Where to find TT/5er reviews

[Brutal_HO]

How do you like the GY endurance tires ?

almosd time to replace mine. It came with taskmaster providers which have been good

Love them, great tire. On my 3rd season with them now. I don't dare run that fast but they're rated to 87mph...

Caught a nail in one and it held 40 psi until dismounted for repair.

Had I not been alerted by the TPMS, it could have blown like any other. However, the failed ones I have seen are just shredded sidewall and the tread is still intact and no damage to RV.

Seen plenty of others do significant damage and some even lose the tread and still holding air.

Sent from my work avoidance device

 

[BAT3500]

Bad news for me- at about 6000 miles towing, last trip out caught a nail in one of trailer tires in the corner of the tread. Not repairable.
Good news - my tire minder system reported the issue and we were able to change the tire before it damaged the trailer.
Bad news- no find load range F tires in correct size and in stock on the road. Even in a fairly large metropolitan area.
Decided to upgrade load rating and use more common size and replaced all 4 tires. Spendy but discovered another tire had evidence of belt separation and was likely to blow soon.
The stock tires were tire king, typical cheap chinese tires. Upgraded to goodyear 614, made in america. Easy to notice as a far superior tire.

 

[RAM_Dad]

Just replaced all four + Spare recently with the GY Endurance. Trailer feels like it tracks better with those. Those tires probably weigh at least 50% more than the el cheapos, definitely a substantial tire.

 

[Lary0071]

I came from a 2020 Forest River Coachmen Apex 289TBSS that was complete junk, paid $27K for it and traded it in 6 months later for $17K and was happy to say goodbye to it. I went to a Grand Design Reflection 311BHS fifth wheel for $48.5K and honestly love it. I have yet to have a repair other than silicone on the inside of the shower surround because the outer side of the trough was getting water and staining. It did not "need" to be sealed, it contained the water... but I had use an old toothbrush to get in there and scrub the stains.

Knock on wood, I have no issues with plumbing, appliances, wood work, cabinetry, wall paper... nothing. And it comes factory with the leaf spring equalizer that has the big rubber shock bushing in it as well as "wet bolts" that you grease after you jack the weight off of the springs. No more dry bolts trying to destroy themselves every few years.

I would not say I am a cultish follower of Grand Design, but the build of the 2 products I bought were night and day different. Everything about the grand design is a pleasure. I wanted to burn the Coachmen.

 

[UglyViking]

I came from a 2020 Forest River Coachmen Apex 289TBSS that was complete junk, paid $27K for it and traded it in 6 months later for $17K and was happy to say goodbye to it. I went to a Grand Design Reflection 311BHS fifth wheel for $48.5K and honestly love it. I have yet to have a repair other than silicone on the inside of the shower surround because the outer side of the trough was getting water and staining. It did not "need" to be sealed, it contained the water... but I had use an old toothbrush to get in there and scrub the stains.

Knock on wood, I have no issues with plumbing, appliances, wood work, cabinetry, wall paper... nothing. And it comes factory with the leaf spring equalizer that has the big rubber shock bushing in it as well as "wet bolts" that you grease after you jack the weight off of the springs. No more dry bolts trying to destroy themselves every few years.

I would not say I am a cultish follower of Grand Design, but the build of the 2 products I bought were night and day different. Everything about the grand design is a pleasure. I wanted to burn the Coachmen.

I've heard nothing but good things so I don't doubt it. The challenge the wife and I had with GD is that the cost is higher and it's not the exact layout we want. I wouldn't mind sacrificing either or but not both. If we were going to get a 5er I may feel different, but after weighing the truck last night I'm at 5060 front, 3300 rear axle weights. I figure I add another 180 per kid, maybe 110 for the wife, a lab and a yapper and I'm about 580lbs, prob have some odds and ends so let's round up to 700 just for sake of argument. Assuming since I've got a crew short bed that weight would be pretty evenly split I'm looking at a rear axle weight of 3650 with an axle rating of 6k, only leaves 2350. Now, that is a pretty decent amount but a 12k trailer at 20% pin would put me about 50lbs over. To be fair I'm stacking safety margins a bit there, and I'm sure that the rear axle is likely actually capable of much more than 6k extended use, so I'm still a little up in the air.

