Mods this may fall into IMHO territory, but I thought I would start here since there should be a factual answer to my question.
My wife and I are looking at 5th wheel trailers and the question of towing capacity keeps coming up. I currently have a 2010 Tundra with a towing capacity of 10,000 lbs. In case you’re wondering we prefer a 5th wheel over a bumper pull because of the added roominess, even though we lose the bed of the truck for additional storage.
We live in Montana and plan to drive all over the country, including over whatever mountain ranges happen to be in our way. For safety reasons, and to keep from destroying my truck, I am reluctant to purchase a 5th wheel that is over 8,000 lbs. empty. I figure that with the added weight of the water and stuff we will be taking we are looking at close to 9,000 lbs. fully loaded, which is 90% of my truck’s capacity. There are a few lightweight 5th wheels that are between 6,500 and 7,500 lbs., but they don’t have the features we want.
If we end of getting an 8,000 lb. 5th feel my gut tells me I will need to buy a new tow vehicle that has at least 12,000 lbs. towing capacity (or perhaps even more) to give me a margin of safety. And it will probably have a turbo diesel instead of a gas engine. I’m not looking to buy a new truck, but I fear crawling up the side of a mountain in an under powered, over heating vehicle.
Am I being overly cautious? How close to maximum towing capacity can you go with a large trailer such as a full size 5th wheel?
You might be OK on the rolling weight. But you also need to consider pin weight. You can safely pull 10,000 pounds down the road. But remember you also need to consider the 2,500 pounds that will be sitting on your rear axle. Do some research on the trailer life or good sam forum. Become familiar with weight ratings such as this online towing guide
The magic number that I’ve always heard is 75 percent.
Your Tundra is rated for 10,000 lbs, so that 9,000 lb weight fully loaded would be fine if you are only going over flat land on good roads.
However, you say you want to go over mountains and whatever, and will maybe not always be on the greatest of roads. In that case, you’ll want to keep the weight under 7,500 lbs, so that 9,000 lb total weight is a bit much.
I think you are putting yourself in a position where you need to either get a smaller trailer that doesn’t have all of the features you want, or shell out the money for a larger truck, which is what you were trying to avoid.
Every year they seem to come out with new lighter weight models. Perhaps in a year or two we can get what we want for 7,500 lbs., but by them the truck will be older and past its prime.
Yeah, along the lines of what Fir na tine said, the real limiting factor with 5th wheel trailers in half ton trucks is that you want the payload capacity (i.e. the weight of what you can put in the bed of the truck) to be higher than the pin weight on the trailer. These days the payload capacity on so-called half ton trucks is higher than 1000 lbs, but sometimes not by much. Particularly with large cab shortbed trucks.
You might be able to mitigate being slightly overloaded with stiffer springs and such (and obviously people do get away with overloading their trucks from time to time) but it’s definitely not an ideal situation.
I’m probably wrong, but I always assume the truck manufacturers add in their own margin of safety and under report the actual capacities. It wouldn’t bother me. But then again, I drive a Ford F-250.
I pulled a 6600 lb 5th wheel with a half-ton truck for many years. It worked fine, and there was plenty of towing capacity left over. The limiting factor (as others have mentioned) is the pin weight. You need to actually weigh your truck and figure out how much capacity is left in the bed (for the kingpin). You’ll probably be surprised how little is available. You’ll also find that a 1/2 ton squats quite a bit at its maximum cargo weight. This makes night driving almost impossible since newer headlights have a narrow, shaped beam and they are aimed upward away from the road. If you’re at or near capacity on the kingpin, you’re probably limited to daytime travel only.
If your truck has the complete towing package (with an appropriate rear axle ratio), you’ll find you can pull a substantial amount of stuff quite easily (Here’s a pic of mine pulling our 5th wheel and boat in tandem), you just can’t carry a lot. Aside from the handling issues, is there another reason you require the fiver? Regular travel trailers can provide a lot more living area within the limits of a half-ton. We recently replaced the trailer* in the picture with a much longer travel-trailer for more comfort. It did require some serious research on hitch configurations and sway control, but we have considerably more room than would be possible in a lightweight 5th wheel. Just a thought.
