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Buy a 5th wheel instead or a bumper pull?

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Pressure_welder said:
Personal opinion, but i wouldn't even consider a travel trailer from both a towing, and camping perspective. Fifth wheel gives you opportunity for more space, better layouts, ability to tow a boat or additional trailer and they pull significantly better than a travel trailer. As for you're trucks capacity, again this is personal opinion. But even the newer 3/4 tons are glorified half tons I feel as far as capability goes. Some of their trailer capacities don't even make sense in relation to the payload. But they DO have their place in the smaller fifth wheel world around that 28-32ft range, but they just simply dont have the payload required to haul even campers at that 9900LB rating. By saying this i mean they MAY have just enough but no reserve for things like a hitch, passengers, tools etc. For example a 9900lb GVWR fifth wheels pin weight minimum should be 2000lbs. My uncles 2018 mega cab 3/4 ton is absolutely maxed payload wise on his 9900lb gvwr camper and you can see it when hes hooked up. His trucks payload is 1860lbs

again personal opinion but anyone playing in the camping world unless your hauling a super lite of some sort should be in a 3500 SRW min, i see so many overloaded 3/4 tons at the lake its insane. Generally their response is " i barely knew the camper was there" my salesmen said it would pull a house! as they pull in with their 40ft fiver with the bumper dragging on the ground. I feel having substantial reserve in youre tow vehicle is simply the safest way to tow confidently. Id rather have 1-1500lbs payload remaining, versus potentially exceeding my trucks ratings.

Buying a truck is a big time numbers game if you tow often, know youre payloads, and RAWR ! its far more important than reading a pamphlet that states a high towing number. Again some of these towing numbers make NO sense, some of these 3/4 tons claim 15-17,000lbs towing? but have no where near the payload to handle these weights. I suppose if you load the trailer incorrectly you could pull this off.
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My loaded to the hilt 2500 has a 2860# payload. What half ton has that?
 
My favourite part to see is what i have an arrow to…. I guess my air ride hitch made of 1/4” steel and highly gusseted that has lasted me over 15 years so far is not as strong as this little aluminum death trap that keeps failing on people… do you want lightest or do you want strongest there is no best of both worlds

Even reading the garbage statement of “smoothest” when it has 0 shock absorption (unless you count the material breaking) is comical

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jsalbre said:
So would you recommend the Andersen or no?
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Perhaps for a trailer 10K max GVWR. They do also make a steel version I would trust more if I even considered running one (with a lighter trailer). It's also apparent they have some issues with their aluminum balls. I honestly don't know if the steel AH comes with a steel or Aluminum ball.

Admittedly, many of these failures are with larger rigs. Don't assume they were all operator error and/or accidents either, just as many were panic stops or deer strikes,
 
  • Wow
Reactions: CFE
Docwagon1776 said:
With the caveat I don't tow anything any longer, something to consider is if you ever use your truck as a truck instead of as a tractor. A 5th wheel will make using the bed to carry anything much more difficult. A goose neck splits the difference, in that you can flip the ball upside down and have a flush bed floor again. When I had my Super Duty and did tow, that was the route I went. Without an adapter, there's much less selection for goose neck trailers, though. Maybe even less today than was true in the past.

I bought a bigger TT than I really needed and ended up not enjoying it as much as a smaller one. The extra space wasn't worth the loss in versatility and the extra cost associated with pulling more weight to me. Bigger isn't always better, in other words. If I were to get another, I'd likely go with the smallest I could live out of vs the biggest I could afford. YMMV.
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B W. makes a turn ball hitch you just pull the rod back and lift out the hitch . Puck systems are about as easy . Rails in today's trucks are becoming history.
 
i 100% don't vouch for those hitches, but apparently a lot of those failures were due to the owners using the andersen hitch with the incorrect pin box (as per andersens instructions), like the mor-ryde, or fifth airborne, air ride style etc. Seems you needed to have a "fixed" pinbox king pin plate versus an actuated pinbox. Only reason i know this is i kinda followed on the RV fourm side of things when some of these failures started to take place, owners were hooped as they blatantly attached the andersen coupler to the incorrect pinbox plate.

I think its a "good concept" but severely under built, ive seen one at the trailer show, and the fabrication methods are disturbing. Who on gods green earth PINCHES tubing since there to lazy to cope or cut angles. I think Curt or Blue ox has a similar version except reversed, ball is on the pinbox, and coupler is on the same sort of a-frame in the bed.

At the end of the day there's so many options now to make use of a 30k ball in the bed, i think even the puck system will slowly start to fade away as well. Again i BIG TIME vouch for the reese goose box, to date has to be the most user friendly setup ive used fifth wheel wise. We pull a 38ft montana, and a 20ft boat behind that and it worked awesome.
 
I'd seen plenty of failed Anderson hitch frames but not the ball. Seriously, some of those balls are aluminum? I thought they were steel that had just been fully hardened. Either way, sad, just sad.
 
Brutal_HO said:
Perhaps for a trailer 10K max GVWR. They do also make a steel version I would trust more if I even considered running one (with a lighter trailer). It's also apparent they have some issues with their aluminum balls. I honestly don't know if the steel AH comes with a steel or Aluminum ball.

Admittedly, many of these failures are with larger rigs. Don't assume they were all operator error and/or accidents either, just as many were panic stops or deer strikes,
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Sorry, you gave a good serious response and I was just being sarcastic.
 
RevRon said:
Talk to me, please. Would a 5th wheel that weighs 9,612 dry weight... with a hitch/pin weight of 1850... be too much... or towing the line... or reasonable?
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The 2500 trucks have the coil rear suspension that greatly decreases the amount of payload you'd find in a 3500. You need to subtract that hitch pin weight plus weight of passengers in the truck, gear, fuel, etc from the payload weight. You probably won't have much left, if any at all. And if you're over payload and in a serious accident that's thoroughly investigated, regardless if you're at fault, you're most likely going to be screwed.
 
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WEB said:
And if you're over payload and in a serious accident that's thoroughly investigated, regardless if you're at fault, you're most likely going to be screwed.
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this has never been the case ever its not grounds to be at fault especially if you are within your axle weights
 
WEB said:
The 2500 trucks have the coil rear suspension that greatly decreases the amount of payload you'd find in a 3500. You need to subtract that hitch pin weight plus weight of passengers in the truck, gear, fuel, etc from the payload weight. You probably won't have much left, if any at all. And if you're over payload and in a serious accident that's thoroughly investigated, regardless if you're at fault, you're most likely going to be screwed.
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One 150# passenger and a full tank of fuel are all included in the payload number, so you don't need to subtract those.

If I put that 5er he posted on my truck, fully loaded with gear I carry in the truck, and my wife and dog I'd still have 400# of payload remaining, and I have a 2500.
 
Keeping within the original heart of the thread, 5er vs. TT.... what "twist" angle is too much before a 5-er contacts the bedrail? How much more twist can a travel trailer allow (with or without a WDH)? Yeah, I know height variations on bed clearance make a difference, and true 360* off road hitches exist (I've even built my own for a small off-road trailer, though I've never personally seen a 30 foot TT with a 360* hitch)

We're still looking at all our options, same as the original poster. Not looking at serious off roading, but anticipating a couple of off-camber dry creek crossings at some desert property we visit.
 
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