3/4 ton or ONE Ton / 4x4 or 2x4/ Dual wheels or Single ? - RV-Dreams Community Forum

Starbird · RV-Dreams Community Member

3/4 ton or ONE Ton / 4x4 or 2x4/ Dual wheels or Single ?

53 Merc · RV-Dreams Family Member

Go dually. You will notice the towing capacity is less with a standard transmission. I do not know why, except some people tend to slip a clutch instead of engaging it fully. The Allison transmission is built like an anvil and does a great job shen retarding speed. Some people do not use a pac-brake with an Allison. To get the GVWR you are talking about, a 3500 is the only choice. Granted, the 3/4 has the same drive train, but the capacity is not there.

kwf904 · RV-Dreams Community Member

I wouldn't even consider anything less than a 3500 Dual wheel truck. A 5ver of that size is going to be HEAVY. I have a smaller 5ver (30ft) and I pull with a 3500 single real wheel. I would want the stability of the dual wheels if I were to go up to that size. As far a 2500 pulling more than a 3500, you need carrying capacity. A fifth wheel has approx. 20-25% of its weight on the pin. That's where the added capacity of a one ton comes in. That's my two cents worth.
Jim

The Bear II · RV-Dreams Family Member

Unless you plan on being offroad or in mud & snow a lot, I would forget about 4X4. Most folks I have spoken with only use the 4X4 about 5 to 10% of the miles they put on the truck and then it's usually to pull someone else out of a problem or recreational not towing the 5th wheel.

3ton, 4ton, 6ton and bigger military trucks all have dual wheels and they travel through mud, snow, sand ...etc. I've always been under the impression the more tread patch you can get on the ground the better traction you will have in the soft stuff. That's the reason offroaders lower tire pressure down to 10psi or less when offroading.

Turning radius has more to do with truck design and length than it does with DRW or SRW. My C-4500 longbed crew cab will out turn most 1/2 ton shortbed pickups. The reason- it has a 53% wheel cut when the front wheels are turned as far as they can go, left or right.

Dual rear wheels provide a more stable platform when towing a big heavy 5th wheel like you want.

You may want to consider a MDT or HDT as a tow vehicle for better stability and safety. The HDTs have become very popular for towing large 5th wheels. See this site:
http://www.jackdanmayer.com/choosing_between_an_mdt_and_an_hdt.htm

Whatever you decide, learn from the rest of us and get a truck that has more than enough capacity to handle your 5th wheel. Don't try to get away with a truck that will be at maximum capacity. It may tow well but it's the capability to deal with emergency situations that count.

Starbird · RV-Dreams Community Member

You guys are supporting what I was thinking - you need a truck that has enought capacity with some extra margen - I really like what Bear said " it might tow well but it's the emergency situations that count. And because my sisters and brothers live in Minnesota and New York - I"m going with a 4x4 - cuz you never can tell when clear sky trun nasty and you find yourself in a early snow storm.

SO - I went don't and ordered a new 2011 Sierra Denali 3500HD With all extras, should be the perfect truck for us.

Thank for your feed back :)

Dennis

Bill and Linda · RV-Dreams Family Member

Starbird wrote:
SO - I went don't and ordered a new 2011 Sierra Denali 3500HD With all extras, should be the perfect truck for us.

Thank for your feed back :)

Dennis

Good decisions. You won’t really know how good your decisions are on all accounts – 3500 / dual rear wheels and 4x4, because you will not have the issues you would have had from time to time with less than all three. You may not need 4x4 often, but when you do you will push the button and then smile as your problem goes away – even sometimes when backing. The duals are needed not only for weight, but for stability – there is no comparison between duals and singles in this regard. Finally, you get 3500 when you get duals, and you need that capability.

BTW, you will love the 6 speed. The Allison is a great transmission.

Safe travels

Bill

Waggin Tails · RV-Dreams Family Member

Dennis,
I opted for 3500 dually for my Cedar Creek. I skipped the 4x4 option because it reduced the GCWR was higher. Read through the postings under Tow Vehicle. You will find more info than you can imagine.
For the size of trailer you mentioned, I would almost suspect a 3500 will not be sufficient for the trainer. Before you commit on a truck, get some numbers on a trailer so you will not end up with to little truck. That would be sad.

Luvglass · RV-Dreams Family Member

I think it is totally foolish to purchase a truck until you have chosen your fifth wheel. There are many units that cannot be safely towed - and stopped with a 3500. You need to know the GVWR of the unit to make an informed decision on the truck. 36-39 feet and the number of slides is meaningless. Units with those criteria could be between 14,000 and 20,000 pounds.

Please be careful.

