What I saw at the campground.

[falconbrother]

Every Christmas we take two weeks to visit family at the coast and travel down the coast. This year we spent a few days in Myrtle Beach. We were cruzing around the campground and I saw at least two people pulling what I consider to be big fifth wheels with F-150s. Not being critical but, it did cause me to wonder. Most people were pulling the same sized fivers with diesel trucks. What's reasonable and what's overkill?

[DSteiner51]

falconbrother wrote:
Every Christmas we take two weeks to visit family at the coast and travel down the coast. This year we spent a few days in Myrtle Beach. We were cruzing around the campground and I saw at least two people pulling what I consider to be big fifth wheels with F-150s. Not being critical but, it did cause me to wonder. Most people were pulling the same sized fivers with diesel trucks. What's reasonable and what's overkill?

Don't know which campground you were at but I spent the week between Christmas and New Years there so one may have been mine.

[DSteiner51]

blt2ski wrote:

JIMNLIN wrote:
These 1/2 ton truck " look what I saw " threads are a hoot especially when a F150 is involved.

F150 GVWR run from 6xxx gvwr up to 8200 gvwr.
And 3xxx rawr on up to 4800 rawr.
And gvwr based payloads into the low 3xxx lb range.

We need a special forum for "look what I saw" threads that offers no weight numbers other than "must be" or a "good size" or its gotta' be overloaded just because.....with Marty as the mod.

Bad enough getting threads like this every few months, or multiple a month.......but to have ONE thread! heaven help me!

Oh for you RV.NET weight police! The REAL weight police in typically white pickups or vans, and in weigh stations on the interstate. DO NOT give one flying rats asset about the manufactures warranty weight rating inside you door! ALL they care about is you are under the engineer designed weight limits of the ROAD BED/BRIDGE DECK itself. That is the lessor of 500 lbs per inch width of tire or 20K per single axel, or 34K per tandem.
Using this example, MOST SW pickups have 4 10" tires, or 5000 lbs per tire or a total of 20K lbs they can put on the road before you are damaging the road bed.....THAT is ALL that a real weight cop worries about. Also as long as your paid for license is above what you weigh! Even if you are under the load limits, be above paid for limit, depending upon how much over. The LEO may just give you a 10day up your registered license weight by 2000 lbs as has happened to me a few times! That was 150% of my manufactures gvwr, and 130% of axel totals!
With that in mind. Ask yourself this......is the OPs example truly overweight per an LEO/CVEO? Oh and a ticket for being over weight is a no moving ticket, does not follow your driving record etc. Its an additional TAX to cover the damage you are doing to the road bed!
Now if the OPs example were to get field tested on its braking ability, and it fails....NOW THAT is a moving violation, follows the drivers record, and will get the vehicle red tagged, and OFF the road until the brakes are fixed! In this case, said F150 will probably not get fixed enough to make the grade. So the owner will have to show up with a better equiped tow rig!
More than one way to skin a cat at this game!

Marty

Oh, oh, the moderator will delete this post pronto or even delete this whole thread and ban this poster. :B:B:B

Since my Ranger rusted out while the engine, tranny, axles were still good contrary to what I was told here would happen I sold it. I now have a real 1/2 ton to pull my 5th wheel. BUT... after discovering a leak and rot I sold the 5th wheel and bought another. Now I am "one of those" again pulling a 2015 Cougar Lite 29 RET. Took it over the mountains on the way to South Carolina... Ho hum, no big deal up or down.

Trying to post pict of,what the OP was talking about but no luck.

Guess who got the image to work :B eheheheh!

[drittal]

If not being able to do the speed limit up a mtn pass was illegal many of our amazon orders would never show up, groceries would not make it to market, and fuel wouldn't make it to our gas stations. 500hp Semis crawling up passes at 30mph. Hell, when I hauled fuel just the hills would have me at 45 sometimes by the time I got to the top.

A lot of grain and beets are still hauled by gas powered trucks from the farm to the elevator maxed out at about 55.

The first Cummins dodge was 1989. PSD in 1994. How did we ever RV before that???

[spoon059]

Hannibal wrote:
We were rolling down I-10 a few years ago with cruise set on 65mph when along comes a Tundra towing a HT towable 5th wheel about 28-30 ft long. They eased on past us slow pokes and disappeared over the hills.

We go to Florida almost every February and often stay in the same campground. There are several people that tow 5ers with Tundras. One couple was from Indiana, I forget where the other guys were from (maybe one was Michigan...?). They towed every year, 1000 miles down and back, without any issues. I'm sure mileage was pretty poor, but they had plenty of power and no safety issues... They did it year after year too...

[spud1957]

Camper G wrote:

Hannibal wrote:
We were rolling down I-10 a few years ago with cruise set on 65mph when along comes a Tundra towing a HT towable 5th wheel about 28-30 ft long. They eased on past us slow pokes and disappeared over the hills.

Wow, that's crazy. It was probably wearibg ST trailer tires too. Those are the ones you you see rolled over on their side or half the side of the camper torn off because a tire overheated and blew out. Tires can fail for any reason, but I'm not going to press my luck by exceeding the speed rating. Ignorance is bliss for some folks.

Lots of new trailers and people that have replaced their tires have ST tires rated for 75MPH. As an example the latest Towmax STR II tires have an L speed rating, 75MPH.

I looked at a couple new trailers at an RV dealer and they had 75MPH tires on them and they weren't Towmax.

Not condoning driving 75 just providing updated ST tire info.

Towmax Tires

Now back to original programming.

[Camper_G]

Hannibal wrote:
We were rolling down I-10 a few years ago with cruise set on 65mph when along comes a Tundra towing a HT towable 5th wheel about 28-30 ft long. They eased on past us slow pokes and disappeared over the hills.

