Fishing Bear
Mission Viejo, CA
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Help! We are upgrading our TT with a 5th Wheel. The one we found that is great for our family is the Montana Mountaineer 345DBQ. It has 4 slides and a whole rear back room for the kids! My real question is would you tow this with my vehicle? The weight listed on the sticker of the trailer is 11045#. I drive a 2006 Dodge 2500 Mega Cab Cummins Diesel with a tow capacity of 12400. Any advice would be welcome! Oh, I also thought about adding to my 2500 to make it tow more. Has anyone done that? What was the cost? Was it worth it?
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Bearnkat
Fort Worth, Texas
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I'm sure some of the more knowledgeable 5er folks will chime in, but are you sure that is your "5th wheel" towing capacity. I have an '06 F250 and my "bumper" towing capacity is 12,500, but my "5th wheel" towing capacity is 15,800. You might double check your specs and capacities. Also is the 11,000# enpty weight or loaded?
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rsh_757
Auburn, WA
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Bearnkat wrote:I'm sure some of the more knowledgeable 5er folks will chime in, but are you sure that is your "5th wheel" towing capacity. I have an '06 F250 and my "bumper" towing capacity is 12,500, but my "5th wheel" towing capacity is 15,800. You might double check your specs and capacities. Also is the 11,000# enpty weight or loaded?
Dodge doesn't list a "fifth wheel" towing capacity like the Ford. Personally, 4 slides is going to put his Gross trailer at somewhere near 15,000. I wouldn't tow it with any SRW truck.
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minex
Colorado
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I'm by no means an expert either. Isn't payload capacity and hitch weight just as important? For example, I'm looking at the website and a Dodge Ram 2500 Megacab has a payload capacity of 1535 lbs. The 2009 Montana Mountaineer 345DBQ has a hitch weight of 2310 lbs, which means you'll be overweight in this respect. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here.
I got the payload capacity here : http://www-5.dodge.com/vehsuite/TowingGuide.jsp
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donn0128
Pronounced Ore-gun
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Pretty simple to figure out, first load the truck up like you will travel and go to the scales. Add 250 pounds for the hitch and subtract this number from the 20,000 pounds GCWR that I think is on your truck. Does the fivers GVWR fall within this remaining weight? NOPE, I can tell you for sure you will be so far overloaded it is not even funny and likely downright scary! That fiver will have a GVWR of right around 14000-15000 pounds and a pin weight of close to 3000 pounds, That puts you squarely into dually country. Oh and the Mega cab is down rated so be prepared to trade trucks to a dually.
Donn
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troll3193
SouthWest, MI USA
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I don't pull a fiver, but I know with my previous 2500 series Quad cab diesel, I could hit my TV GVWR limit with my bumper pull TT.
You will overload on pin weight before you run out of tow capacity most likely...
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bdougt
Now Louisiana, Eventually Michigan
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minex wrote:... a Dodge Ram 2500 Megacab has a payload capacity of 1535 lbs. The 2009 Montana Mountaineer 345DBQ has a hitch weight of 2310 lbs, which means you'll be overweight in this respect. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here.
I got the payload capacity here : http://www-5.dodge.com/vehsuite/TowingGuide.jsp
I find, from the website, that the payload is 2100 lbs.
Brian, Donna, and Ted the dog.
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mkirsch
Rochester, NY
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2100 < 2310... still overloaded, and we're not even talking about options, the 5th wheel hitch, and your own stuff in the camper yet!
IMHO, a 5th wheel with a 10,000 GVWR (NOT a 10,000 dry weight!!!) would be appropriate for the MegaCab 2500. Still overloaded based on truck GVWR, but within the rear axle rating.
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donn0128
Pronounced Ore-gun
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That's crazy, Keystone will not even give you the GVWR of this trailer! So, if you take the "shipping weight" and add the carrying capacity it comes up to 14,310 pounds. 20% of that equals 2862 pounds for pin weight. What part of OVER LOADED does not compute here? Now, take the 14,310 pounds and add the trucks ready to camp scaled weight, lets estimate 8000 pounds and the grand total ready to camp can be as high as 22,310 pounds! That is exceeding the trucks GCWR by 2300 pounds, the trucks GVWR by something in the order of 1100 pounds. This is definitely a NO GO in most anybodies book.
* This post was
edited 07/14/08 03:56pm by donn0128 *
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MikeRP
Circleville OH
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Take this for what it worth and check with your dealer. But I think you can tow this trailer fine. Realize this is my humble opinion. You can get around 2800 lbs easily on the rear axle. You may have to add timbrens or airbags for leveling. This truck is basically a 3500 without the extra overload springs.
So look at the 3500 weight ratings for the same exact truck. Now if you go above 2800lbs on the rear, my guess is to be safe you will need to consider 19.5 inch rims and tires. These will increase your rear axle towing limits alot. Look up Rickson's on google.
Finally, look into an exhaust brake for additional stopping power which in my book is the most important thing. You can do it safely but it takes work and some money. I'd work with my dealer to set this up right.
Now, the folks here will kill me for saying the above. If you are uncomfortable with that weight or think you can drive 70mph with that load - get another trailer. 55 mph would be my limit. Check out diesel truck resource .com There's folks over there towing more weight that that with your exact truck.
Mike
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