As someone who is researching what I want to order on a 3500, I read through this whole thread. I'm going with 3500 because I don't ever want to run out of payload again, and I test drove one with air suspension and I honestly don't know what the internet complaints are about unloaded stiff driving (maybe that's for non air suspension brands?). I absolutely could use one as my daily driver (this is NOT just a tow vehicle). So a 3500 over a 2500 it is!
Now the question for me is SO vs HO. For size reasons, I am limited to the tiniest HD truck I can get - a Ram crew cab short bed. My current brand new trailer is 34' and 8200#, with a mere 1050# tongue. I will never have to worry about payload again! Given that a 2500 with SO would have been completely fine for me pull/stop wise, the 3500 with SO would check all my same boxes. It *seems* like the HO is overkill for me when really all I want is a 2500 with 3k payload. It might be cool to have the HO to say "I don't even feel a trailer behind me!" but not really necessary (I think?).
Since I am limited to a 31gal tank, MPG is one thing I'm very interested in. From this thread, it looks like (unloaded) MPG in the SO will be roughly 3MPG better, at least hwy driving. That could mean 90 miles more on a tank, not bad! Now how about towing difference? I am used to ~10MPG in my F150 Powerboost with a 30gal so anymore more is a huge bonus. My rough guesses are ~12MPG with a SO towing and maybe ~13MPG with a HO or are they about the same once loaded up? Any experience in this area is welcome! According to user data from Fuelly, average fillups are ~2-3MPG better from 2500->3500 6.7L Diesel. BUT - the 3500 data doesn't distinguish HO vs SO even though HO is the majority, and neither of them distinguish towing fillups vs non-towing fillups.
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Lastly, I'm concerned my wife may get excited about "upgrading" to a 5er in the future due to the truck capability (dammit, there goes my truck bed!). I cannot imagine us needing a huge destination trailer, but perhaps something in the 10-13k range, with pin weight <2500#. Is the SO still capable and ok with this? (forget the short bed 5er argument for a sec, I'm curious about the engine) According to the specs, the HO would only "buy" you ~4000# of "capability" in a crew cab shorty but I'm more interested in if the SO experience will be miserable or not a problem.
NOTE: The towing capability by VIN link worked 2 weeks ago and now doesn't. At the time I was looking up VINs of Limited/Longhorn CCSB's and saw payloads >3k which was really all I was looking at at the time. I wanted to again check a few SO vs HO units by scanning the nationwide inventory to look at the true GCVWR's and the damn tool is dead