Talk to Zoodles about Trucks... Mid size and 1/2 Ton...

I'd suggest a V8 over a V6 if you're considering a pickup
better mileage than a 6 especially if you're towing
and as you mentioned resale as a consideration, don't get a 2WD

you're gonna have lots of fanbois when you start talking about trucks

I'd basically break it down like this:

Ford: durable truck suited for work
Dodge: junk that appeals to the grab life by the horns crowd
GM: truck that feels like a car, for when you've had some success and can afford it

I'd avoid the recent turbo charged Fords with the little 6
they claim V8 performance and great mileage, BS, there is no substitute for displacement

Dodge seems to have improved in quality lately, and certainly looks

I've had several Sierras and a few Silverados...loved them, but last Silverado was a POS
not sure if it was a lemon or the quality has dropped off, my experience is anecdotal

the others, drove a Nissan Titan for a few years, really nice comfortable truck that went like scared cat,
great engine, very comfortable, but the quality was awful, maybe they've gotten better

Toyota, typical Toyota quality, a bit bland, the little Tacoma is a good vehicle, excellent resale

Some more great info. Thanks gang!

Is it fairly easy to change gearing if I found one with a whack ratio like a 3.08 and wanted to change it to a 3.73? I had a 1969 Chevelle for 11 years and swapped in a set of 3.55 which woke it up a bit but still was not crazy on the highway.

I would like to be in under $25000 before taxes and I have found a bunch of trucks that fit the bill.

Would an Avalanche be a bad choice? I always thought they were kind of cool. Not that I need the midgate or any of the other features they came with.

If one were to put in a weight distributing hitch and an aftermarket trailer brake controller would that mean totally replacing the factory units that the truck came with? From the feedback you are giving me it seems that both of these are smart upgrades to make towing safer and less stressful.

Again... I am looking for something with Crew Cab and smaller bed, V8, factory tow package, and 4x4. I am open to any make.

I know that Chrysler/FIAT and the other brands all have their adherents and defenders, and also detractors. I had a whack of minivans in my medical sales career and only one Grand Caravan torched a transmission and it was a high milleage one. Other than that I have always thought that the Grand Caravan has been one of the best values for vehicles.

I don't know anyone with a Titan so I can not get any anecdotal feedback on one of these. Several co-workers and people I know have various trucks from the Domestics. All seem to be happy with them. I do know one person who has blown a turbo on the 3.5L Eco boost engine. Someone else is happy as can be with an aluminum F150 with the V8.

As for trailers... Any lemons or brands to avoid? They all seem to use a lot of the same hardware for the appliances etc (e.g. Dometic fridge). When I was seriously looking at a pop up I was all over the Fleetwood ones for some reason. With Hybrids it seems to be Rockwood that I keep following. Any options that you RVers really enjoy? Would it be a deal breaker to not have an oven in a trailer? How about an awning? Power awning? Electric jack? Outdoor stove or grill that attaches to the trailer and connects to the propane supply?

wieght distributing hitch works with your existing truck mounted 2" reciever. Its an add on.
wether you need an oven depends on your style of camping, I like one but I cook a lot. I would absolutely make a hookup for outdoor cooking, you'll find out how small a space you have when you make something with a cooking odor and heating up that small space can suck on hot days.
YES for an awning, its happy shade. powered is nice but crank out is just fine, weighs less and never breaks. Remember everything you put in the trailer adds to tow weight, you may not realize how much it adds till you look, 450-500lbs is pretty easy once you get lawn chairs, dishes golf clubs bicycles bbqs. it all adds up.
Dollarama is your new friend, get all the egg flippers, can openers , cheap plastic containers for cheap and make a nice kitchen set for the camper. Taking stuff from house back and forth to trailer sucks.

Changing gearing is neither easy, nor cheap. Find the truck you want with the gears already equipped.

Avalanche is not a good choice - they were not known as being terribly reliable and the body had major rust issues. They are also not capable of hauling a 5th wheel if by some chance you wanted to change things up down the road.