Wow, that's crazy. It was probably wearibg ST trailer tires too. Those are the ones you you see rolled over on their side or half the side of the camper torn off because a tire overheated and blew out. Tires can fail for any reason, but I'm not going to press my luck by exceeding the speed rating. Ignorance is bliss for some folks.

[Hannibal]

We were rolling down I-10 a few years ago with cruise set on 65mph when along comes a Tundra towing a HT towable 5th wheel about 28-30 ft long. They eased on past us slow pokes and disappeared over the hills.

[blt2ski]

bucky wrote:
Minimum speeds are great until you get creamed by somebody that isn't expecting a rusted out S10 running 40in the middle lane in a 75 mph zone. Legal yes, smart no.

If on a level, one will have problems. On a grade, they should be to the right, an leo will or should pull them over. While driving over a mtn pass yesterday, many rigs where in the 25-35 mph relm. granted in right lane of 4.
There was a time when max hp in pickups was 200hp, even pulling 5-6K lbs, one was not doing the speed limit on 2-3% grades. This still occurs!
WHat I do not like nor will agree with the towing specs, is slow speeds are generally speaking, BELOW many legal limits. BUT< folks will say, meets tow specs! what a croc!

marty

[bucky]

Minimum speeds are great until you get creamed by somebody that isn't expecting a rusted out S10 running 40in the middle lane in a 75 mph zone. Legal yes, smart no.

[blt2ski]

The_real_wild1 wrote:
I find it funny when some people say they have no problems towing. I wonder if the people towing up a hill in a 100km/h zone holding traffic back in their sacked out 1/2t doing 40 say they have no issues towing??

40 mph is legal in the state of washington! The new tow specs minimum standard is 40 mph for a typical DOT class 1 or 2 truck, that is any rig under 10K gvwr. It might include class 3, but over class 4 it is a minimum of 35 mph on a 5% grade in 100F temps with the AC on. 40 mph meets minimum spec!

Marty

[FishOnOne]

I see a lot of F150's towing fairly large conventional campers with an occasional 5th wheel. Didn't notice any drama, just a very capable truck doing it's job like it was designed to.

[The_real_wild1]

I find it funny when some people say they have no problems towing. I wonder if the people towing up a hill in a 100km/h zone holding traffic back in their sacked out 1/2t doing 40 say they have no issues towing??

[blt2ski]

JIMNLIN wrote:
These 1/2 ton truck " look what I saw " threads are a hoot especially when a F150 is involved.

F150 GVWR run from 6xxx gvwr up to 8200 gvwr.
And 3xxx rawr on up to 4800 rawr.
And gvwr based payloads into the low 3xxx lb range.

We need a special forum for "look what I saw" threads that offers no weight numbers other than "must be" or a "good size" or its gotta' be overloaded just because.....with Marty as the mod.

Bad enough getting threads like this every few months, or multiple a month.......but to have ONE thread! heaven help me!

Oh for you RV.NET weight police! The REAL weight police in typically white pickups or vans, and in weigh stations on the interstate. DO NOT give one flying rats asset about the manufactures warranty weight rating inside you door! ALL they care about is you are under the engineer designed weight limits of the ROAD BED/BRIDGE DECK itself. That is the lessor of 500 lbs per inch width of tire or 20K per single axel, or 34K per tandem.
Using this example, MOST SW pickups have 4 10" tires, or 5000 lbs per tire or a total of 20K lbs they can put on the road before you are damaging the road bed.....THAT is ALL that a real weight cop worries about. Also as long as your paid for license is above what you weigh! Even if you are under the load limits, be above paid for limit, depending upon how much over. The LEO may just give you a 10day up your registered license weight by 2000 lbs as has happened to me a few times! That was 150% of my manufactures gvwr, and 130% of axel totals!
With that in mind. Ask yourself this......is the OPs example truly overweight per an LEO/CVEO? Oh and a ticket for being over weight is a no moving ticket, does not follow your driving record etc. Its an additional TAX to cover the damage you are doing to the road bed!
Now if the OPs example were to get field tested on its braking ability, and it fails....NOW THAT is a moving violation, follows the drivers record, and will get the vehicle red tagged, and OFF the road until the brakes are fixed! In this case, said F150 will probably not get fixed enough to make the grade. So the owner will have to show up with a better equiped tow rig!
More than one way to skin a cat at this game!

Marty

[ShinerBock]

mkirsch wrote:
Hey you anti-weight-police types... I see most if not all of you are driving 2500 or 3500 class trucks... Put your money where your mouth is and get yourself a half ton.

I did. I had a 2011 F150 HD Ecoboost and it did a great job pulling my 10k lbs RV for three years. I towed back and forth to the coast, and up and over the Rockies(from Texas) twice with it. It had more than plenty of power to keep me at the posted speed and I had no issues braking while going down hill with the manual gear selection. I would still have that truck if I still had my 10k RV. However, I went up to a 13k RV, and as I said before, anything over 10k then I would just get a 3/4 ton diesel which is what I drive now.

I can't speak for the other makes, but I have plenty experience towing with modern F150 to know that it can safely tow 10k with no issues and plenty of power even in high altitudes.

[falconbrother]

JIMNLIN wrote:
These 1/2 ton truck " look what I saw " threads are a hoot especially when a F150 is involved.

F150 GVWR run from 6xxx gvwr up to 8200 gvwr.
And 3xxx rawr on up to 4800 rawr.
And gvwr based payloads into the low 3xxx lb range.

We need a special forum for "look what I saw" threads that offers no weight numbers other than "must be" or a "good size" or its gotta' be overloaded just because.....with Marty as the mod.

It's not customary to go rummage through another persons RV to get the specific numbers..in America..yet.