Is 8500# comfortable?

OP, I think you made the right decision by passing on this trailer. That is a LOT of weight and a LOT of wind resistance to have to deal with.

Markcuda said:

You will be using a weight distributing hitch, put more stuff in the camper and not the truck, you WILL be fine.
Don't let all these people discourage you, yes, you are border line at the limit, but, you still have room to pull that camper.
Just be smart about it.

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I disagree with this. The weight distribution hitch will move weight off your rear axle and to your front axle... but it won't make any of that hitch weight disappear. Furthermore, the WDH is a heavy piece of equipment and will further eat into your payload.

You are right about packing things in the trailer though, as that will only transfer about 12-15% of the weight to the truck. But from my experience, this is too much weight for a half ton.

Most Ram 1500's come with P rated tires, not heavier D or E rated tires. Those tires will have a lot of flex and allow a lot of up/down and left/right movement. Ram 1500's are known for having a softer suspension, which is great for driving unloaded, but not very good for hauling a heavy trailer.

Trailer towing specs from the manufacturer are the best case scenario. A lot of half tons are rated to haul 10K plus lbs... but with a relatively low payload rating, it is almost impossible to haul a 10K lbs RV and maintain a low enough tongue weight to meet your specs. If you were hauling a boat or a flat trailer, you might get closer to that 10K number, but the high front wall on a travel trailer requires a higher tongue weight to prevent sway.

I had a Tundra and bought my new trailer, a 34' long 7200 lbs empty, 9500 lbs GVWR trailer. I originally did the math and thought that I could squeeze the numbers and make it work with my Tundra. I had E rated tires and air bags, so I didn't have the squishy suspension to deal with. Even as much as I tried, I couldn't finesse the weight around to keep my payload low enough, my tongue weight high enough and still haul my family and dogs around with that trailer.

I ended up trading my Tundra and getting the Ram 2500 with almost double the payload. It was an expensive lesson to learn, but I learned it. Trying to force too small of a truck to handle too big of a trailer is not worth the effort. Especially with longer trips, you will be further from home, you will be loaded heavier than for a short trip...

Good decision to bypass this trailer for now. If you are going to do it, do it right and do it smart. I am paying a trailer payment AND a truck payment because I tried to get by with what I had. I don't have regrets, I love my truck and trailer, but I wish I didn't have both payments at the same time.

mtofell said:

Yeah, no kidding. The only thing worse is ambiguous posts with no information.



Topics just like this go around daily on RV.net with pretty much the same results - some say go for it, some say don't. fwiw, I frequent this board as well as rv.net and the group here is far more educated and well behaved.

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i find it to be the opposite.sure there's a few bigmouths on that site,but waay more knowledge when it comes to rv towing in general.

THETANK said:

I have never owned a trailer but if I did purchase one I would make sure I had a big enough gun for the fight.

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There is nothing wrong with taking an RPG to a pistol competition but lugging that thing around on a day to day basis will get old fast.

bcbouy said:

i find it to be the opposite.sure there's a few bigmouths on that site,but waay more knowledge when it comes to rv towing in general.

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Yeah, I agree there is more by volume just because there is more traffic and it's RV specific. I was more talking to the point of just a disagreement. Some say hauling a 15,000# 5th wheel with a 1/2 ton is fine, some say you need a dually for a tent trailer.

Either way it's great to see people researching to make an educated decision after they understand how the game is played. Manufacturers really do a dis-service by focusing their advertising on certain numbers that are, for the most part, meaningless.

i also find it funny that the guys with the 1 tons with every aftermarket suspension helper piece you can buy to carry/tow their giant ass campers/trailers berate the half tonners for overloading their truck.

I bumper pull 8500ish lbs with mine a few times a year and would I like a bigger truck maybe but it isn't worth it to me. Mine pulls like a champ and the few times a year I pull heavy I just drive a little slower.

I put good bags in the back and much better tires and all is good. I have been belittled a little for what I pull but who cares I am not over weight or maybe I am but not by much if so. The Truck is phenomenal. BTW I pull a 10,000 lb rated 20' enclosed with my Grand Cherokee inside camping gear etc . I couldn't be happier.

So even though my truck is rated to tow 10,200lbs, its not safe for me to tow 8500lbs? Pulling roughly 85% of my max tow rating isn't safe and is not a good idea? To safety tow 9,000lbs I need a Ram 2500 that's rated to tow 16,000lbs.

You guys are ridiculous. If I'm not going over any limits; tires, payload, tow ratings, I'm gonna PULL IT.

novelmike said:

So even though my truck is rated to tow 10,200lbs, its not safe for me to tow 8500lbs? Pulling roughly 85% of my max tow rating isn't safe and is not a good idea? To safety tow 9,000lbs I need a Ram 2500 that's rated to tow 16,000lbs.

You guys are ridiculous. If I'm not going over any limits; tires, payload, tow ratings, I'm gonna PULL IT.

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Pulling and carrying are two very different things. Nobody's saying you can't tow 8500# with the truck in question. The problem is no one reads and understands the fine print. To tow that 8500# and stay within your PAYLOAD LIMIT, you must travel with next to nothing in the truck. No passengers, no firewood in the bed, no dogs, no camping gear.