Factory receiver (the truck side of the hitch) is generally good for weight distrubuting hitches up to around the 6000-8000# range at which point they are a known weak link on some models and should be replaced by an aftermarket class 3 or 4 hitch instead. Probably just fine for your needs. The trailer portion of the weight distrubution setup is aftermarket. Check Kijiji and stuff before just buying a set from a dealer as they're commonly available used. You WANT one, don't be tempted to tow without one even if the truck has self levelling suspension or something like that - getting the back end of the truck level is a byproduct of shifting tongue weight to the front axle of the truck using a weight distrubuting setup, something that some people don't understand. Just jacking the back end of the truck back up level again using airbags or air shocks is not the same thing. Proper weight distribution makes for a more stable, safer ride.

Trailer brake controller - if the truck was spec'd new with a towing package it may very well already have an ITBC - Integrated Trailer Brake Controller. This is ideal and is better than anything aftermarket since it interfaces with the trucks hydraulic brake system and "knows more" than an aftermarket controller, so if it already has one, you don't need aftermarket. If it doesn't, buy a good controller like I've wrote about above.

Trailer brands are pretty much all the same in the 2-3 season market - they are sticks and twigs with a rubber roof and all the same stuff inside for the most part. . Only when you get into full-timer or 4 season RV's (at a premium price) do you get into higher quality RV's. So buy what you like in the end, they're basically all the same except floor layout.

You NEED an awning. The first rainy day you're stuck in a campground you'll understand why, and yes, they do provide a lot of shade on the sunny days as well. Oven? We always had one and liked (and used it) a lot, but others never used theirs whatsoever. Depends again on how long you're travelling for - when we were on the road for weeks or months at a time it opened up a lot more dining options vs stove and microwave alone. We had thanksgiving turkey dinner in our trailer at Bon Echo once.

Niceties? Electric jack on the front is nice. Electric stabilizing jacks are even nicer. Electric awning, nice...but potentially problematic, but they do roll in automatically if bad weather starts to beat on them, so they tend to save themselves vs a manual awning which will just get shredded in a bad storm - ask RV dealers how many awnings they sell after a storm - a lot. I know, because our company hauls for Dometic and several RV supply wholesalers and I see all the trends. Toilets and new fridges in spring, awnings after every bad storm.

And yes, outdoor cooking/meal prep options are certainly nice.

Every Truck, domestic and imported, has their strengths and weaknesses. A brand new, less than 1000kms, GMC HD2500 diesel work truck of ours had the entire exhaust fall off on the highway! A friend of mine put 2 transmissions in his 11' Dodge ram before 100k. My brother pulls a 35' camper with his '13 Dodge ram. He's been to Florida 3 times, and all over ontario, and the eastern seaboard chasing races! Over 200k on that truck, zero issues, and not a speck of rust. Another friend of mine put a million kms on a Ford F250 powerstroke. Not sure of the year, but the generation with the plastic impeller issue.

Toyota and Nissan make great trucks! I had never heard of the Toyota frame issue, so can't comment to that, but I own a 04 Nissan Xterra. I've beat the living Hell out of that little Truck! 300k, and no serious issues I couldn't fix in the driveway. Nissans build quality is second to none!

Does anyone remember when Nissan was practically giving away the titan in 06 or so?? My employer got a fully loaded, crew cab 4x4, for under 20g. That truck was beat to hell as well, routinely towed 10000lbs, with no weight distributing hitch, and is still in service today. A little banged up, but we never had issues with it either.

Do your research and try to avoid known issues with known years, but really, they're all decent trucks. Proper brake, hitch, and gearing setup is more important imo.

At what trailer size does anti-sway start to become a good idea? I have never used proper anti-sway, just weight distributing (which seems to help with sway in addition to its intended purpose) but most of the trailers I have pulled were flatbed or dumps, not huge cubes.

anti sway becomes a good idea on just about any trailer size, it just adds another layer of comfort and safety to the pulling process. Biggest contributing factor to sway is improperly loaded/unbalanced trailers , not cross winds like most suspect.

Usually when you buy new from a dealer they will include in your delivery price setting up your trailer at the correct tow height and aligning a weight distributing hitch. KIJIJI does not provide that service, so you see trailers with the tongue up/down and follow it down the road watching the speed wobble.

Just consider when you load any trailer, and it affects shorter trailers more, you have a nice balance then put a 4 bike rack on the back, 2 sets of clubs and a bunch of other stuff and remove tongue weight in the process.

