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Old 03-26-2016, 01:53 PM   #21
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Originally Posted by barefooter1 View Post
It's good to hear different spins on the halfton towable fifth wheels. The right truck for the job it has to do. Mine is doing great with it. And I'll pull it from 65 to 70 miles and hour. It is the difference between night and day pulling a 5er as to a TT.
Keep in mind that many ST trailer tires are to be used at 65mph max. If yours are, you might want to upgrade.
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Old 03-26-2016, 02:08 PM   #22
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To help you expand on this. All gm truck engines were called vortec until I think it was the 2013 model year when the name changed to ecotec. The 6.0 that came in the 1/2 was called a vortecmax and a badge was put on the door above the 1500 tag.
The 6.0L is still referred to a Vortec ever since I had a 2008. In 2014 was when the Econotec was a 4.3 L and was later dropped. Later RJD
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Old 03-27-2016, 01:56 PM   #23
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Love these threads.
I just traded my Gmc 1500 with 6.2 and tow package for HD duramax.
I really loved the 6.2 8sp combo...fastest vehicle I ever owned...barring motorcycles[emoji12]. Duramax is great package too but more lineman than running back.

What I'm not seeing is a bunch of flaming death stories from the 1/2 ton crowd. Could more people describe what they didn't like about towing with their 1/2 ton? I just upgraded my tow vehicle before I even brought the trailer home mostly because I didn't want to worry about exceeding my payload every time we take off...it would be within 50 lbs too.

Hope I didn't waste my money. If all the 1/2 ton people are happy I may have been hasty. The 1500 was badass and a great daily driver. I'm picking up my 8289 Monday.


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You won't be sorry. I pulled an 8280 for a year and a half with a similar half ton. I never towed more than 6 hours, and was wiped out when I arrived. Now with my F350, I am ready to go and do stuff after I'm parked and set up. As one of the other poster said, my big problem now is to not get complacent while towing.
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Old 03-27-2016, 02:07 PM   #24
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You won't be sorry. I pulled an 8280 for a year and a half with a similar half ton. I never towed more than 6 hours, and was wiped out when I arrived. Now with my F350, I am ready to go and do stuff after I'm parked and set up. As one of the other poster said, my big problem now is to not get complacent while towing.
Same experience here going to a F 250 after 2 years. No flaming stories, perhaps a couple of stained shorts ones. The new truck eliminated them. It is just more of a relaxed drive.
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Old 05-23-2016, 06:07 PM   #25
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I have a 8285IKWS 2015 I pull it with a 2013 f150 5.0 v8. Haven't been in any serious mountains yet, but very happy with it. I was not sure it would work but so far no complaints...
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Old 05-30-2016, 02:27 PM   #26
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We have an 8288WSA and absolutely love it.

We used to have a 2013 Ford F150 FX4 Ecoboost and pulled the fiver without any troubles.
We ended up getting rid of the 2013 for a 2015 F150 XLT - same Ecoboost engine, max tow pack, etc.
However, towing the same fiver was NOT fun. It just seemed like the F150 was getting beat up. We tried some different 6-ply tires to no avail

We now have a 2016 F350 Lariat diesel - fifth wheel hitch is being installed as I type. Can't wait to tow the fiver with this new truck!

Bottom line - better to have too much truck that not enough
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Old 05-30-2016, 05:48 PM   #27
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, I wonder if it's because the 2015 is much lighter being made of aluminum. I also think that my 8285ikws might have a lower pin weight then your model hopefully I won't have any problems. Thank
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Old 05-30-2016, 09:17 PM   #28
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half ton

I have a 2016 f150 Eco boost hauling my 3150bhd and it's sways all over the place. Currently putting a sway bar on it. Had a 2012 ecoboost and it hauled it like it wasn't even there. I'm also thinking that it's because of the aluminum body. Here's hoping the sway bar fixes it
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Old 05-31-2016, 11:26 PM   #29
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I always view the point of camping is to have a place to get away and relax. The past 2 years I had a Grey Wolf 28 BH we spent close to 30 nights per season in. I pulled it with my 1/2 T suburban. It handled it well unless there was a 25 MPH side or head wind. Dry weight was around 5,500 lbs. We were looking to upgrade to a bigger trailer so the first thing I did was upgrade the tow vehicle. I found a 3/4 T suburban. (On a side note I did swap the 6.0 gas for the 6.6 Duramax.) We bought a 8327ss and love it. Dry weight of around 8,000 lbs. After loading up with water and gear I go across the scale just shy of 17,000 lbs with TW. Last night coming home we hit a pretty bad storm with lots of wind, rain, and even a little bit of hail. Not once did I feel uncomfortable pulling the trailer through it. All the salesmen that sell these trailers say they are 1/2 T towable. They are trying to sell trailers not vehicles. When you max out the specs for your TW you have no room for error. If you go back and read discussions on 1/2 T vs. 3/4 T (and there are plenty of them) you will not find any comments saying they regretted upgrading to a 3/4 T or even a tonner. The safety of my family is worth way more than than the cost to upgrade a TW........just my 2 cents.


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Old 06-01-2016, 05:30 AM   #30
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Agree

I think we can agree the a bigger truck is better, also like to say there are Half Tons pulling with no problems. I think the driver might have a little to do with it, I have seen people pulling campers that are set up so badly as to be a danger to others. I am talking about very poor maintenance and knowledge of their equipment, also poor driving habits. I have had campers passing me at 70 miles an hour and above. Whatever equipment you have if it is misused or neglected there will be a problem. Just my opinion..
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Old 06-01-2016, 04:27 PM   #31
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The other problem is people seem to treat all 1/2 ton's as equal. But you can buy a 1500 Silverado with anywhere from 4,000 lb towing to 12,000 lb towing. So when the idiot salesman says, "Oh, your 1/2 ton can pull this," when he has no clue which one you have, many people get bamboozled.
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Old 06-07-2016, 10:20 PM   #32
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Now you've done it!

