Need some HuntTalk wisdom on 5th Wheels

npaden

npaden

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Lubbock, Texas
Okay, so I'm shopping for a new trailer since my last one is now in the dump at Sheridan, Wyoming. Not really looking for a repeat of that.

I'm shocked at some of the nearly unbelievable deals out there right now on 5th wheel toyhaulers. After the shortages and then selling these things at straight list price for a while it seems that they are hanging out on the dealer lots and they are really wanting to move them. I'm seeing 50%+ discounts on them.

So I'm looking and found a few that I really like but I'm trying to sort through the hitch pin weights.

Here's the sticker from my door:
IMG_7304.jpeg

The trailer that I really like is 12,304 pounds and has a hitch pin weight of 2,460. So that it a little over 300 pounds less than the truck is rated for so looks like I'm good. Then I read that you need to add the estimated weight of the cargo and add 20% of that to the hitch pin weight. If I throw 3,500 pounds in there with machines and stuff then that adds 700 pounds to the hitch weight and that throws me over. I'm still under the max payload of 3,287 lbs on the door but if the family is in the truck we would be over loaded.

Reading online there is mixed information out there on whether the hitch weight goes up or down or stays the same when you load the machines in the back. It probably depends on the specific trailer and where the axles are. If adding the machines to the back has no affect on the hitch weight I think I'm okay. If the machines add 20% to the hitch weight I'm out.

Reading on the RV forums it seems like most of the full time RV'ers are going with dual rear wheel 1 tons for a trailer in that range. Probably the smart thing to do but I really am not wanting to get a truck that won't fit in my garage. I would rather get a smaller trailer since we only use the trailer 3 or 4 weeks a year and the truck is my daily driver.

Looking at bumper pulls I have found a few that are decent that don't have the rear enclosed garage like my last one did so I would be able to pull the machines up over the axle and distribute the weight better. These are all well within the weight limits on my truck.

More reading online says a 12,000 pound 5th wheel will pull down the highway as good if not better than a 9,000 pound bumper pull. Also read that the 5th wheel tracks narrower so making tight corners on a forest service road might be harder.

Here's the exact 5th wheel I'm looking at getting. https://www.funtownrv.com/product/new-2023-heartland-gravity-3570-1975785-26

They are willing to deal a little even off that already low price. This seems like the one to get if I can pull it safely. They have a smaller one for about the same price but it is only 100 pounds less on the hitch weight so not sure if that is going to matter.

I've got the bumper pull option pretty much narrowed down to a used Heartland Stryker 2916 - https://cruiserrv.com/rv-model/stryker-st2916/

It has the ability to pull the machine up over the axles which is going to be a requirement if I stay with a bumper pull. I've found a couple of these used on Facebook marketplace for $35,000ish for a 2021. Seems like the brand new 5th wheel would be a better deal but not if I can't pull it safely.

Oh well, Hunt Talk has always been a good source of advice for me in the past so I thought I would throw this out there to see if I can get some real world input from folks that might have some personal experience pulling 5th wheels vs. bumper pulls.

Right now my heart is telling me to make the jump to the awesome 5th wheel at the amazing price, but my gut is telling me that I should probably stick to the bumper pull that is well within the specs of my truck.

Thanks for any input. Nathan
 
Pullin a 5th wheel is SO much nicer than a bumper pull, so much less sway and yes to all your comments on tracking. And for a few trips per year, definitely want to stay with a 3/4 ton. Leave the battling the 1ton duallys for the full timers. I do not have experience with toy haulers and effect on pin weight, so take that into account. But I have had 5th wheels for years pull a similar sized 5th wheel (40' similar weight- not hauler) with my 3/4 ton Ram diesel, and it handles fine. Don't want to share exact specs here, as the internet police always have something to say. But just be sure to stay under your rating and not exceed, as if an accident happens (and hopefully you have had your one and have no more!) and someone else is injured, don't want to be over on weight rating and give the insurance companies a reason to shed. I did add some air lift 5000 bags as well, and they really helped with driveability as well.
You are doing the right thing - lay it all out there with the math, but if you can, would highly recommend the 5th wheel - so much easier on driving.
 
Most people find that 5th wheels do tow better. Most also find that the actual weight is sometimes heavier than the sticker. I wouldn't start out overloaded. Also, there is no standard for overall length. I'd bring a tape measure.
 