PrivatePilot said:

Wow, the prices have come down a LOT - they were over $400 when I bought mine, but I still considered it a great investment as we towed a lot, and also switched back and forth between the 8000# fifth wheel (over 10,000LB when we towed our Jetski trailer behind it as well), and a 16,000# (when loaded) horse trailer. Not having to completely reset the controller every time (just push a button to a different trailer profile) was awesome, and even if you don't use that sort of thing, it really is a silky smooth controller. You guys will not be dissappointed. It had (not sure if it still does?) a lifetime warranty as well.



Good point, and also keep in mind that declared weights on RV's are often horribly optimistic. A trailer that shows "Weighs 5000#" might only weigh that coming of the factory floor. When you add propane, a full tank of fresh water, all your clothing, groceries, beer, etc etc etc...well, that weight quickly goes up. It's actually very easy to exceed the GVWR of many modern day ultralight trailers, so always assume the trailer will be AT the GVWR, never below.

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Ordered one off Amazon this morning.

Camped with a pop trailer and tented when camping with The in-laws that have a 5th wheel for as long as I can remember.

Definitely need an awning. Like those with an aluminium stowaway instead of a vinyl bag.

Personally, never used the stove inside. Even in the fall when temps are cooler or rain/cold, we cook outside under the awning or on the fire.

As for what is the best rig/RV/trailer, that is anyone guess. Good luck and happy trails!!!!



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caboose56 said:

Ordered one off Amazon this morning.

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Let me know how you like it when you get it installed. I'm fairly confident you'll be amazed at the difference once you get it dialed in.

As for sway control, I never personally used it, but then again I was towing with a 21 foot long truck with dual rear wheels, so there wasn't may trailers out there that could get into a "tail wagging the dog" situation accordingly. We also sold our tag trailer and moved up to a 5th wheel which don't suffer from sway issues. Once you go 5th, you never go back.

That said, additional sway control is never a bad idea - anything that keeps things under control just lessens the chance of things getting out of control. But yes, as has been mentioned, proper hitch configuration, weight distrubution, and trailer loading are the three most important things to minimize or eliminate sway to begin with - no sway control in the world will stop sway if all three of the above (or sometimes even just 1 of the above given a marginal tow vehicle) are out of whack.

Ha, talking about tail wagging the dog, my ex gf's dumbass step father towed a heavy duty, tandem axle open hauler with a merc cougar on it, using a Celebrity as the tow vehicle... That's right, a Chevy Celebrity! I have no idea how in the hell the hitch managed to stay attached to the car, let alone how he stopped it or kept it straight. That was one trip I said no thanks to, must have been a hairy ride though. Rougly 100km one way.

Zoodles95 said:

Some more great info. Thanks gang!

Is it fairly easy to change gearing if I found one with a whack ratio like a 3.08 and wanted to change it to a 3.73? I had a 1969 Chevelle for 11 years and swapped in a set of 3.55 which woke it up a bit but still was not crazy on the highway.

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No, and if you're 4wd it's even worse.

I would like to be in under $25000 before taxes and I have found a bunch of trucks that fit the bill.

Zoodles95 said:

Would an Avalanche be a bad choice? I always thought they were kind of cool. Not that I need the midgate or any of the other features they came with.

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I've had several Avalanches and loved them. The best one I had was a 2008 LTZ with 6.0L and 4:10 rear end. It towed our 23 foot Hybrid, and our 21 foot boat easily. Was buttery smooth and just overall a great truck.

I'd highly recommend one if you can find a nice example in great shape.

Thanks for the further input and discussions.

Still pretty much between a Ram or Silverado/Sienna.

I think a rear view camera on a pick up truck would be nice. I have to back up a 40 ft bus sometimes and obviously I was backing up 53 ft trailers in my old career. Just the same a back up camera would make it easy to find the hitch and would ease backing up into parking spots an easier task.

For the age I am looking this was obviously a less common option. In the Rams you have to find a unit with the Uconnect head unit which is generally a well regarded unit and it comes with Garmin Nav which is nothing but a good thing (pay your fee and upgrade as you go). Or... Some of the GM units have a small LCD screen built into the rear view mirror for the camera. Then I could just swap in a new double DIN radio with Android auto and use Google maps.

