How the pro RV transporters tow

[mkirsch]

If you travel Interstate 90 through Ohio, PA, and NY you see a *LOT* of professional RV transporters moving units East this time of year. I paid close attention any time one passed by and tried to gather as much detail as I could.

1. They ALL run big diesel dually crew cab trucks. Big heavy diesel engine to counterbalance the tongue weight of the trailer, and that long wheelbase makes a great lever arm to maximize the effect. Plenty of "junk in the trunk" to keep the tail from wagging the dog too.

2. The ones headed West for another load all had heavy-duty aftermarket receivers installed on their trucks for maximum weight-carrying tongue capacity. No need for WD bars to prevent overloading the receiver.

3. The trailers they towed were generally far below the maximum capacity of the truck. Tail's not big enough to wag the dog.

4. The trailers they towed were almost always hitched severely nose-down. Good for stability, and not a big deal with an empty trailer on trip from factory to dealer, but hell on tires and springs over the long haul.

Oh, and they *DO* use WD bars in some instances, such as the big park models. Almost all the RV transporters I noticed were using WD shanks to tow with, even if they weren't using the bars on the smaller units.

These guys aren't fooling around with a midsize SUV on 4 P-rated tires with the stock receiver towing at 99% of its advertised factory tow rating. What they do is akin to towing a Radio Flyer wagon with a freight locomotive.

[TexasRedNeck]

A diesel mechanic once told me the worst thing about a Cummins Dodge was that the wonderful cummins engine had a Dodge wrapped around it.

At the end of the day the recreational tower balances many things, including creature comforts and style. The professional calculates all costs to the penny and by the mile. Style and comfort and even maximum power, don't really factor into it.

I like my Duramax for a number of reasons, but I don't worry about cost of operation like a professional does. If I were doing it for a living, I would look at my purchase very differently.

[chevor]

link to tires in sig

[greenenvy1]

Chevor, what brand tires you running now? I just replaced mine with a set of Firestone TransForce HTs and so far they seem to be wearing well.

[chevor]

I have pulled campers out of the factories for 3.5 years now and put over 500k miles on my 3/4 ton truck. Most people who haul Campers are retirees.
I would say its about 50/50 in the industry DRW/SRW. I do have an aftermarket hitch but the majority use stock. I carry multiple ball mount hitches to adjust for different trailer heights. Most I have seen just use one WDH, and never adjust it. Those that pull severely nose down I see as a lawsuit waiting to happen. A car could go right under the trailer.
Now my tires last over 100k miles. Compared to others in the industry who by the cheapest the can find.
Those you see speeding down the road are either beginners in the industry or their dealership employees. Vehicles wont last long driven like that. Not much money to be made driving fast. Most people who haul own the truck and are only payed for a successfully delivered non-damaged trailer.

[JIMNLIN]

Big Toe,
Your comment;
"What you are saying makes sense, but the highway patrol officers that I have encountered look at stickers" is some what true however I don't know of any jurisdiction that uses the trucks GVWR as the trucks actual gross weight or load on the axles/tires.
Yes they will and have used the steer and drive axle/tire load rating off the door tag. I've hauled commercially for over 11 years straight (a long time ago) and I am the recipient of a ticket for over drive axle/tire load limit on a 3500 DRW hauling gravel in OK and a order to re arrange my load of wheeled equipment on a 36' GN flatdeck to bring the drivers of my F350 DRW within door tag limits from a TXDOT officer.

I believe your from California. This email is by a RV.net member who asked California size and weights folks a question on a trucks GVWR and GCWR. I've snipped it as its long;

Q: “Many of the owners travel over their tow vehicle GVWR and /or
GCWR. Are there any state laws against this? Or does the owner just
take the risk if they wish?”
A: The California Vehicle Code (CVC) does not contain a law that
specifically limits the amount of weight a vehicle may tow based on the
towing vehicle GVWR or GCWR. There are, however, laws that limit the
amount a vehicle may tow based on other criteria.

Section 1085(d) of Title 13 California Code of Regulations prohibits
the loading of tires above the maximum load rating marked on the tire,
or if unmarked the maximum load rating as specified in the applicable
Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard, or in a publication furnished to
the public by the tire manufacturer. This would most likely happen in
the case of a pickup truck towing a large fifth wheel travel trailer, as
those types of trailers tend to transfer a larger portion of their
weight to the last axle of the towing unit causing that axle to exceed
the tire load limits.

