Greetings from a new 2005 Hemi owner.

[Legal Bill]

Hello everyone. I just bought a 2005 1500 5.7 from my Son's +1. She inherited it and they needed to get rid of it. I've been looking for an older truck to tow my boats, so I thoughts I'd throw them a few more bucks than they would have got from Craigslist and give it a try. If it doesn't work out, so be it. The truck was used almost exclusively for highway commuting and seems to have been well maintained. The reason for my misgivings is that the truck has about 190K on it. Despite the miles it checked out well at a local shop that could only find broken exhaust manifold bolts and leaking gaskets that I had them replace. The ball joint boots were torn, so I had them put on new ball joint assemblies as well. The shop said the rest of the truck was fine, other than a spot of rust on the door which I'll probably address myself.

My question to all of you is, should I expect to need a new transmission when I start towing boats with it? Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

 

[HemiLonestar]

No, the RFE is fine (other than sucking up power and terrible programming lol) for stock application. How big are your boats? If you have some decently heavy ones (of course not exceeding the truck's tow rating) then a larger trans cooler would help as well as a deeper finned pan. I tow a 2500lb boat regularly and I end up towing cars for either myself or family/friends (the heaviest being about 4500lbs plus trailer). The 1 ton hemi cooler is a bolt in and I also have the pan, though it came with a replacement trans so I dunno if I would've actually spent the money lol. Don't disable your torque management, it's what extends the life of the trans, especially if you're making more power or stressing it more some other way. Some form of gauge also help to monitor temps. My truck:

 

[Legal Bill]

Thank you for the reply. The biggest is a Parker 21 SC. It has a two axle Karavan trailer. Boat and trailer will be around 4500#. I'm picking it up from them on January 1. I would like to change out the pan and fluid, but does this tranny model have the slipping problem that can occur when you change the fluid on high mileage units?

 

[HemiLonestar]

Changing fluid is fine, try to avoid trans flushing on higher mileage units. Not so much that it'll slip, flush can knock **** loose that can cause problems. If you keep the truck stock the trans will be fine.