Been reading some more and I think I would be just barely okay with the one I like the most. It is showing 2,460 hitch weight empty. I figure we will throw in 1,000 pounds of crap (probably a little high, but trying to be conservative) so that will increase the hitch weight around 200 pounds or so if it is evenly distributed. That keeps me under the truck rating of 2,775 by 115 pounds. Based on my reading putting the toys in the garage is going to lighten my hitch weight somewhere around 15% to 20% if they are behind the axles which they are. The Rzr weighs 1,000 pounds and the ATV weighs 500 pounds so that's 1,500 pounds behind the rear axles. That would put the hitch weight back down 225 to 300 pounds. Let's say 225 to be conservative. That gets the hitch weight back down to 2,435 pounds which would actually just be a tiny bit less than the empty number. That would give me 340 pounds of play over the rated hitch capacity on my truck and leave me 852 pounds of unused payload capacity for the truck which would get the family loaded along with the weight of the 5th wheel hitch.

So I would be within the specs of the truck, but barely. The only other spec that seems like it would be close is the GAWR of the rear axle which is 6,600 pounds. I think that is going to line up with the 3,287 payload capacity and think that should squeak by as well.

So that gets me to my quandary. Is it going to be better to squeak by on the ratings and tow a 5th wheel or would it be better to have a bumper pull that is well within the ratings of the truck? Obviously the bumper pull I just totaled was well within the tow ratings of the truck and that still didn't keep me from wrecking it. I think if I go with a bumper pull it would have to have a open garage so we could pull the toys forward enough to keep it balanced.

The folks selling the 5th wheel told me that I would be fine pulling it with my truck. Obviously they are biased and want to sell it.
 
This is what I know about buying used recreational vehicles:


You are buying someone else's problem they couldn't, or didn't want to fix.

If it's new, you're looking at lighting a bunch of cash on fire when you sign for it.

So, get what you want and enjoy a cigar with the cash you light on fire to fix, use or just look at it.
 
npaden said:
The folks selling the 5th wheel told me that I would be fine pulling it with my truck. Obviously they are biased and want to sell it.
Click to expand...
That's pretty normal. It's not the dealer's problem once you buy it.
 
There is so much that are unknown with weight distribution on these things that are adjustable. For Instance, the water tank is located at x point, but the black and gray tanks are located at x points. It changes the pin weight distribution, etc. on your way to camp and coming home. Then you have loads of stuff you take with you that can be located at the back or the front based upon how you feel you want it. There is not a great way to isolate the weights until you get it loaded and take it to the scales with your toys in the back garage. If your within the total weight rating and pin rating with the dry weight, go for the 5th wheel. They are much more forgiving down the highway. Once you get it home, you can play with the loading to determine how much or less you want on the pin. For instance you can load your side by side or wheelers in backwards and it completely changes the load distributions. Same thing with extra fuel cans, coolers, etc. You may want them ahead of or behind the axle depending on how much pin weight you want / need. Looks like a nice unit!
 
I would just max everything out again and hope for the best.

FYI, I watched a 5th wheel RV ripped right off the hitch near Chugwater in a pretty normal (for Wyoming) broadside wind. RV hit I-25 and slid into the median, looked just like your recent wreck, a total yard sale.
 
npaden said:
I was over 1,000lbs under my hitch rating and 6,500lbs under my tow rating on my last trailer. Very far from maxed out.

Glad to see you with a helpful comment like usual.
Click to expand...
Here's something helpful, I pull a metric shit ton of stuff at work, and I don't like doing it. Horse trailers (with 4 horses/mules), ATV trailers (with up to 4 ATV's on a trailer), RV's all with 3/4 ton trucks both bumper pull and 5th wheel. It gets really fun in the wind, rain, fog, and anytime there's snow, mud and ice on the road. Grooved highways are also a special treat, even in the dead of summer with horses shifting around. As an added bonus, you can get flats on more tires, and fix chit non-stop on the RV, trailer, and your tow vehicle. Wear it all out much quicker and get chit fuel mileage...but by god, you don't have to buy a motel room.

I own wall tents and know how to book hotels/AirBNB, etc....hint.
 
Last edited:
npaden said:
I was over 1,000lbs under my hitch rating and 6,500lbs under my tow rating on my last trailer. Very far from maxed out.

Glad to see you with a helpful comment like usual.
Click to expand...
I know he’s just Buzz being Buzz, but he’s right. After what you just went through, I would never come close to maxing things out again. If that happened to me, I would be looking for a smaller camper or a bigger truck. You were very lucky that nobody was hurt. It could have ended much differently for you or someone else.
 