Section 24002(a) CVC prohibits a vehicle or combination of vehicles
which is in an unsafe condition or which is not safely loaded and which
presents an immediate safety hazard from operating on the highway. This
section provides officers the authority to stop a vehicle or combination
of vehicles that is, in the officer’s opinion, unsafe to operate on
the highway. This section could be used to prohibit a driver from
continuing until the unsafe condition is fixed.
I trust this has adequately answered your questions. Should you desire
any further information, please contact Officer Ron Leimer, of my staff,
at (916) 445-1865.
Sincerely,

S. B. DOWLING, Captain
Commander
Commercial Vehicle Section"

Like I said its snipped for length.

[BigToe]

What you are saying makes sense, but the highway patrol officers that I have encountered look at stickers.

If your tag trailer sticker says 10,001 GVWR or above, they issue citations.

If your fifth wheel or gooseneck sticker is 15,000 or above, they issue citations.

The only exceptions are if the driver has either a commercial class A, a non commercial class A, or an RV endorsement on a class C license, of which not even a highway patrol scales supervisor even knew about or heard of.

Enforcement on the side of the road is very much a judgment call entirely in the discretion of the officer in charge.

There are trailer builders and dealers who will build trailers around here with tandem 7k axles and frames beefy enough to handle 14K, and they will sticker that trailer for 9,999 GVWR so the purchaser can have an overbuilt mechanical safety factor without running afoul of the law.

I'm not debating your experience. I'm simply relating what I've encountered.

The safest bet, legally as well as mechanically, is to simply not exceed any limitation that the lowest rated capacity rating component of the system has.

The officer is ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS correct, and already knew more than I have ever learned in my entire life at the very instant of his birth several decades following mine.

[RinconVTR]

blt2ski wrote:
Some of you need to remember when it comes to actual wts on the road......it literally is "the weight on the road" the an LEO/CVEO worries about. Your door sticker is NOT a legal wt requirement as far as a wt cop is concerned sitting in a scale shack on the side of the road. The wt limits they care about, is how much damage you are doing to the road. If you are overloaded for those limits, then you get an overwt ticket. There is not generally speaking, a single rv trailer that is over wt per those laws! There are a few class a possibly a class C motor home that the owner feels it is ok to run down the road at 20,001-25K lbs on a 25K rated axel. BUT< the law is clear as a bell, max wt per axel is 20K! they WILL get an overwt ticket if they are weighed, and are over 20001 lbs on a given axel!

I've been pulled over in my dumptruck numerous times OVER the manufactures ratings. NOT ONCE have I gotten an overwt ticket!

Now if you want to disCUSS what happens in a civil court suit. ALL bets are off, as ANYTHING goes in a civil court! Look at someone wrong and you can be sued. But an LEO/CVEO have to be able to prove in black and white that you are in violation of a law. Being over a gcwr where there is no door sticker etc, can not be proven that an axel ratio makes you safer etc.

Laws are there to make it such you can get a ticket if your trailer moves more than 12-18" side to side. If pulled over, you have to correct the issue before being allowed to move the trailer/towed rig. This can be done by correcting an incorrect hitch wt, lowering a tongue. correcting the side to side balance of a trailer etc. OR, yes one can put an anti sway bar or equal on. BUT, MY ISSUE with this is you still have a trailer that wants to sway. So if a bar pops off, breaks or equal, you WILL HAVE an uncontrolled trailer behind you! BEtter to have a trailer that can tow straight etc without bars, then put them on as extra precaution!

So for those still thinking, that being over a manufactures rating is against the law per the folks with blue lights on there rigs. guess again! The wt laws as they are enforced, have been around since before autos! They've been around since horse paths, cart paths etc in the late 1700's to early 1800 in the USA. In Wa st where I am, I can find wt laws back to the mid to late 1800's that generally speaking, are still enforced as they were back then, but with todays wordings!

Marty

This should be a sticky all by itself. Spot on.

[blt2ski]

Some of you need to remember when it comes to actual wts on the road......it literally is "the weight on the road" the an LEO/CVEO worries about. Your door sticker is NOT a legal wt requirement as far as a wt cop is concerned sitting in a scale shack on the side of the road. The wt limits they care about, is how much damage you are doing to the road. If you are overloaded for those limits, then you get an overwt ticket. There is not generally speaking, a single rv trailer that is over wt per those laws! There are a few class a possibly a class C motor home that the owner feels it is ok to run down the road at 20,001-25K lbs on a 25K rated axel. BUT< the law is clear as a bell, max wt per axel is 20K! they WILL get an overwt ticket if they are weighed, and are over 20001 lbs on a given axel!