As for trailer controllers... There are a lot of RAMs out there with this as a factory option. Can anyone provide feedback as to whether it works well?



It may well make more sense to spend a bit more to get the options I need instead of spending money after the fact on brake controllers and/or back up cameras etc instead of just finding the right truck with the right gearing, options etc.

That's an integrated trailer brake controller, and they are superior because they're tied into the truck in several ways that an aftermarket controller cannot be, including *actual* pedal effort vs just inertial sensing.

A controller like the P3 comes very close to simulating those, but an ITBC is still a better choice. If you truck comes equipped with one, you neither need nor want anything aftermarket.

PrivatePilot said:

That's an integrated trailer brake controller, and they are superior because they're tied into the truck in several ways that an aftermarket controller cannot be, including *actual* pedal effort vs just inertial sensing.

A controller like the P3 comes very close to simulating those, but an ITBC is still a better choice. If you truck comes equipped with one, you neither need nor want anything aftermarket.

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Cool... Thanks... This sort of thing has me leaning towards the Ram right now. The Uconnect head unit is really good as well. I have a couple of buddies with minivans with it and it is an awesome system. Garmin navi which can be updated and the Rams with the unit all seem to already have a rear view camera which is something I would want.

Next would be to find a truck with the right gearing. Looking up brochures and literature to see what models came with what. Of course the original owner could have spec'd anything. I imagine people would prefer not to tow with a 3.08 but a lot of trucks seem to come with ratios like this (probably to help with the CAFE numbers or something).

Zoodles95 said:

Thanks for the further input and discussions.

Still pretty much between a Ram or Silverado/Sienna.

I think a rear view camera on a pick up truck would be nice. I have to back up a 40 ft bus sometimes and obviously I was backing up 53 ft trailers in my old career. Just the same a back up camera would make it easy to find the hitch and would ease backing up into parking spots an easier task.

For the age I am looking this was obviously a less common option. In the Rams you have to find a unit with the Uconnect head unit which is generally a well regarded unit and it comes with Garmin Nav which is nothing but a good thing (pay your fee and upgrade as you go). Or... Some of the GM units have a small LCD screen built into the rear view mirror for the camera. Then I could just swap in a new double DIN radio with Android auto and use Google maps.

As for trailer controllers... There are a lot of RAMs out there with this as a factory option. Can anyone provide feedback as to whether it works well?



It may well make more sense to spend a bit more to get the options I need instead of spending money after the fact on brake controllers and/or back up cameras etc instead of just finding the right truck with the right gearing, options etc.

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Also remember the gm trucks got a huge hp boost in 14 and a complete redesign. the post 14 6cyl makes the same horsepower the pre 2014 8 did and the 8 also had a big boost. The post 14 trucks also are much quieter and all have a 6 speed transmission.

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3.08 gearing is pavement-princess-grocery-getter territory. Yeah, it'll get 30MPG on the highway, but it wouldn't be able to pull itself out of a wet paper bag with a trailer behind it. Any knowledgeable dealer that had a customer request 3.08 gearing and then a trailer towing package on the same truck would tell the customer it's not going to work, but then again, some salespeople might not know better and would say nothing, and customers have been known to do some pretty stupid stuff, but at least you know what to look for.

For your situation the 3.73 gearset would be fine with a properly sized engine.

does it have to be a Pick up?

I tow my toy hauler with a Touareg 4.2 v8 with active air suspension, tow package and a p3 controller.

Does a great job towing, fuel economy is comparable, and it has 'car like' emenities standard. (auto climate control, leather w/heat,etc...)




Also, my toy hauler has a hybrid section. Cool feature when i bought it, useless to use. Lets cold air in, lets in way to much noise from loud campers, or generators at the track in the morning or night.

I only open it now if i need storage for camping, or have extra people with me.

I would trade my hybrid feature for a bunk bed/ couch on a motorized rail any day of the week

Got my Prodigy P3 today and installed it pretty easily.

Looking forward to getting it set up for my trip out to Nova Scotia.

Hooked up to the trailer and did some testing today. I got the power level adjusted pretty well so the brakes engage fully but won't lock up under manual control but under normal operation it's not sending any voltage to the trailer brakes.

Will do some more checks tomorrow to verify that the controller is seeing a signal from the brake light switch.