We are going on a trip mid July, so I need to either pull the trigger on renting, or buying, ASAP. Honestly, at this point it's getting down to pretty minor differences and all the reviews I'm reading seem to be mostly nitpicky stuff. I wish it wasn't the case, but seems trailers don't have the same build quality or protections as other stuff.

 

[Lary0071]

I've heard nothing but good things so I don't doubt it. The challenge the wife and I had with GD is that the cost is higher and it's not the exact layout we want. I wouldn't mind sacrificing either or but not both. If we were going to get a 5er I may feel different, but after weighing the truck last night I'm at 5060 front, 3300 rear axle weights. I figure I add another 180 per kid, maybe 110 for the wife, a lab and a yapper and I'm about 580lbs, prob have some odds and ends so let's round up to 700 just for sake of argument. Assuming since I've got a crew short bed that weight would be pretty evenly split I'm looking at a rear axle weight of 3650 with an axle rating of 6k, only leaves 2350. Now, that is a pretty decent amount but a 12k trailer at 20% pin would put me about 50lbs over. To be fair I'm stacking safety margins a bit there, and I'm sure that the rear axle is likely actually capable of much more than 6k extended use, so I'm still a little up in the air.

We are going on a trip mid July, so I need to either pull the trigger on renting, or buying, ASAP. Honestly, at this point it's getting down to pretty minor differences and all the reviews I'm reading seem to be mostly nitpicky stuff. I wish it wasn't the case, but seems trailers don't have the same build quality or protections as other stuff.

Just to give you an idea of what happens, this is my 2017 Ram 1500 Rebel with the bumper pull Coachmen Apex Ultralite 289TBSS. You can google real quick and see the empty weight and the empty tongue weight.... I am showing truck alone with me in it, truck and camper with no WDH set up, then truck and camper with the Equalizer E4 set up to return the front axle to near what it was with no trailer. It tells a neat little story.

 

[Lary0071]

Now here I show you a 2019 Ram 2500 CC 6.4L Bighorn with and without my Grand Design 311BHS. You can see that I have 2,860 pin weight (Advertised is 2,197 lbs) with no water but loaded as typical with food, clothing/bedding, all kitchen needs and drinks. The 5th wheel empty weight is advertised per the yellow sticker as 11,546.... 13,140 is my actual trailer weight found by taking total gross of the truck and trailer minus the empty weight of the truck. So take those things in mind, the advertised pin weights are empty, no propane/batteries, no "stuff" in the unit.... your advertised pin weight is kind of a reference point only, you will be many hundreds of lbs heavier than advertised.

 

[UglyViking]

@Lary0071 yeah, I get that people load these trucks up differently, but boy do the differences in numbers surprise me. I'd for sure be over axle rating with that 5er and while I'm confident in being over GVWR and being fine I'm not going to risk the same with the GAWRs. I feel confident in some of the smaller 5ers and being ok, but honestly I think for my first camper I'm just gonna go a traditional bumper pull and call it a day. Getting close and have a few options picked out.

 

[BAT3500]

I actually noticed about a .5 mile per/ gal increase when i swapped from the stock junk tires over to the gy brand. Like previous poster, new tires were sustancially heavier and do seem to track bettter.

 

[whitexc]

I just replaced the Castle Rock bombs on our 1500 mile Flagstaff with GY Endurance. I wasn't taking the chance of a blowout.

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[GBB]

ORV Manufacturing and Northwood’s Arctic Fox are good quality. Build they’re frames in house.

 

[UglyViking]

ORV Manufacturing and Northwood’s Arctic Fox are good quality. Build they’re frames in house.

I looked at both, sadly neither offer a "bunkhouse" option and that is the one single thing that the wife wants. A room with some sort of door for the little dude(s).