*We bought a much larger boat that makes double-towing impossible, and decided since the 5th wheel isn’t needed we could now pull a larger trailer with the unused tow capacity.
I’m confused. How does pin weight relate to a fifth wheel? When hooked up, does the hitch lift the trailer? Otherwise, I don’t see how you have an extra 2500 lbs over your axle.
dolphinboy, I’m glad you posted this. I have the exact same truck, down to the year, and have been thinking about adding a fifth wheel. But like you say, the selection of 7-8k lbs fifth wheels is lacking. For some reason, I also thought that you were in Oklahoma like I am. FWIW, an old farming gentleman that I know has had every truck under the sun and his comment on the Tundras was that “They’ll pull like nobody’s business.”
Your typical trailer puts about 15 to 25 percent of its weight on the fifth wheel, so yes, the fifth wheel is holding up that end of the trailer. For a 10,000 lb trailer you could expect up to 2,500 lbs on the fifth wheel (aka the pin weight).
While you want most of the trailer’s weight on the trailer’s wheels and not the truck’s wheels, you wouldn’t want the pin weight to be too light or the trailer becomes unstable and you’ll start having problems like swaying. 15 to 25 percent works out pretty well for keeping things stable.
Yes, a certain amount of the weight of the trailer is supported by the hitch instead of the trailer’s wheels. It does make the advertised 10,000 lb towing capacity of the truck somewhat misleading because there aren’t that many trailers out there that weigh that much but don’t exceed the truck’s bed payload or hitch weight capacities.
The whole idea of a 5th wheel trailer is that it moves the hitch weight from behind the rear wheels (with a normal hitch) to the middle of the truck. That means the limiting factor is the bed payload capacity, which is thousands of lbs, instead of the hitch weigh capacity which is usually only hundreds of lbs. The trade-off is that 5th wheel trailers carry a larger proportion of their weight over the hitch than normal travel trailers (usually around 15-25% versus around 10%.)
3/4 and 1 ton trucks have vastly higher payload capacities, but only somewhat higher hitch weight capacities. So for them, a 5th wheel hitch drastically increases the size of trailer they can haul. 1/2 ton trucks, and especially modern 1/2 ton trucks that usually come with huge cabs, have somewhat limited payload capacities but still usually fairly respectable hitch weight capacities. What that means is that if a conventional trailer of a certain weight is going to tax the hitch weight capacity, a 5th wheel trailer of the same weight is very likely to also tax the payload capacity. So, in other words, towing a 5th wheel with a 1/2 ton is perfectly do-able but there may not be much of an advantage in doing so. At least not in terms of size of trailer you can safely haul.
I towed a 35 foot travel trailer with a 6.7L v8 Ford Expedition. On level roads, it wasn’t an issue. Going up any type of hill was horrible. I spent many miles in 2nd gear lucky to maintain 50mph up hills. Don’t discount the total weight of the trailer. The specs on many trucks assume optimum conditions and don’t reflect real world experience. When I got ready, I traded in my Expedition for a 3/4 ton diesel and I’ve been extremely satisfied with the performance.
We looked at travel trailers as well as 5th wheels and were underwhelmed by the lack of space and spaciousness of the travel trailers we saw. We plan to be spending 3 months at a time on the road so having a comfortable place to relax and sleep is important. If there was a travel trailer that was as spacious as a typical 5th wheel I would be interested in that. I should mention that are looking for a 27’ to 30’ rig with 2 recliners.
It maybe a local thing, ( Detroit boy here ), but towing any decent size trailer equals a Ford, Chevy or Dodge. A 3/4 ton truck is much better. I trailered 10K+ with a GMC HD 2500. And going up some hills, even with that truck, you knew it was working. The Alison trans is pretty darn good. The 1/2 ton might move it, but the 3/4 ton will be safer, and less likely to puke driveline parts on a hill. And be better able to brake going down hill.
Does the Tundra come with a tranny intercooler? If not, it may be a good idea to have one installed if you’re going to pull something that close to max load.
