towing vehicle advise

Nick_f said:

also, why are ford diesels cheaper than the rest? reliability issues?

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The old 7.3 Powerstroke was the last good one and those are getting very old. The newer ones have had all sorts of problems. I don't know if the newest ones have finally fixed all of the issues.

Aside from the Ecodiesel, the diesels only come in >8500lb GVWR trucks (250/2500 and higher) and if you're used to the way your Jetta drives, a Ford heavy-duty F350 truck of the 7.3 vintage will feel like an ancient Massey-Ferguson tractor except scarier because it's (somewhat) faster. I haven't driven a 3500-series GM or Ram. The heavy-duty stuff beyond a certain point gets into straight-axle front ends, stiff leaf-spring suspension with basically no compliance, heavy-duty tires with very high inflation pressure, etc. The middle-ground 2500s may have independent, or at least coil-spring, front suspension and at least some suspension compliance.

Nick_f said:

Aside from the aforementioned dodge ram posted, any other suggestions of vehicles?

Again, i'm new to the 'tow' game, and never owned a truck, and just assumed a v8 should do it.


Anyone what to buy a 2016 golf sportwagen for a above market value so i can buy an ecodiesel?

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Also look at the Chev/GM 1500 trucks, and the Ford F150s. No other companies made a real truck back then.

Ecodiesels are a nice engine. Most of those trucks came with a 3.21 in the rear, but you want the 3.92. I don't think they made any with a 3.55, but that's a nice rear end if you could find one. Would be perfect for you.

Nick_f said:

also, why are ford diesels cheaper than the rest? reliability issues?

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Yes, the 6.0 is mostly a nightmare.

I tow a Jayco T24Z which is about 5400 lbs dry. Bumper pull with weight distributing hitch.

We carry some 2000 lbs in the trailer (bikes, leathers, food, etc). No water. Onboard fuel tank on fumes. And I carry some 1000 lbs in the bed and 800 lbs of passengers etc in the truck.

2012 Ford F250 diesel 6.7 litre.

I couldn't imagine anything close to that weight on the back of my F150.

I never worry about being able to pull it even with the truck that I have. I worry about stability, getting it stopped etc.

Scuba Steve said:

The avalanche would be fine so would any 1500 with a tow package and transmission cooler. I have a similar trailer and have towed it with a canyon with a 5 cylinder, a v8 canyon and currently a GMC 1500 with a 6 cylinder engine.

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At 8000LB loaded trailer weight you'd have been grossly overweight on the Canyon. You'd be into a tail wagging the dog situation very quickly in an emergency situation - just because something can pull something else doesn't make it "good" - ask yourself if it can handle it safely when the crap hits the fan? Or suddenly you need to make an emergency stop? Mass and braking power are important parts of the equation, not just "it pulled it so it must be good".

Scuba Steve said:

Diesels that old are very scary to me and could need many thousands of dollars of repairs any time.

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There are lots of older diesels out there that are tried-and-true. Second Generation Duramax trucks are solid, and first gen wouldn't be out of the realm of looking at either so long as they've had the injectors replaced professionally and the drivetrain is ROCK solid. The last gen Cummins Dodge pickups are decent but their tranny is the weak spot and the bodies rust out in no time however.

The GM 6.5 era trucks shouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for you either IF you can find one that hasn't been beat on. Most unfortunately have.

Anything GM with the 4L80E transmission, as was mentioned earlier, is bulletproof - you'd be hard pressed to kill those things. Same goes for the Allison trannies in the Duramax trucks, unless the previous owner tuned the engine and beat on the tranny.

48Connor said:

Also look at the Chev/GM 1500 trucks, and the Ford F150s. No other companies made a real truck back then.

Ecodiesels are a nice engine. Most of those trucks came with a 3.21 in the rear, but you want the 3.92. I don't think they made any with a 3.55, but that's a nice rear end if you could find one. Would be perfect for you.

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3.55 rear end on a diesel would be about the minimum I'd consider for hauling that sort of weight. 3.92 will tow a lot better but tradeoff is MPG on everyday usage, outside towing.

kellen said:

Yes, the 6.0 is mostly a nightmare.

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COMPLETELY agree - avoid the Ford 6.0's like the plague unless you like taking the entire cab off the truck everytime something more complicated than an oil change needs to be done on the engine. They do pull nice (I've driven one of the F350 dually's with the 6.0 with a 20,000#+ 6 horse trailer behind it and I was impressed) but I would never own for because of the nightmare repair costs.