And maybe "no" is too strong of a word. How about no more than about 350# total of all that stuff combined (this includes you as the driver). So, to stay within the payload limit, let's assume you weigh 175# and hookup an 8500# TT with 1000# tongue weight. You've just used 1175# of the 1350# of available payload for that truck. Does the truck have floor mats? If so, you probably just lost another 20#. Wait a minute, surely you'll need a WDH for that setup. There's another 75#. Yikes, the weight is going quickly. Any passengers? How about something in the bed of the truck? Nothing? How about the bedliner that was installed after the truck was weighed? There's another 20#. Getting the point?

You guys bashing us guys pointing out reality are quite funny. I didn't invent physics. I'm just a messenger and just trying to give the OP accurate information. Funny as it is he got it right away. Some others? Not so much. You say ridiculous? I totally agree.

I don't drive a 2500 truck because I like the bumpy ride. The reality is 1500 trucks are VERY limited on what can be towed and CARRIED, and stay within specs. Do all the tires explode the instant you go over your payload weight? Nope. Probably not even close. The engineers plan for folks that don't read or understand the rule book. But, those of you laughing at us that do understand things should really educate yourselves so you at least know what rules and specs you are pushing.

novelmike said:

So even though my truck is rated to tow 10,200lbs, its not safe for me to tow 8500lbs? Pulling roughly 85% of my max tow rating isn't safe and is not a good idea? To safety tow 9,000lbs I need a Ram 2500 that's rated to tow 16,000lbs.

You guys are ridiculous. If I'm not going over any limits; tires, payload, tow ratings, I'm gonna PULL IT.

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Good grief!

My payload is 1590lbs. 5.7, q.c., 4x4, 3.92
For a 8500lb trailer (7,000lbs+1,500lbs max cargo capacity), 1,000lbs tounge weight should be adequate. I weigh 175. Wife weighs 120lbs. That still leaves me almost 300lbs of payload weight.

So like I said in my previous post above, if I'm not going over my limits, I am going to pull it.

And if you wanna add weight for my floor mats and spray in bedliner, can I subtract the weight of my carven exhaust system, fox shocks, having aluminum instead of the stock steel wheels?

Farmer Fran said:

My setup. I have since bought a new truck but they have the same basic towing capacities as one another. The blue truck is an Express 1500, I now own a Laramie 1500.

This setup is fine and legal. Specs...

2017 Ram 1500 3.92 with factory brake controller
2013 Dutchmen Denali 289RK

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Nice setup, I have the 287RE and love it.

novelmike said:

You guys are ridiculous. If I'm not going over any limits; tires, payload, tow ratings, I'm gonna PULL IT.

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If you aren't going over any of your ratings, I don't see any reason not to pull it. The problem is that tow ratings from the manufacturer aren't RV specific... they are just the total towable weight. RV's have a high frontal area, making them susceptible to sway. To reduce sway, you need a higher tongue weight. That higher tongue weight eats up payload long before it eats up your max tow rating. THIS is the reason why you can't pull a 10K lbs RV with a half ton. If that 10K lbs was on a flat bed trailer, or a boat than you would be much better off. The smaller frontal area allows for lower tongue weights.

However, if you are at or under your tire rating, payload, tow ratings, axle ratings, etc than you should be fine to tow with a half ton. Its really hard, if not impossible, to tow an RV at the upper end of your tow ratings without going over another rating.

My prior truck was a Tundra. My new trailer is a Jayco 29QBS with an empty weight of about 7300 lbs. My max towing was 10,300 lbs... so I was 1.5 tons below my max rating, should be fine to tow. Unfortunately my wife likes to load the trailer and truck up with all sorts of stuff for the kids. Our trailer ended up being closer to 8500 lbs, even for mid range trips. That put my tongue weight over 1100 lbs. Add another 75 for my WDH and I'm at almost 1200 lbs eating against my payload. Add my wife and kids, the dogs, some firewood, strollers, play toys etc and I was over my payload by a couple hundred lbs. Remember, my camper was still 1800 lbs below my max tow rating... but payload was long gone.

Lots of opinions in this thread...Heres mine based on 40+ years of towing all kinds of trailers on snow/ice covered roads thru out the upper Midwest racing and trail riding my snowmobiles...Any ******** who hooks an 8000#+ trailer to the back of ANY half ton pickup is jeopardizing his familys safety...People cant really buy into the manufacturers propaganda numbers game...Especially the one where FCA claims a 3500 truck that weighs in around 8K# can SAFELY tow a trailer that weighs 32,000+ pounds...LOL...

novelmike said:

M
And if you wanna add weight for my floor mats and spray in bedliner, can I subtract the weight of my carven exhaust system, fox shocks, having aluminum instead of the stock steel wheels?

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Yes, or add since many aftermarket aluminum wheels weigh more than stock steel wheels and certainly bigger tires weigh much more.
Your payload capacity is determined by subtracting the actual real world weight of your vehicle from the vehicles GVWR as printed on the sticker.

Go to a cat scale with a full tank of fuel and yourself in the truck.

Ont thing to consider as well. All aftermarket accessories such as nerf bars/steps, bed liners, and covers weight need to be subtracted from the payload also. I went from towing a similar camper 2016 Jayco 28BHBE with a 1/2 ton to a HD truck. Not that I couldn't pull it, but payload was overloaded each time. The bounce is annoying also!

That's it, this tread has scared me, I am heading to Ford to buy a F450 Super Duty!

Or maybe one of these...



Will I be safe now?

Bigdaddy said:

Nice setup, I have the 287RE and love it.

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Looked at that one also... for a few reasons we picked the RK.