-- Edited by Luvglass on Thursday 4th of August 2011 09:22:01 PM

Racerguy · RV-Dreams Family Member

Fred makes a good point.My Cedar Creek is 39 feet 11 inches from the hitch to the back of the ladder and weighs 14,000 lbs fully loaded.A simular sized Mobile Suites would be close to 20,000 loaded as they have a bigger frame and thicker walls among other things.Pay no attention to dry weight numbers,always go by gross weight rating.I would not be comfortable pulling a much bigger trailer with my 1 ton Dodge.Just a side point,we full time in ours even though it's not rated as a full time unit and have had zero problems so it's not necessary to buy heavier to get quality.

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Fred and George make good points. I know folks with 350/3500 series trucks that found that while they were fine for going to the lakes, staying in "flat" territory, and avoiding mountains, they were not safe for mountains and more extreme areas.

We have a Mobile Suites 38TKSB3 which is three slides and 38 1/2' long and weighs in at 18500 loaded. We are pulling ours with a Ford F450. At the time we were looking (2008 to 2009), neither the GM nor Dodge trucks would handle the GCWR that the F450 would. While they have improved their trucks some, personally, I would not feel as safe with either the GM or the Dodge.

That said, I can be considered the "king of overkill", but I'm also a former 18-wheeler operator. Driving the nation's roads, you can certainly see truck/camper rigs acting squirrely in panic stop situations.

Since you have already ordered, I suspect you will now need to find out what the GVWR and GCVW of the truck is and choose a fifth wheel that can be "handled" by the GM. A lot of guys when ordering a truck, try to have a cushion of about 15% to 20% more than what the GCVW of the two units are. Keep in mind that both GVWR and GCVW are gross weights with all fluids, fuels, cargo, LP, clothes, accessories, people and pets, etc.

Terry

kb0zke · RV-Dreams Family Member

When we decide on our FT rig, we will most likely purchase the truck first. That said, though, we will already have a pretty good idea of the weights that it will be required to handle, and any truck that can't handle those weights (with a hefty safety margin) won't be considered. On the other side, if we decide to go with a DP, the toad will most likely be purchased first.

My thinking here is that we will be buying used no matter what route we take. For TT I'm figuring 10% over gross (with tongue weight 10% of that); FW is the same 10% over gross, with pin weight 25% of that. I'm figuring on 1500 pounds in the truck (fuel, pax, "stuff"). If the truck can't handle that much weight, then it isn't stout enough.

If we go the DP route, we'll still have the Mountaineer to tow the mpg until we actually make the trade, and the Town Car will be replaced by the toad. That will improve our fuel use some while we are looking for the DP. If we go with a towable, either TT or FW, we will be towing with a truck, and anything that can pull the FT rig will certainly have no problems pulling the mpg.

We're allowing a year from the time we decide on the type of FT rig we want to decide on the manufacturers that we would consider and to search for the right rig. We might be lucky and find just the right one at the first dealership we visit, or it may take the full year. I don't want to be in the position of buying a trailer that I can't pull home until I find the right truck. Again, the right one might be at the first dealership we visit, or it may take a few months of shopping for it.

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

David's last post got me to thinking about pin weights. I remembered that I had a list of weights of units weighed by a gentleman at rallys and such, so I went looking at what some of those weights were coming in as.

Keep in mind, these are all DRV Suites models (Elite Suites, Mobile Suites, and Select Suites) with Elite Suites being the heaviest and Mobile and Select following behind. Thus, those weights varied, not only by model, but length and lifestyle of the owners. As George (Racerguy) mentioned these units are heavier than most fifth wheels. I'll mostly give you averages.

The heaviest one came in with a pin weight of 5,025 and a gross weight of 20,075 lbs. (Speculation entirely on my part is that this one was an Elite Suites. But, it could have been an overloaded Mobile Suites as well.)

The lightest one came in with a pin weight of 3035 and a gross weight of 15,925 lbs.

Averages ran from 3,738# to 3,994# on the pin weight. Gross weights were between 16,408# and 18,406#.

The most telling information from this gentleman was the weight capacities of the trucks. His findings are based on the listed weight capacities on each individual truck's door sticker weight.

100% or those that were SRW (Single Rear Wheels) were overweight on the truck's GVWR.

60% of those that were DRW (Dual Rear Wheels) were overweight on the truck's GVWR.

Since he had no information on each truck's GCVW, he was not able to specify whether any were overweight on Gross Combined weights.

The point of this post is that we can all be fooled by our actual weights (pin and gross loaded) and with the capacity of the trucks to handle those weights. When considering trucks, always use the GVWR ratings of both the trucks and the trailers. Even then, you may be under on your calculations, depending on what you plan on carrying in both units of your rig.

Terry