Anyhow, going back to the GM's...here's what I pulled with for about a decade. (Someone let me know if the pic doesn't show....)



That combination between the two trailers weighed around 12,000#, and with the nearly 10,000# weight of the truck alone (crew cab long box dually, 90's gen, not known for being svelte LOL) I was grossing well over 20K regularly. It had the 6.5 diesel and although It wasn't perfect we drove this combination (minus the Jetski trailer when travelling to areas where tandem trailers wasn't legal) coast to coast multiple times.

If you can find (and would consider) a 90's era 2500 series Chevy/GM gasser (simpler and cheaper) or diesel (if you can find it, but have someone knowledgeable on the 6.5 check it out for you BEFORE you buy) they will do a *great* job for your needs, will have the capacity to do it properly and safely, and best of all...will be cheap, since your budget is tight. You can probably find a gasser for the $2000-$3000 price range, and a diesel for the $3000-$4500 price range.

GreyGhost said:

For pimp tow vehicles, check out rvhaulers.ca. They won't be in your current price bracket, but for those considering a pimped out dually, you are solidly in the price bracket. At that point, the trailer weight becomes almost immaterial.

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So, I wanted to come back to this www.rvhaulers.ca website.

Franky, I'm disgusted. As I mentioned in my earlier reply they go out of their way to basically suggest and coach potential owners how to effectively lie to both the DMV/MTO as well as their insurance companies about their vehicles. They are class 8 heavy duty trucks, no way around it - they are NOT "motorhomes" as they want people to believe.

They were originally OTR tractors that were regularly pulling at least 80K gross, and being in BC where trains are legal, probably considerably over that. Yes, that means they're capable trucks, and yes since they are automatic anyone without the skills to operate a traditional 9/10/13/18 speed non-synchronized tranny (as is typically standard in OTR HDT's) can get behind the wheel and "make them go", but that's just the beginning. At least they're honest about the requirement for an airbrake endorsement on your licence.

That said, they are suggestive of the fact that since they cut off one axle and make them 2 axle trucks that they are legal for a regular licence class holder to drive. Perhaps in BC and AB, but not in many (most?) other places. Here in Ontario for example the class G licence specifies "small truck" specifically, and that aside it's capabilities for towing end at 11,000KG combined weight. These tractors, being class 8 bunk units are probably not far under 20,000 pounds ALONE. Basically, even if you *did* try to drive them with a class G licence (aside from the fact you're not legal already) you could only haul a 2000-3000LB trailer before you're outside the realm of a class G licence anyways.

This is the whole reason the new class AR (A-Restricted) was introduced a few years ago - too many yahoos going out and buying a 3500 series truck and a 40' toyhauler and hitting the roads with something that weighs potentially 30-40K with NO training. That's no more - the AR actually requires mandatory training..but it doesn't allow double trailers nor anything with air brakes, so you're still not really trained enough for one of these tractors on that website - you'd need a full class A here, no way around it.

All that aside, these trucks do not handle like a car. There's a reason there's a special class of licence, training, and a road test required to operate them.

Whatever loopholes this company is driving through putting untrained and under-licensed people behind the wheel of what is effectively a tractor trailer...well, you want to believe that they will be closed up sooner than later, and if anyone operating one of these setups gets in a wreck their insurance company is going to dump them in a heartbeat when they see exactly what they were insuring under the guise of "motorhome" - that's called material misrepresentation.

Then watch people try to skip the scalehouses and see what happens - suffice to say you'll have some extra orifices, and won't be driving your truck home either at the end of the experience.

I've nothing against people towing RV's and larger trailers with a class 8 tractor - you'll NEVER beat their capabilities in every aspect, but jeezus....go and get the training and proper class A licence beforehand - if you're that serious that you'd consider one of these things it's not too much to consider. I'm honestly ****** that their website goes out of it's way to help people avoid it.

/rant

I just bought a truck and toy hauler... I got an '09 Nissan Titan and I'm very happy with it. Another racer let me drive his and told me about it and it wasn't a truck I even thought of.

I just towed our TH at about 6000pounds to Tennessee and back and it performed quite well. Most of the time I was keeping pace with the majority of traffic in 5th gear. It is a pig on gas, but from what I'm learning talking to other pickup owners its not that far off the norm.

My truck budget was a fair bit higher than the op but you could probably find an older higher mileage truck that fits.

