orin
Junior Member
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2020
- Posts
- 21
- Reaction score
- 27
- Location
- colorado - soon to be AK
- Ram Year
- '09 2500 ST
- Engine
- Hemi 5.7
Disclaimer
As stated in the title, I’m a noob when it comes to towing. Before this move I’d probably towed 10 or 15 miles total in my life. So, this post isn’t about how you SHOULD do it, but rather how I DID do it. Hopefully it will be interesting to read, might help some people out, or might create a place where others can share their knowledge through comments.
The Mission
My wife and I decided to move to Alaska from southern Colorado. Instead of paying for a uHaul and all that we decided to buy a truck (something we’d been considering for some time) and a trailer and do it ourselves. Friends told us trailers sell pretty well in Alaska (mine did), so the hope was to recoup the trailer money and end up with a nice truck we can use for other adventures in the future.
The Truck
Budget
First, I had to find a truck and I faced what is probably every person’s biggest limiting factor; budget. I wanted to spend $10,000 (okay you can stop laughing now!), realized $15,000 was more realistic after a bit of research, and knew my max was $17,000, which was all I had saved up. As anyone who owns a full-size truck already knows, they are expensive! As with any purchase I knew there would be compromises to stay within my budget, but what did I really NEED to get the job done?
Half ton vs Three-quarter ton
This was the first real question. We didn’t really know how much weight we would end up with. A little research on the internet suggested 2,000 pounds per bedroom giving us 4,000 pounds for our two bed apartment. That seemed as good a guideline as anything else we could come up with, so that’s what we used. I started crunching numbers based on a trailer or trailer/truck combination that could handle at least 4,000 pounds of payload and it became clear I wanted a ¾ ton truck.
My number crunching went like this. I started with an enclosed trailer that could handle a 4,000 pound payload. To get there required a dual axle trailer, the majority of which have a gross vehicle weight rating of 7,000 pounds. They say tongue weight should be 10-15% of gross weight, so on the high side 15% of a 7,000 pound trailer is 1,000 pounds of tongue weight. Tongue weight gets added to truck payload, so 1,000 pounds for the trailer tongue weight, two passengers at 350 pounds total, and 100 pounds for travel clothes, food, etc. and that’s just shy of 1,450 pounds. And that would be with nothing loaded in the bed! Finding a ½ ton truck with the payload wasn’t proving too easy, most I saw were sub-1,400 pounds, sometimes by quite a lot. Things might have been different with a $40-50k budget buying new, but my chances of scoring just the right ½ ton truck in my price range seemed slim to nil.
Now, I’m not saying it can’t be done in a ½ ton, I’m sure it has been done, but I’m a towing rookie and I wanted things to be easy. I also didn’t want to arrive in Alaska only to realize I had completely hammered my new (to me) truck. The surest way to get my desired payload was ¾ ton, which would actually put me well over the mark and give me some extra flexibility.
Powerplant
Diesel vs. gas was the question. Really this isn’t even a question, if you are doing a lot of towing or aren’t dealing with a cold climate…diesel all the way! But, other than this tow to Alaska I don’t foresee a lot of towing in my future. And while south central AK is nowhere near cold enough to write off a diesel I just didn’t want to deal with the complexities or the cost. So, I decided to go gas.
What kind of gas engine was just a function of my budget. In Colorado I couldn’t touch the newer Rams with the 6.4 L Hemi, so 5.7 L would have to do. I did look at Ford and I could swing the 6.2 L V8 or the older V10, but in the end I didn’t find anything I liked. I had some theories about efficiency and gas mileage, thinking maybe I’d do better with the smaller displacement engine, but I don’t think these held true in the end. How did I do? Read on (or scroll down) to find out!