That's the crazy thing. I've always been at or near the limit of my tow vehicle in the past. This was my 7th travel trailer that I've owned over the last 25 years. I was dead set on pulling them with a 1/2 ton truck and always was able to do it safely, sometimes just slower and with more difficulty. I probably have 100,000 miles of towing a bumper pull with a 1/2 ton truck over those years.

Once I upgraded to the 3/4 ton truck it was well within it's limits and it towed things so easily it gave a false sense of security. Having a bigger truck didn't help much at all (I think it did keep the truck from going over but didn't keep the trailer from going over).

Upgrading to a bigger truck doesn't seem to be the answer. I have thought about the logistics of getting this trailer back into some of the spots I've been previously and that isn't sounding very appealing. I think it would end up becoming a highway queen other than taking it to our place in Colorado. That's our primary use for it, taking it to our own land where there aren't any AirB&Bs and my wife doesn't want to sleep in a tent.
 
Thinking through, I don't think many accidents that I've seen involving trailers have had much to do with the tow vehicle not being up to the task. It has been other factors that have led to the accidents. I have seen some vehicles towing loads that they obviously shouldn't have been no doubt, but I would say that most have involved either careless driving, improper load balancing or hazardous conditions.

I know my recent wreck had almost zero to do with the ability of the tow vehicle, I think even if I was pulling with an 4 ton truck the trailer would have still ended up in the median.

With that said I am not looking at doing something like pulling a larger trailer with a Tacoma or a small SUV. I would be within the manufacturers guidelines for towing, just right up near the limit.

Obviously I'm not just making this decision off the cuff, I'm doing lots of research on it. I appreciate the input from people who are actually saying something other than "you shouldn't tow anything and get a tent or stay in a hotel."
 
I don't haul heavy very often. tow a tandem axle dump trailer bumper pull and a goose neck trailer to haul a 75hp tractor plus implements. i'd rather tow the goose neck. Try to avoid towing either as much as possible.

Not trying to jump on the "stay in a tent or hotel" theme but have you considered a little cabin on your place. We had a travel trailer on our property for about 4 years. We ended up building a cabin and get so much more enjoyment from it over the travel trailer. It seemed like there was always some kind of nonsense to deal with the trailer. HVAC system is connected as an Amazon Alexa app i can turn on the AC or heat before I even head up there. Hard to beat pulling into the driveway, throw on hunting clothes, grab a gun and be hunting within the first 10 minutes of arrival.
 
We have looked into a cabin on our place in Colorado but are still working with a neighbor to see if she might sell us a little more land and if so that would be where we want to put the cabin. It would be off grid so no HVAC system or anything like that. We have looked into the portable building type cabins that we could move later if we needed to, but I would really prefer a barndo type setup instead.

Wife worries about having to maintain and upkeep a cabin but I guess we have to maintain and upkeep a trailer anyway. We do have some land here in Texas as well that we hunt on so having the trailer lets us essentially take the cabin to either place. The toy hauler feature lets us take the machines as well and that way we don't have to have machines in both places.
 
A fifth wheel will absolutely pull better, but every time I see a giant toy hauler I’m always glad I’m not the one pulling it. It just looks like a pita. I regularly tow 10k-12k on a bumper hitch but the trailers are only 20’-26’ long. I wouldn’t get so hung up on the weight, but the length of the trailer is going to play a big roll in it too. Admittedly I know nothing about rv’s, but surely someone makes a shorter 5th wheel toy hauler?
 
The bumper pull toy haulers are generally around 30' plus the hitch which puts them in the 34' to 35' range usually. One appeal of a 5th wheel is that they overhang the truck 4' so a 40' 5th wheel plus a 20' truck is a combined 56' long vs. a 20' truck and a 35' bumper pull plus the 12" hitch is the same combined 56' long. For the same overall length you get 10' more of trailer.

Towing on the highway they say is easier with the 5th wheel because the wind bubble of the truck and trailer are one and with the bumper pull it ends up hitting against 2 wind bubbles. Of course that doesn't apply to a crosswind and I think if you end up with 30+ mph crosswinds it's probably time to park any trailer.

Reading up on it, most claim to be getting the same fuel mileage pulling a larger and taller 5th wheel than they did pulling a lighter bumper pull.

I have found a few 5th wheel toy haulers in the 37' range but for some reason their hitch weight is about the same as a 40' or 41' one. I did find a 39' one that easily fits my trucks capacity with plenty of room to spare but it doesn't look very well constructed and has a very low cargo capacity.
 
12,000 plus trailer weight empty and that close to your max pin weight would have me looking at a smaller trailer or a 1 ton, but that’s just me. I don’t like to get anywhere close to the max.
 
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