I just became aware of something else on another site, that you have to pay attention to. The tongue weight of the trailer comes out of the allowable payload in the vehicle itself. I knew that, but hadn't realized some of the implications.

Some of the half-ton pickups have a total in-vehicle payload in the 1300 - 1400 lb range. If you have a 8000 lb (GVWR) trailer at the recommended 10% tongue weight, you are now down to only being able to have 500 - 600 lbs inside the vehicle. Two or three people in the cab, and NOTHING else, and you have used that up!

The worst offender currently seems to be Ram. The coil spring (with air assist on the later models) rear suspension was designed for ride quality, not towing. This might be why a friend of mine is complaining about the way his drives with the trailer in tow.

The in-vehicle payload depends on the GVWR but another thing that comes out of it is the weight added by options. So a high-end loaded luxury model probably has a lower payload than a bottom-of-the-barrel work truck, even if it's the same body style and powertrain. The weight of the hitch itself might not be factored in (because it's aftermarket) - there's another chunk of payload capacity gone.

Brian P said:

Some of the half-ton pickups have a total in-vehicle payload in the 1300 - 1400 lb range. If you have a 8000 lb (GVWR) trailer at the recommended 10% tongue weight, you are now down to only being able to have 500 - 600 lbs inside the vehicle. Two or three people in the cab, and NOTHING else, and you have used that up!

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You are correct, and most people don't pay any attention to this. They look at the weight of the trailer, and they look at what their truck is rated to tow. If A is </= to B, "Hey, I'm good to go!". Some people don't even care, subscribing to the "It's a truck, you can tow anything" mantra, even when many trucks today are grocery getters at best.

I'm constantly amazed at how willing (or oblivious) people are to grossly overload their pickup truck - the problem is horrendous in the horse world where people buy Gooseneck trailers (which generally transmit around 20 to 50% of the trailer weight to the pin), put 2 or 4 horses (plus the already heavy weight of a horse trailer to begin with) in the back, and away they go. Meanwhile their rear axle that's rated to carry about 1000# on it is loaded to 4000# instead.

Thankfully the MTO is cracking down on this now.

The worst offender currently seems to be Ram. The coil spring (with air assist on the later models) rear suspension was designed for ride quality, not towing. This might be why a friend of mine is complaining about the way his drives with the trailer in tow.

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Dodge is IMHO one of the worst offenders for trying to make their pickup trucks look like a class-8 tractor to some people - the 30,000+ pound tow ratings on what is still effectively a light duty pickup truck is INSANE in my mind.

As for your friend...does he have a proper weight distributing hitch? Some people have no idea that the whole idea behind them is not only to raise the back wheels of the truck back up when hooked to a heavy trailer, but in doing so that weight gets pushed onto the *front* axle instead which makes the combination far more stable in the end. He may think that because the air suspension makes the truck level again he doesn't need it...or he's not hooking up properly even if he IS using a WD hitch and thereby not getting sufficient weight shifted to the front axle. Both scenarios will lead to lousy towing behaviour.

^this guy knows from haulin ***, it's a privilege.

Pretty sure it has a weight-distributing class 3 hitch, it's just that the tail is too much for the dog.

The 30,000 lb tow ratings, thankfully, aren't on the 1500 half ton models. But still, that plus the GVWR of the truck is beyond what you are allowed to drive with a normal class G license (11,000 kg total and the trailer can't be over 4,600 kg with an exception for a house trailer). For most people ... pointless overkill.

PrivatePilot said:

You are correct, and most people don't pay any attention to this. They look at the weight of the trailer, and they look at what their truck is rated to tow. If A is </= to B, "Hey, I'm good to go!". Some people don't even care, subscribing to the "It's a truck, you can tow anything" mantra, even when many trucks today are grocery getters at best..

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Most people don't pay attention because the number is almost meaningless. It has such a high factor of safety built in that once you put 4 grown adults and a cooler in a fully loaded optioned out 1/2 ton, you've run out of payload. (Laramie Longhorn had a payload of 900lbs) The payload on my Ram is 1700lbs. It wouldn't even bat an eye at 2500lbs.

48Connor said:

Most people don't pay attention because the number is almost meaningless. It has such a high factor of safety built in that once you put 4 grown adults and a cooler in a fully loaded optioned out 1/2 ton, you've run out of payload. (Laramie Longhorn had a payload of 900lbs) The payload on my Ram is 1700lbs. It wouldn't even bat an eye at 2500lbs.