After reading these posts, I started looking at all of the numbers for my F-150 Ecoboost. 1244 lb cargo rating was the first line I crossed. Using the bathroom scale method the 2307 tongue weight is right around 1,000 lbs. Definitely over if I want to take the wife and dog with me... and the Equalizer. Even if I'm off by 200 lbs on the tongue weight it's still over.

Combined weight was 15,400. 8,000 lb trailer, 1,000 lb tongue weight and just under 6,000 empty truck leaves 400 lbs for passengers and all of the support equipment that rides in the bed.
Towing capacity was listed in the owners manual at 9,600. I knew I was under that and I really had no problems towing the trailer. I did feel that I was asking a lot of the truck especially with the big air brake molded into the front of the trailer (not the most aerodynamic design), but the 9,600 towing capacity was the only number I looked at.
In a worst case scenario, the police or insurance people will probably look at all of the numbers.

Sooooo... now I've got an F-250 PowerStroke.

The big question now is if I will live long enough to pay for it.
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Old 06-08-2016, 09:28 AM   #33
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Powerstroke

You will also benefit from the tow/haul and exhaust brake, as well as not being tossed about in the wind and when meeting 18 wheelers. The other surprise for me was the integrated brake system. Works far better than any add on's I've tried. You were also probably at the limit on the hitch capacity, and now you have a much beefier hitch. I was pulling an ultra-lite 5th wheel with a Chevy 1500. Although I was well withing the rated towing capacity, after weighing everything I found I was 400 lbs over the rated cargo capacity. I beefed it up with Timbrens, but ultimately opted for getting a proper tow vehicle. The biggest surprise for me was when I looked at the actual pillar sticker, the loaded F250 Powerstroke was only rated for 1960 lbs. cargo. I was already at 1900 with the Ultra-lite, and anticipated possibly getting a bigger rig, so I opted to go with the F350 with an additional 1400 lbs cargo capacity. Now, I think the F250 cargo rating is driven by the 10,000 lb GVWR for commercial reasons rather by real technical parameters, but still, I bet a large number of F250 diesels pulling 5th wheels are over the rated cargo capacity. Unfortunately, although there isn't much difference in manufacturing cost for the F350, there isn't as much leverage on pricing, so I did pay more.
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Old 06-08-2016, 09:52 AM   #34
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Rockfordroo - "The other problem is people seem to treat all 1/2 ton's as equal. But you can buy a 1500 Silverado with anywhere from 4,000 lb towing to 12,000 lb towing. So when the idiot salesman says, "Oh, your 1/2 ton can pull this," when he has no clue which one you have, many people get bamboozled."


Couldn't agree with rockfordroo any more if I tried. Cracks me up. We had already ordered our trailer from a dealer that was 4 hours away. But there was a local dealer that had the same trailer, only it had the wrong interior colors. We also had visited them first, they took down our info and were going to call us when they got one in stock. Still waiting for the call. Anyways, we wanted to take some measurements of some of the interior cargo spaces and things like that. So we had a friendly conversation with the sales people, they seemed legitimately trying to be helpful. We didn't have our truck, we drove the car. And every time we came across a salesman, they would ask what we had for a tow vehicle. So we told them an F150 with the ecoboost. And each of them immediately quoted that the new F150s could tow 12,200. Which was the correct number if you had the correctly equipped F150. Single cab, 2wd, etc. We all know the drill. I was just amazed that they didn't even bat an eye, just blurted out the tow information. Lol. Didn't ask if it was the "big" eco or the "small" eco. Didn't ask about bed length or whether it was 2 or 4 wheel drive. Classic dealer experience
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Old 06-08-2016, 02:29 PM   #35
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After my experiences with F150s one really has to do some serious homework. As was mentioned the F150 Ecoboost can pull 12000 lbs but ONLY under certain conditions - which are really unrealistic (who buys a 2wd regular cab truck anymore?).

As I mentioned in a previous post we bought a 2016 F350 Lariat 4wd powerstroke diesel. The incentives from Ford on these trucks is amazing right now with the 2017s coming in so we got a *sweet* deal - 0% for 72 months and only paid an arm instead of an arm and a leg

What a massive difference! After roadtripping it up to about 1500km we hooked up our fiver and out we went for our first test drive. My wife and I literally laughed out loud because it was like the fiver wasn't even there.
This truck is an awesome tow rig
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Old 06-20-2016, 05:58 PM   #36
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I was pretty happy with my F150 towing my rockwood 5th until I hit some steep hills..To much downshifting and high RPMs, Just bought a f250 powerstroke 6.7 diesel Will be heading out tomorrow Can't wait to see the difference.
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Old 06-20-2016, 06:05 PM   #37
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Nice upgrade!! Let us know how it does.
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Old 06-20-2016, 06:07 PM   #38
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You won't be sorry, I should of went directly to a Ram 2500 crew cab with the Cummins instead of a 1500 with a hemi, loved that truck but when it comes to pulling you can't beat a 3/4 ton truck., Good luck
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Old 06-22-2016, 03:27 PM   #39
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Truck is fantastic, first 300 miles it downshifted once, the f150 probably would have been about 500 times
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Old 06-22-2016, 04:23 PM   #40
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My previous and current fivers. 2008 tundra. Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and more. Never stressed or strained towing.
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