I've been pulled over in my dumptruck numerous times OVER the manufactures ratings. NOT ONCE have I gotten an overwt ticket!

Now if you want to disCUSS what happens in a civil court suit. ALL bets are off, as ANYTHING goes in a civil court! Look at someone wrong and you can be sued. But an LEO/CVEO have to be able to prove in black and white that you are in violation of a law. Being over a gcwr where there is no door sticker etc, can not be proven that an axel ratio makes you safer etc.

Laws are there to make it such you can get a ticket if your trailer moves more than 12-18" side to side. If pulled over, you have to correct the issue before being allowed to move the trailer/towed rig. This can be done by correcting an incorrect hitch wt, lowering a tongue. correcting the side to side balance of a trailer etc. OR, yes one can put an anti sway bar or equal on. BUT, MY ISSUE with this is you still have a trailer that wants to sway. So if a bar pops off, breaks or equal, you WILL HAVE an uncontrolled trailer behind you! BEtter to have a trailer that can tow straight etc without bars, then put them on as extra precaution!

So for those still thinking, that being over a manufactures rating is against the law per the folks with blue lights on there rigs. guess again! The wt laws as they are enforced, have been around since before autos! They've been around since horse paths, cart paths etc in the late 1700's to early 1800 in the USA. In Wa st where I am, I can find wt laws back to the mid to late 1800's that generally speaking, are still enforced as they were back then, but with todays wordings!

Marty

[BigToe]

The headline news? I agree with you that it wouldn't quite make the headlines. However, somewhere in the middle of your metaphorical newspaper we'll call this thread, someone else mentioned that a professional RV tow couple, husband and wife, do not, and would not use weight distribution.

That could be significant news to some.

All of us who do tow, even if only a little bit, tend to have a greater appreciation and respect for professionals who tow for a living. So when a professional says they don't use weight distribution, that can create a convincing and powerful argument not to bother with all the spring bar baloney.

And that is the little article in this paper that got my attention.

I know a few "hot shots". I'm even a member of a "hot shot" forum. It may be headline news to some to find out that they are not paid enough to even AFFORD the "biggest and best" for the job. Many of these guys are just barely scraping by to buy the fuel. The real hard core drivers are running 800,000 miles on 10 year old Dodges with the seats taken out, sleepers on the back, box beds removed and sold off, and they're looking down at the ground every time they step out of the cab for fuel to find some spare change to buy that next set of tires. It's not easy living... especially since the DOT crackdown on light truck hauling and the steep ramp up in fuel prices.

And a bit more news... many a normal man looks for a way to justify buying that big dream dually Dodge, and some come to believe that delivering a few RV's now and then will vindicate the self indulgence, make the truck a write off, absolve him from the nosey neighbor inquisition asking what did he need a truck that big for when they are really just mad they can't park in front of his house anymore, and perhaps bring a few bucks home to appease the wife.

And a few who have the internal constitution and the financial backing to carry them through actually succeed in doing all of that. But most try it for a while, see how hard it is, and then evaporate back into normal life, albeit with a nice, new, big, and as yet unjustified gargantuan truck.

And I was surprised to learn how "serious" many of the hauler's rigs are... especially the dabblers. Simply 3/4 ton long beds single rear wheels. That's an every day run from the barn to the field truck on the horse ranch I worked at in high school. A good many retired RV'rs have way more serous haulers than RV delivery professionals. During the FEMA trailer wave from Elkhart to NOLA, even some heavy 1/2 tons were delivering the so called toxic box.

Anyway, it may seem like I'm arguing or disagreeing, but I'm not.

I agree. Family camping IS a different towing experience than professional RV delivery. And one very good reason for an RV delivery person to NOT use WD is because they can't mark or modify or drill a brand new trailer tongue to set a WD up. And it isn't realistic of efficient for them to go through for every trailer they deliver what we go through to optimize our specific trailer, when they might deliver 10 trailers in one day, from a dealership to a trade show in the next town.

But the reality is, they do not always run the biggest or best equipment. And on the flip side, I have an F-550 class 5 chassis cab, crew cab, long bed, dually, 19.5" tires, with the highest capacity Reese Titan Class V hitch made for it's sturdy frame. It's a lot more truck than most of the 3500's the pros use, at least in terms of weight and GVWR.

