTD 5 speed manual with 3.55's, this was in 2010. Dodge/Ram only gave this truck a 8,800# GVWR,...
and
Well bought a 2016 Ram CTD, Aisin, 3.73's DRW the difference is night and day! No issues getting going, stopping. I thought the 2001 Ram was solid towing, .....

yeah I'm sure moving from a 2001 3/4 ton truck up to the new gen 2016 3500 DRW would be a huge improvement.

However a better comparo would be a 2016 3500 SRW truck vs 2016 3500 DRW.

I will say that going from a 2005 Chevy DRW to a 2018 Chevy DRW was not a big improvement in handling. It's better but it's new, all the parts are tight. The big jump was from the 2004 Chevy 2500HD to the 2005 Chevy DRW. We had a Jayflight 28.5RLS then with a 9200# GVWR and it was right there. Both trucks had plenty of payload capacity, but the 2500 was right at the GCVWR of 16K.
The big improvement with the 18 is the exhaust brake and the IBC, the near 50% boost the HP is nice also. I could have gone with a 3500 SRW with the 18, but would have been as close to GVWR as I was with the 05.
One of the local Chevy dealers told me that a 2500 would pull my trailer just fine, he didn't have any DRW trucks on the lot to sell.

[Cummins12V98]

I could have bagged/19.5 my 98 12V as it had 300 RWHP and built trans to haul the 18k DRV but that would have been plain STUPD!!! Told the wife ok on the bigger RV but had to have a DRW to tow it and so it was!

[Lantley]

Cummins12V98 wrote:
rhagfo was smart getting a Dually because he is in
But there are some that admit they should have gotten plenty of truck in the first place, instead of just enough!!!

Careful now you are going to tread on thin ice with that plenty of truck talk suggesting,;) this is when you offend some.
I believe a large fiver requires a dually if you plan to travel without limitations. I agree a couple of trips to the local state park does not require a dually. However if you plan for inter state travel having "plenty of truck is a good idea".
Some cry foul at that suggestion and start the weight police finger pointing. But when advising newbies buying plenty of truck up front is sound advice.

[Cummins12V98]

rhagfo was smart getting a Dually because he is in the full time mode now and his better half will be soon saying like mine did "honey can we get a bigger RV" ???

He is covered to tow most any RV made today within SAE axle and tow ratings. Most people simply add BandAids and cross their fingers.

But there are some that admit they should have gotten plenty of truck in the first place, instead of just enough!!!

[wilber1]

What you can tow and what you can carry are two different things which aren’t always compatible.

[rhagfo]

MFL wrote:

JIMNLIN wrote:

We got a nice 2001 Ram 2500 CTD 5 speed manual with 3.55's, this was in 2010. Dodge/Ram only gave this truck a 8,800# GVWR,...
and
Well bought a 2016 Ram CTD, Aisin, 3.73's DRW the difference is night and day! No issues getting going, stopping. I thought the 2001 Ram was solid towing, .....

yeah I'm sure moving from a 2001 3/4 ton truck up to the new gen 2016 3500 DRW would be a huge improvement.

However a better comparo would be a 2016 3500 SRW truck vs 2016 3500 DRW.

Jim makes a very good point, as to comparison of models. While the old 2001 2500 Russ used, was basically a 2001 one ton, it would not even be close to a 2016 Ram 3500 SRW, in stability, or performance. Russ has moved from an adequate truck, that worked for him, but likely not best choice for a beginner, towing a heavy FW, to a much improved 16 DRW. I'm sure at some point, being a full-timer he will get a bigger FW, and already has the DRW to haul it.

Jerry

^^^^^^ Exactly! ^^^^^^^^

[rhagfo]

JIMNLIN wrote:

We got a nice 2001 Ram 2500 CTD 5 speed manual with 3.55's, this was in 2010. Dodge/Ram only gave this truck a 8,800# GVWR,...
and
Well bought a 2016 Ram CTD, Aisin, 3.73's DRW the difference is night and day! No issues getting going, stopping. I thought the 2001 Ram was solid towing, .....

yeah I'm sure moving from a 2001 3/4 ton truck up to the new gen 2016 3500 DRW would be a huge improvement.

However a better comparo would be a 2016 3500 SRW truck vs 2016 3500 DRW.

I could have gotten a SRW 3500 with a 12,300# GVWR, BUT I might have been close to to GVWR once done with it also!
So no Yellow Payload sticker on the 2001, but loaded with DW, dog me and ready to hit the road we scaled 7,800# leaving only 1,000# of "Payload". Well add a 2,700# pin and we are 1,700# over GVWR.
So I looked at a Tradesman a while back that had right at 4,000# of Payload pretty good.
While I also felt that the main difference between a 2500 and 3500 SRW was the numbers on the VIN and Payload sticker, and maybe base tires. Looking at that I figured that getting a newer 3500 SRW was a lateral move for handling, so felt the logical choice was a DRW 3500.
Now the 3500 DRW we got is a Laramie with a Yellow sticker payload of 5,411#.

Well guess what once I had the hitch, in bed tool box and stuff loaded in the truck and hit the scales we weighed in at 9,950# on a GVWR of 14,000# so only 4,050# left, and we had sucked up 1,361# of payload before adding the 5er pin!! Well if I had that Tradesman with 4,000# of payload, 4,000# - 1,361# = 2,639#!! Well I would have been over GVWR with our 2,700# pin. Our 5er doesn't have a huge basement and is only 32' so even easy to max a 3500 SRW.

This is something overlooked so many times when newbies start looking at MAX tow and Payload (if they look). Just because you have a Payload of say 3,000# doesn't mean you can carry a 5er with a pin of 3,000#.

If involved in an accident at fault OR NOT, there is ALWAYS the chance of a lawsuit. There are a lot of hungry lawyers out there. It is much easier to defend a package within all "The Numbers" than one that exceeds any of them.

Like I stated before, I agree there is little difference between a 2500 and 3500 SRW, if the poster had the TV already would state what worked for me, but would never recommend others doing it.

Many of the regulars have stated watching weights and common sense should be your guide. That statement is great, but with manufacture ratings for 2500's with a MAX tow rating of 17,000#, that becomes the ONLY number they look at so lets put a 17,000# 5er on a Option Loaded TV, with much less available payload than the MAX rating of the stripper model with a 3,000# pin, and now not only are you exceeding the TV GVWR, but also likely rear axle GAWR, and possibly the tire rating.

[MFL]

JIMNLIN wrote:

We got a nice 2001 Ram 2500 CTD 5 speed manual with 3.55's, this was in 2010. Dodge/Ram only gave this truck a 8,800# GVWR,...
and
Well bought a 2016 Ram CTD, Aisin, 3.73's DRW the difference is night and day! No issues getting going, stopping. I thought the 2001 Ram was solid towing, .....

yeah I'm sure moving from a 2001 3/4 ton truck up to the new gen 2016 3500 DRW would be a huge improvement.

However a better comparo would be a 2016 3500 SRW truck vs 2016 3500 DRW.

Jim makes a very good point, as to comparison of models. While the old 2001 2500 Russ used, was basically a 2001 one ton, it would not even be close to a 2016 Ram 3500 SRW, in stability, or performance. Russ has moved from an adequate truck, that worked for him, but likely not best choice for a beginner, towing a heavy FW, to a much improved 16 DRW. I'm sure at some point, being a full-timer he will get a bigger FW, and already has the DRW to haul it.

Jerry