 

[Brutal_HO]

I've heard nothing but good things so I don't doubt it. The challenge the wife and I had with GD is that the cost is higher and it's not the exact layout we want. I wouldn't mind sacrificing either or but not both. If we were going to get a 5er I may feel different, but after weighing the truck last night I'm at 5060 front, 3300 rear axle weights. I figure I add another 180 per kid, maybe 110 for the wife, a lab and a yapper and I'm about 580lbs, prob have some odds and ends so let's round up to 700 just for sake of argument. Assuming since I've got a crew short bed that weight would be pretty evenly split I'm looking at a rear axle weight of 3650 with an axle rating of 6k, only leaves 2350. Now, that is a pretty decent amount but a 12k trailer at 20% pin would put me about 50lbs over. To be fair I'm stacking safety margins a bit there, and I'm sure that the rear axle is likely actually capable of much more than 6k extended use, so I'm still a little up in the air.

We are going on a trip mid July, so I need to either pull the trigger on renting, or buying, ASAP. Honestly, at this point it's getting down to pretty minor differences and all the reviews I'm reading seem to be mostly nitpicky stuff. I wish it wasn't the case, but seems trailers don't have the same build quality or protections as other stuff.

FWIW, my 12K GVWR 303RLS pin weight is around 2200.

 

[Brutal_HO]

I just replaced the Castle Rock bombs on our 1500 mile Flagstaff with GY Endurance. I wasn't taking the chance of a blowout.

Sent from my moto z3 using Tapatalk

Don't know if I mentioned it before, but GD has been putting GY on the Reflection 5th wheels for a year or two now.

 

[UglyViking]

FWIW, my 12K GVWR 303RLS pin weight is around 2200.

Thats surprisingly low! Good to hear though. I think a 5er is a bit more than I want to spend, especially for my 1st travel trailer. I was hoping to save some coin and buy used but I think the used market is more insane than the new market at this point!

 

[Lary0071]

Whatever you buy.... new or used, bumper or fiver.... the main living room absolutely has to have 2 opposing slide outs. You can have a single slide in the bunkhouse and a single slide in the master bedroom.... but the living/ cooking area must be double opposing slides.

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[naplesbill]

Two things you should always buy used, in my opinion, are RVs and boats. Most of the problems occur in the first twelve months. Let someone else deal with warranty work so you can just enjoy using it.


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[RAM_Dad]

Two things you should always buy used, in my opinion, are RVs and boats. Most of the problems occur in the first twelve months. Let someone else deal with warranty work so you can just enjoy using it.


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And I bet there will be a flood of lightly used RVs soon. Lot's of folks bought one during the pandemic without understanding the amount of effort it takes to actually own and maintain.

 

[Brutal_HO]

Whatever you buy.... new or used, bumper or fiver.... the main living room absolutely has to have 2 opposing slide outs. You can have a single slide in the bunkhouse and a single slide in the master bedroom.... but the living/ cooking area must be double opposing slides.

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Gotta go a bit big for that. 3 slide rigs are almost always going be pushing 12K.

That said, second time we bought, we wouldn't even entertain a rig that didn't have the dining on the campside (curbside) or a 12cu Fridge or auto-level. LOL

Had I known at the time I'd end up with a bigger newer truck and found out almost everyone else that double tows is 10-15' or more over their state "limits" anyway, we probably would have gotten a larger one (337) instead of the 303. But we love it anyway and don't really need the extra closet space which was the only real difference in the extra 3'.

 

[Lary0071]

Gotta go a bit big for that. 3 slide rigs are almost always going be pushing 12K.

That said, second time we bought, we wouldn't even entertain a rig that didn't have the dining on the campside (curbside) or a 12cu Fridge or auto-level. LOL

Had I known at the time I'd end up with a bigger newer truck and found out almost everyone else that double tows is 10-15' or more over their state "limits" anyway, we probably would have gotten a larger one (337) instead of the 303. But we love it anyway and don't really need the extra closet space which was the only real difference in the extra 3'.

I wanted the Reflection 367, my wife wanted the 311. We bought the 311.... now my wife wishes that we had bought the 367! I want to choke that girl at times! But we enjoy it and use it. We keep it in a local seasonal site for $1850 a year, and we are there Thursday to Sunday every week. I pull it out as desired to take it on trips. This month we are doing 9 days in Myrtle Beach at the Pirate campground.

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