Few would argue that that is a fairly large TV, but I still use weight distribution for my largest trailer that calls for it, when any factor exceeds the weakest rating in the assemblage. And in my case, it is always the tongue weight, because of how the trailer gets loaded. I have 1,700 lb rated bars for that purpose.

[RinconVTR]

When transporting for a living, would you not get the biggest and the best for the job? These guys aren't using their trucks every day to bring the kids to soccer every day, shopping at the mall, or parking in the high rise structure downtown...they are serious haulers putting down thousands and thousands of interstate and highway miles.

Recreational Vehicle does not apply here, so of course you will see the best rigs and practices in use! Where's the headline news here?

[greenenvy1]

Since I am one of these guys doing this for a living I will add my two cents.
We are commercial vehicles and as such are subjected to Hours of Service regulations. The short version of this is that we can drive 11 hours / day in USA and 13 in Canada. Log books have to be maintained and up to date within this last 4 hours. If your log book are not up to date and accurate you can be put out of service (means you sit parked for a set number of hours, 12 is common).
You see primarily 3rd gen Dodge Cummins DRW because they are reliable, efficient on fuel, easier to repair than GM / Ford, and can be picked up relatively cheap. I do not know of any of the big, reputable outfits that will hire a driver using a gasser. I have seen a few in my travels though.
Personally I keep it below 65 mph as another poster pointed out fuel economy drops radically after that.
I was running a Reese WDH but I gave up as I really did not find that big of a difference. I run Firestone airbags with on board compressor and find the ride and handling very good. I do 95% of my own maintenance whether home or on the road.
FWIW I have put 132, 000 KMS on in the past 7 months and am on my second set of tires. I've done ball joints, wheel bearings, tie rod end, sway bar end links, 2 batteries, water pump, and a rad, many oil changes, 3 rear end flushes and due for another tranny flush.

[NMace]

Bigtoe,

You seem a very thoughtful intelligent guy, but the reasons to follow the guidelines for towing seem more commonsense, than legal.

But I freely admit your advice is what should be.

[BigToe]

NMace...

Good point. I don't have any facts to support my claim, or I guess as you point out, my fear.

I'd endeavor to find some facts to support what seemed to me to be a common sense logical argument, but I'm not an attorney, nor in an educational environment where I can afford full access to Lexis Nexus.

In the liability conscious environment that we have all seen slices of in the various paths of our lives in the last century, it is hard to imagine that there would not be some search for culpability if overloading is suspected.

Good point about how unrealistic it might be to sweep all the scattered pieces off of the roadway to weigh them. However, the presence of, or lack of, a weight distribution system on a hitch is easy enough to determine without such measures. And even an empty RV trailer weighs something, and if that something makes for a trailer tongue weight that is greater than the weight carrying capacity of the hitch, then that easily determinable fact presents enough primae facia evidence to further an investigation into negligence on the part of the person who chose to exceed the rating.

Whether that negligence is limited to only insurance claims, civil liability, or criminal negligence I suppose would depend on the facts and circumstances of the case. I too, would be very interested to find some precedents that provided a pattern of what courts have found in such cases. However, I suspect that most of these matters are settled out of court, between insurance companies.

It doesn't seem likely that even Lexis Nexus would have access to how much any given insured person had their premium raised, or had further coverage denied, and for what specific reason. But again, I don't have the access to know.

I wish I did though. It certainly would be informative for the entire RV community, as well as the Good Sam insurance company that owns this website. Perhaps a Good Sam representative would care to join in and comment about how they might regard an RV'r who ignored the hitch ratings?

I have one receiver hitch that is rated for 600 lbs tongue weight carrying. The same hitch also has a 1,500 lb. tongue weight rating using weight distribution. If I towed a trailer that had a 1,500 lb tongue weight with that hitch, but without weight distribution, then I would have exceeded the ratings of that hitch by a large margin. I've tested this on private property, and have seen the difference mechanically.

If I tested this on the public road, I cannot see how I could not be held liable for not exercising a reasonable and prudent standard of care, given that the label with the weight ratings is staring me in the face every time I hook up. Surely this concept has been tested in a court somewhere over the last 80 odd years?

[Passin_Thru]

PA is not allowed to do that anymore and neither are any toll roads.
Why are there 5 letters in a blue Ford logo?