My Truck
In the end I bought a 2009 Ram 2500 ST Quad Cab with the 5.7 L Hemi. It had been owned by a local county government and was in excellent condition with only 106,000 miles on it. I had to go to the top end of my price range, $17k, to get it. Being a totally stock ¾ ton with just a Quad Cab I had a big payload, 2,679 pounds. I knew that even after adding a camper shell and loading it with some of our stuff it would easily handle the weight of our trailer. And we’ll get to all the actual weights in a little bit…
The Trailer
Buying a trailer was simpler. I wanted an enclosed trailer and as stated above I wanted to have a 4,000 pound payload. Size wise, I looked at the volume of a 15’ U-Haul (recommended for 2 bedroom apartments) as a guideline. The U-Haul is 764 cu ft. and a 7x14 with a height of 6.5 feet is 637 cu ft. Add on the bed of the truck, plus space in the back row, and space in my wife’s Saturn Vue and I figured we’d be fine. I even considered trying to go smaller, 6x12 or 6x14, but in the end we found a good 7x14 and just went with that. Its 80 inch height wasn’t exactly ideal for towing, and we didn’t pack it to the hilt, but it all worked out. Actual payload for the trailer was 4,805 pounds, more than enough by our estimations.
Maintenance
The truck was in great shape but all the same I wanted to go through things a bit before making the 3,500 mile drive north. Going through the recommended maintenance I saw that there were two big items due right around the truck’s current age/mileage; coolant flush and transmission oil. Besides being due these seemed like pretty good things to have in tip top shape when thinking about towing long distance. So, I drained and refilled the coolant (didn’t flush since the coolant looked brand new and there was no rust or anything) and changed the transmission oil and filters. I also bought tow mirrors and installed those. Had to replace the brake controller as it no longer functioned. And finally, the truck needed new tires and an oil change just before leaving.
On the trailer I thought about jacking it up to adjust the brakes and check the wheel bearings. Kind of fell through the cracks and while I had no big issues I kind of wish I had gone ahead and done it as it would have been easy enough.
Loading the Trailer
Now we get down to the good stuff!! They say the general guideline for loading a trailer is that 60% of your weight goes ahead of the axle(s) centerline and 40% goes behind. This is presumably going to give you the proper 10-15% tongue weight. Since we didn’t really want to re-pack the trailer if things came out wonky we decided to weigh our boxes and track our packing in a simple spreadsheet. I know, crazy, but still less work than repacking an entire trailer! Some of the furniture we couldn’t really weigh, so we estimated it best we could. In the end this method worked pretty well, when we weighed the trailer (a process I’ll describe in detail below) we came out with a gross weight of 6,280 pounds (well shy of the 7,000 allowed) and a tongue weight of 920 pounds, or 14.6%.
Weight Distribution Hitch
This was another item I went back and forth on. I knew it would be mandatory with a ½ ton truck and initially I thought that I would go without it on a ¾ ton. And while I read that some owner’s manuals require one when over 5,000 pounds I didn’t see that anywhere in mine. All the same, I decided to go ahead and get one to make the towing experience safer and more enjoyable. I went with a friction style model without chains, the Fastway e2, which provides sway control and weigh distribution all in one unit. I have to say I was really pleased with the way it performed. Again, keep in mind I have little towing experience without one and can’t really compare the two options fairly, but all the same I think it was a good choice for me.
One issue I ran into was selecting the proper weight rating for the hitch. I ended up with a hitch rated to 8,000 pounds gross weight and 800 pounds tongue weight. Confusingly, the hitch manual stated that the tongue weight of the trailer should be, you guessed it, 10-15% of the gross weight. If you do the math you can see that at only 10% tongue weight the hitch seems to be pushed right up to its max. After carefully thinking about things I realized they must mean that the tongue weight of the trailer should be 10-15% WIHTOUT weight distribution, but when the trailer is on the truck WITH the weight distribution engaged tongue weight should be 800 pounds max. I wasn’t sure if that would actually work out, but in a moment when we do the numbers you’ll see it does.
Also, a note on the hitch’s adjustable shank. I bought my hitch used and it had the standard length adjustable shank which provides a 2.5 inch drop. I could see right away that it wasn’t enough for the empty trailer, but I thought maybe once the back end of the truck squatted with a heavier load it could be okay. However, when I read through the hitch instruction manual it recommended that as a starting point the truck’s hitch ball height should match the trailer’s coupler height with a level trailer. Doing the math I was amazed to see just how much drop I needed! I talked things through with Fastway and in the end I bought the biggest adjustable shank they make, an 8.5 inch drop. I was a little concerned that after loading some stuff in the bed the rear end of the truck might squat and change things, but that didn’t end up being an issue and I ran the hitch in its lowest position.