5th wheel question

Silvern Sentry · September 26, 2016

Hauling a 5th wheel with a 1500 makes me want to dick punch the owner. Seeing a 1500 with a short bed doing the same .. the owner should be drug out into the street and publicly beaten.

Go trade for an HD or sell the 5th wheel for a pull behind. The only viable options IMO.

As a person who lives in BC and has to deal with jerkoffs trying to pull overloaded weights up the mountains all summer long it really is TOTALLY FRICKEN ANNOYING TO EVERYONE ELSE YOU SELFISH PERSON.

Beaux Duke · September 26, 2016

Maybe you should talk to the owners of all these bagged trucks so you actually understand what you "see." You'll find out they don't empty them any time they're not dramatically overloaded; you'll find out they are very happy with their improvement even when only moderately loaded.

Well Jon, I did talk to the owners and to a man they told me their trailer was too heavy and they didn't want to spend the money for another truck. Yes, they were very happy. They got a level ride for the least amount of money.

That would be a reasonable statement if we were talking about 3500's, or to a lesser extent 2500's. We're talking about 1500's here. A child sitting on the tailgate "sags the rear" and "points the headlights upward" of a 1/2 ton. Ride and handling of a 1/2 ton is seriously affected when under load long before they're anywhere near "overloaded." Of course a 5th wheel in generally is going to handle much better than a bumper pull of equal size, but even a small one will handle a lot better if the truck has bags or overload springs, etc.

Be helpful Jon, You know I'm talking about more weight than a child.

And what exactly do you think the "overall problem" is? If you knew what the problem was you wouldn't be confusing it with symptoms.

I'm beginning to see the problem

My uncle's cousin's brother's mother in law who works at a tire shop once showed me a pile of blown tires. Man, I'm never going to drive a vehicle that needs tires! They're not reliable!

Quick Jon, off the top of your head and with no googling, name me all the alternatives to tires.

Jon A · October 1, 2016

The fact remains, I saw what I saw.

And what was that? Which brands were they and to which applications did they belong? How many were OEM's from big trucks with hundreds of thousands of miles on them? Are you really well versed enough in an item you have no interest in ever using to positively identify discarded parts such that you actually knew what you were looking at? I doubt it.

Exactly how failure prone are they? To my knowledge there are no statistics. All I can say is they're not for me regardless if that offends you or not.

Exactly how often do you kick a puppy? To my knowledge there are no statistics on how many puppies you kick per week. All I can say is I'm not in favor of kicking puppies, sorry if that offends you.

You can throw out any accusation you want without any real data and ask everybody to try and prove a negative...but don't be shocked when people stop listening to you.

Jon A · October 1, 2016

Quick Jon, off the top of your head and with no googling, name me all the alternatives to tires.

It's not rocket science. Better tires. For anybody with a 1/2 ton that tows or hauls much or does much offroading, LT rated tires should be at the top of their mod list. Not only will they handle better and more safely under load, they will reduce the chances of a blowout.

I'm beginning to see the problem

Clearly not. Quickly, off the top of your head and without googling, answer the following questions:

1) What happens to the undamped ride frequency of the rear suspension when the sprung mass it is supporting is increased 50%?

2) When the ride frequency of the rear suspension drops below that of the front suspension, how does this affect the vehicle's "Flat Ride" performance?

3) How does it feel to the driver when a vehicle is suffering from lack of this "Flat Ride" characteristic? Here's a hint--it is often described with one word, quite often with regard to poor towing performance.

And those don't even address all the issues caused simply by lack of suspension travel, causing the axle to slam into the bumpstops over and over during maneuvers or on terrain where it shouldn't be doing that.

You don't know enough to know what you don't know.

Jon A · October 1, 2016

Hauling a 5th wheel with a 1500 makes me want to dick punch the owner. Seeing a 1500 with a short bed doing the same .. the owner should be drug out into the street and publicly beaten.

The people who need to be dick punched, then beaten, are the ignorant--more specifically the aggressively ignorant. The aggressively ignorant often give forceful advice that is simply wrong because they're ignorant, but because they give it forcefully people feel bullied into following it...to their own peril.

There are tons of 5th wheels (even some "big looking" ones) available which are well within the limits of properly equipped 1/2 tons. When this is the case, these setups are safer in every measurable way than the same 1/2 ton pulling a bumper pull of equal size. I feel bad for people pulling large bumper pulls, being less safe to themselves and everybody else around them and having a much more stressful towing experience than if they had gotten a 5th wheel instead...all because they're afraid somebody who is really ignorant will want to dick punch them.

Now that the standard in SAE J2807 for 5th wheel/goosenecks is 15% pin weight, people can feel free to load trailers more heavily toward the rear without feeling they're violating some standard. 15% on the pin is dramatically easier on the vehicle than 12-15% on the bumper, which is what many shoot for with bumper pulls.

Silvern Sentry · October 1, 2016

blah blah blah I am entitled and know better than the people who engineered the vehicle and to hell with anyone else's safety on the road. I am King Shit.

Got it, carry on.

Jon A · October 1, 2016

blah blah blah I am entitled

You're confusing educated with entitled. Two completely different things.

know better than the people who engineered the vehicle

I'm not arguing with them. Nobody who engineered the vehicle is spewing the things you are.

and to hell with anyone else's safety on the road.

If you're within the limits of the vehicle, a 5th wheel is safer to everybody else on the road. Which word did you not understand?

FishAr · October 2, 2016

What I get from all this is that if I add the extra leaf (or super springs) to my 2500HD I can go over my 2400 pound payload and be ok pulling a bigger fifth wheel.

Then some will call me Satan, a stupid inconsiderate danger to everyone on the road,

and others will say nice looking rig.

KARNUT · October 2, 2016

Older post I know but couldn't resist, Mr Beaux, you do use rubber tires don't you? Air bags are as safe as can be. I can go by a salvage yard and see discarded cars and trucks too. That can be said of anything, if it's built it can be broken.

sdeeter19555 · October 2, 2016

What I get from all this is that if I add the extra leaf (or super springs) to my 2500HD I can go over my 2400 pound payload and be ok pulling a bigger fifth wheel.

Then some will call me Satan, a stupid inconsiderate danger to everyone on the road,

and others will say nice looking rig.

Nah, what's on your door is what the DOT will hang their hat on...adding the springs wil just make your truck carry that 2400 better.

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