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thats exactly the problem, they have to engineer a huge safety factor. Payload at 1700 and 2500 is no problem, so they publish 2500 and buddy puts 3200 in it. We all see the guys in the summer with a 4x8 box filled to the rails with gravel and the step bumper grinding on the asphalt.

Brian P said:

But still, that plus the GVWR of the truck is beyond what you are allowed to drive with a normal class G license

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Unfortunately, this doesn't stop most people from doing it anyways. Go to any provincial park in the summer months and walk around and look at the combinations that clearly exceed 11,000KG - they're everywhere. Any large dually pickup pulling any sort of Fifth wheel trailer is almost certainly over it. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel if the police actually decided to enforce these rules as it's well known most are driving this configurations under a normal class G licence.

They did introduce a new class of licence a few years ago (the class AR) which is basically a class A licence from a weight perspective, but does not allow the operator to drive a commercial tractor, anything with airbrakes, nor allows double trailers which ONLY a full class A licence is allowed to do - hence the "R" (restricted) part. But again, it doesn't take long to see people blowing that rule either - not a week goes by where I don't pass someone pulling a ball hitch trailer with another ball hitch trailer behind it - not only an illegal combination (lead trailer must be a 5th wheel for it to be legal), but now allowed under most classes of licence anyways.

But the RV crowd almost universally gets a pass on these sorts of things because the government knows that there are major tourist dollars involved and the RV/Retiree lobby is strong, loud, and well heeled - municipalities and US states that have caused RV'ers grief over legal things have seem their RV tourism decimated over it.

crankcall said:

thats exactly the problem, they have to engineer a huge safety factor. Payload at 1700 and 2500 is no problem, so they publish 2500 and buddy puts 3200 in it.

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Exactly, people just assume that there's a margin built in now so they feel safe overloading.

Problem is, manufacturers have now taken what used to be those margins and now put them into the published numbers as part of the "who has bigger balls" pickup truck wars. So, now the guy putting 5000K of pin weight on the back of his truck that has a published 4000# capacity is actually on the bleeding edge of stuff breaking.

Conversation I had with a tow truck service out of Bracebridge, the boaters are the worst recreational overloaders, much worse than the RV'ers that drive around all the time and seem to pay attention to tow stuff. The boaters pull infrequently, fill the boat with stuff that doesnt fit into the SUV and overspeed the hubs.

I'd have to disagree - RV's outnumber boats probably 20 to 1 on the roads. In my work travels I do see boats on the side of the road with flats and cooked/seized bearings (one of the bigger issues since they get submerged, coupled with lack of proper maintenance accordingly), but RV's (specifically trailers) are far more problematic by my count.

I suspect the numbers change by location. Bracebridge is a boater area and Hwy 11 is a corridor to cottage country, so it wouldn't be surprising to see more boat trailers in trouble, but I travel everywhere and see a broader picture.

I've seen examples where a vehicle is rated to tow so much in Canada, but the same vehicle is rated to tow more weight elsewhere.

A lot of Euro vehicles have huge ratings in Europe and much less here, the VW jetta diesel has capacity to pull 3,000lb? in europe , but the VW hitch to allow that isnt even available in North America, mine was shipped in from Germany.

My race boat at the time was 2,485lbs all up, 26ft long and 9ft high, I pulled it once with the VW........$500 for a hitch and $800 for wiring and controller, such a good deal.....

Since there are a lot of knowledgeable people in here, I will throw in a question instead of making my own thread.

I have a sailboat trailer (~1000lbs loaded, ~25' long x 6' wide x 6' tall). The trailer was built with way too low a tongue weight (~5 lbs). Obviously it doesn't behave well at speed (Over 90 km/h it starts to dance). It would require a lot of cutting and welding to fix it properly. Has anyone every used ballast to fix this situation (eg a few 5 gallon buckets filled with water near the front of the trailer)? Obviously the tongue weight would be better, but I would have made the whole trailer heavier which is never great.

The correct answer is move the axle back or the boat forward and re balance. But yes I have piled 4 patio stones on a boat trailer and secured them with ratchet straps to get to a regatta with a badly built and loaded trailer. You could make a more permanent fix and it can be as little as 50lbs to fix the speed wobble.

block up the tongue to your tow hieght and put a bathroom scale under to see the tongue weight. Your trailer should sit fairly level ideally, 2 or 3 inches up or down really changes the tongue weight, you may even fix the problem by making sure your trailer is sitting at the right hieght. You see guys with pickups and the ball mount is 20in off the ground and the trailer actually leans backwards (and wobbles)