Which Come's First-5th or Truck

[Dasmoeturhead]

Originally Posted by Cummins12V98

"If you plan on purchasing a Cougar and end up with a Mobile Suites, you haven't planned accordingly if you only have an F250 with which to tow it"

Hey the F250 with bags and 19.5's will be fine!

Many think so.

Ha Ha, I like it, but hey! You tell Mama she can't have her Mobile Suites 5er. :-)>

[Cummins12V98]

Originally Posted by jammer3025

Ha Ha, I like it, but hey! You tell Mama she can't have her Mobile Suites 5er. :-)>

HA actually I did tell her the only way she could have the MS is if we get a new Dually. Well that was that. In late 11 we ended up with a 07.5 36' MS and a new RAM 11 LongHorn Dually.

Now she wants a 38-39' MS so I recently ordered a new 15 RAM Dually LongHorn with rear air ride. RV to follow.

Mama gets what she wants and so do I!

[gebills]

We've done it both ways. Bought a 2500 Cummins and then started looking for the FW. Pretty certain we didn't want to drive a bus so the way of a 5'er made sense to us. So, TV purchase, followed by the FW purchase, made sense. WRONG!! After we bought the 2500, we changed our minds once inside some of the 5'ers we had on our list. So, took the 2500 (one year old with 20K miles) and 10 grand cash and bought a 3500 SRW Cummins. We enjoyed that TV & FW combination for about 3 to 4 years. After deciding to sell our brick and mortar home this spring, we were setting in the living room this past September consuming coffee, we hear a loud pop! The "pop" turned out to be an electrical short filling the basement with smoke. Scared the crap out of us. The electrical short turned out to be sourced from the refer area. We pulled this FW unit from Seattle to Iowa and decided to trade the old Big Horn off for something more comfortable, in so much as we are now full-timing. We looked at both the Mobile Suite's and the Trilogy's along with some cheaper models. Quickly ruled out the cheaper models and looking closely at the workmanship and floor plans of the MS's and the Trilogy, picked the Trilogy. All this time, the dealer is saying that I can handle the Trilogy (16,800 net) with my SRW Cummins 3500. I knew better, and running the numbers (knowing the unit was going to hit 19,000+ with "other stuff", it was plain to see, I had to get a dually Cummins. We like the package we have now, through buying the FW first and then the dually Cummins TV. We did look at several MH's, and could have bought several at lesser money than what we have in the new setup but felt the FW is a more livable unit for fulltiming and comfort. After having done this both ways, seems for us, buying the FW first, and then get the TV to pull and handle the load, made more sense. It may, or may not, for you.....

[Dasmoeturhead]

Originally Posted by Cummins12V98

HA actually I did tell her the only way she could have the MS is if we get a new Dually. Well that was that. In late 11 we ended up with a 07.5 36' MS and a new RAM 11 LongHorn Dually.

Now she wants a 38-39' MS so I recently ordered a new 15 RAM Dually LongHorn with rear air ride. RV to follow.

Mama gets what she wants and so do I!

Sounds like an awesome set up.

[Cummins12V98]

Originally Posted by jammer3025

Sounds like an awesome set up.

Can't wait to compare the two trucks with current RV, mileage, performance, exhaust brake and so on.

[RBabb]

The correct procedure is buy a 3/4 ton, buy a larger camper than planned , upgrade to a DRW.

[DBL Z]

In our case, It was the 5th wheel then the truck.

[Livingsimple]

We purchased our 2014 F450 hauler bed first but only after knowing the exact 5th wheel we wanted to order.
Mike

[wa8yxm]

Depends on the truck, You buy a Tow Vehicle from Wil-Ro (TRAIL-HAULER.COM that is if the site is back up) and you do not have to worry about being able to tow the trailer.

You go out and buy an F-150, then buy a F-350 size trailer, you will not be happy with the result.

[Marshalone]

We just bought a 38FL Cedar Creek and have started looking at trucks to tow it with. My wife does not want a dually (I do) so we'll probably settle for a diesel F250. Not sure anything else will handle the weight comfortably. Got two years to shop. We'll see.

[RoyM]

Originally Posted by Chiefly1

Spend some time researching both and don't do what I did... I had a 3/4 ton dodge diesel and looked at the towing capacity when I bought my Cardinal. Everything was within specs so I was safe and happy... Until I tried to climb the sierras with VW busses passing me. But I made up time as my truck screamed down the other side with no engine brake. The smell of hot brakes stays with you for a while... My purchase of a new 1 ton Dodge Megacab diesel with the bigger engine, more gears and engine brake solved my problems and 7 years of traveling with this setup have been awesome.


Bill & Christine
40 ft Revolution Diesel Pusher & Honda Fit Sport
Sent from my iPad using iRV2 - RV Forum

Yeah. We made the same mistake. We subsequently found an 05 Ram diesel which was overkill at the time but it allowed us to upgrade the trailer without replacing the truck.

[SmokeyWren]

Originally Posted by Marshalone

We just bought a 38FL Cedar Creek and have started looking at trucks to tow it with. My wife does not want a dually (I do) so we'll probably settle for a diesel F250. Not sure anything else will handle the weight comfortably.

Spend a year getting educated to the facts of RVing. The Cedar Creek 38FL has GVWR of 16,596 so you can count on 16k wet and loaded weight on the road. The dry hitch weight is 20% of dry trailer weight. so you can count on at least 20% of wet and loaded hitch weight. Or about 3,200 pounds hitch weight (pin weight, a.k.a weight on the kingpin).

2014 F-250 CrewCab 4x4 diesel will weigh around 8,500 or more when wet and loaded for the road. GVWR is 10,000 pounds, leaving at most 1,500 pounds available for pin weight. So 3,200 pounds pin weight will result in you being 1,700 pounds overloaded.

So move up to an F-350 SRW. Same truck will still weigh 8,500 pounds or more, but will have 11,500 GVWR, or 3000 pounds available for pin weight. So with that heavy-duty SRW tow vehicle, you'll be 200 pounds overloaded over the GVWR of the truck.

So the facts of RVing state that you cannot tow a 5er that grosses over 16k with an SRW pickup without being overloaded. As you already knew, you need a dually for that.

Next step is to convince Darling Wife that either you get a dually tow vehicle, or she settles for a lighter 5er.

[suiteowner]

Originally Posted by wandering1

Get the trailer first. You need to know what you are going to tow. Once you know how much the trailer weighs and the kingpin or tongue weight then you are ready to buy a truck that is capable of handling the trailer. Get the truck towing specs from the truck manufacturer and read the specs to find the truck that will handle the trailer. Then sticker on the door jamb doesn't tell you anything about how much trailer you can tow.

Don't believe everything you read on spec sheets from manufactures...What a truck manufactures claim as towing capacity is bogus and so is RV manufactures as to what there units weigh...If your truck spec sheet states its capable of towing 10,000 pounds max and you do it, you are going to have major mechanical driveline problems I can assure you...

[drfife]

Do you have data to back up your claims?