First off, for a family of 5, a trailer with a whopping.....ooops excuse me, marginally SMALL 2500 lbs of available payload is pushing limits of the trailer. I use to add upwards of 3000 lbs to my 24' TT with my family of 6 on board with gear, food, water> yeah water in the tank! NO BODY that I know of travels with NO water in the tanks. Yeah some even have to travel with some in the black and gray tanks!
Also not sure what the axel ratings of the trailer are. You may truthfully from a legal vs warranty statement have more gvwr for the trailer. ie axel wt plus 25-30% of that for hitch wt, may be more than 16500. If you have two 6K axels for 12K, plus 4500 for hitch wt getting you to 16500, you're in trouble from the get go with a family of 5!
Truck wise, GO BIG on the payload part, ALL have the HP.torque to move the trailer. That WILL NOT be the issue. PAYLOAD for both truck and trailer WILL be your issue.
I pulled at 15-16K gcwr with a sw 3500 crew cab that had a whopping 12K gcwr with kids in the truck for some 50-80K miles and a 24' TT. NO white knuckle experiences thank you very much! Now towing the same trailer with an 88 ext cab and a 14500 gcwr. Dang near did not make it up a few hills due to too tall of gearing. had the power, but the tranny and axel gears sucked! Total useless POJ twuck!
Marty
