2500 and fifth wheel campers

[PMcCall]

Now that I have a bigger and better truck the wife is starting to drop hints that we should move up to a 5th wheel camper from our travel trailer. Had this come up before I probably would have purchased a 3500. So, this is for 2500 owners that tow a 5th wheel camper...

1. what size and weight 5th wheel are you towing?
2. Are you happy towing it with the 2500?
3. If you have a 2014 2500, are there any issues/concerns with coil spring suspension? I am leaning towards replacing the coils with the airbag system from Kelderman. Is this a necessary upgrade?

Thanks!
Rick

 

[Bob V]

I had a 1997 2500 W/camper pkg(overload springs) and a 2005 2500. I pulled heavy 34' with the '97 and a 40' toy hauler with the '05. I am now pulling the toy hauler with a 2011 3500 dually. All three trucks have had aftermarket add on air bags in the rear, this helped a lot on all of them. I would recommend finding your max GCVW and subtract that from your truck weight, that will give you a starting point. Most will tell you that you can not go over your max GCVW but there are no laws in the US that make you stay below that for RV use. I know quit a few commercial rigs that are licensed for well over there max GCVW and are legal to tow that. It looks like you might have a max tow rating of over 17,000lbs, but I bet you will be you will be over your max RAWR (rear axle weight rating) and possibly your FAWR (front Axle Weight Rating) before you get that much trailer. Best to shop for what you want, RV shows are a great place to look at a lot of different rigs at one time, and see what the dry hitch weight and trailer weight. You will want quite a bit of extra weight capacity over the dry weights because all the stuff you will take with you are heavier than you think.
Good luck and have fun looking.

 

[ScottLewis]

Good advice from Bob.
I've pulled 2 fifth wheels in the 11K range with 2 different 2500s, a 98 12 valve and now my '06. Both have handled the load well and I'm super happy with the '06. I put over 100K on both with about 70 to 75% of the miles towing ( A pull trailer of 8Kfor a while on the '98) in 49 states. I have never regretted pulling the fivers with the 2500s. I did add air bags to both to help level them.

 

[bigblock_doc]

I had a 2003, 2500 with the air lift automatic leveling system. Worked great to keep it level. At that time, 250 HP was all it had. Pulled great.
Just check GCVW to be sure. The trailer is listed below.
Also I have a 34 ft. triple slide Cardinal, by Forrest River for sale. 2006 real low miles, clean. You can e-mail me about the rest.
Only asking $20,000. OBO. Can deliver if needed.
-- email address removed --
734-341-0507

 

[MikeW.]

My new 2014 2500 4x4 lwb came with a factory provision in the bed for a fiver if I wanted to put it in.

 

[fthorsby]

I had a 2010 Ram 2500 CTD and 3.42, Laramie. I pulled a Jayco 38' Designer weighing 12K lbs. The Ram pulled very well, we travelled out west through Colorado, Wyoming, etc. Never felt underpowered or out of control. I would have kept, except I bought a new 5th wheel that has a much higher pin weight that overloaded the payload rating of the 2500. Keep the pin weight around 2500 lbs or less and you should be fine.

 

[grabinov]

You can search for my recent posts, but i just put 4,000 miles on a brand new 2014 2500 megacab and, while the truck itself seems a little weird (computers everywhere) to me coming from my 04, it pulls like a freight train, the exhaust brake is phenomenal and the ride is great. Mine has the factory air suspension which levels the truck with the load on with no problem. My trailer is a 33 foot 5th wheel at about 12k loaded the way it was on this trip. It's a toyhauler so is sometimes heavier depending on what im carying in back.

I looked at a 3500, and it too would have been great, i just went with the 2500 to have the easier ride unloaded. Having tried the air spring rear, i like it, but don't love it - too computerized, not enough driver control. If i had it to do again i'd buy the coils and add airbags and onboard air like my '04 truck had.

To be honest, unless you want the Aisin (which is a plenty good reason) or want to go with a dually, i'm not sure you'd get much more out of a SRW 3500 with a 3.42 rear end than the 2500 for towing a trailer.

 

[Jim W]

Rick,
I do not have a 4th gen truck but I do have a 2500 Mega Cab, 2008 with the 6.7L engine, 68RFE transmission, and 3:73 gears 4X4. I am pulling a 318SAB Cougar with my truck. I have pulled with this truck out west and in the east with no issues what's so ever. I tow in tow/haul mode with the exhaust brake on continuously and will manually shift to lock out 6th gear when needed. I do have three gages EGT, Boost and Tran’s temperature.

I have weighed this combination for a two week trip fully loaded with no water in any of the tanks. I try not to carry unnecessary weight when I tow we also use only full hook-up sites no boon docking. My weights are as follow: GCW load is 18,240 LBS, Front axle load is 4,940 LBS, Rear axle load is 5160 LBS and the camper trailer axle loads are 8,140 LBS.

With the new 2014 tow ratings for the 2500 truck in my opinion you could tow a slightly larger 5er than what I am towing with no modifications to the truck at all. If you look at the Ram Body Builders Guide on page 8 of the Base Weights/GCW/payload/Trailer Tow 2500 you will find the numbers you need to make an informed decision for your truck. See Link attached:

http://www.rambodybuilder.com/2014/docs/ram/rammlup2500.pdf

Jim W.

 

[Got HO?]

I don't have a 5th wheel setup on my '14, but I will say that it seems to handle a load in the bed far better with the coils than my '03 ever did. Had a pallet of stone to take home a few weeks ago, about 3k lb and it didn't squat near as much as I thought it would. Ride quality was very good and stable too.

 

[JRBurton]

I tow a 36 foot 5th wheel with my 2001. Also use Pac Brake air bags & exhaust brake. My rirth wheel loaded is about 14000 - 15000 pounds. The only mistake I made a cou8ple of times is to make my turning radius to sharp. Yea I have a short bed, the only mistake I made when I ordered it.

John

 

[CFulton]

Have the '14 2500 4wd crew long bed auto factory air suspension

Pull a 35 footer 13,500 +/- hardly know its there love the air suspension

Enjoy

 

[SnoKing]

5th wheel trailers create a rear axle loading issue before anything else for SRW trucks. Find a cat scale and weigh the truck and then just the rear axle. Take the rear axle weight and add 200-300 pounds for hitch and other things that you will have in the bed. Subtract this number from the rear GAWR of the truck and you will have the aprox amount of pin weight you can handle.

When looking at trailers note the GVWR of the trailer. Multiply that number by .20 and you will know the aprox pin weight that you will be facing.

Match up the two computed weights to make your final decision. Pin weight needs to be less that truck number you created!!!!!

Note, very little if any weight is added to the front axle with a 5th wheel setup, somethings it actually removes 10-40 pounds.

Here are RAMS numbers for a 2014 2500 automatic:
Max Towing: 17,810 lbs (8 078 kg)
Max Payload: 2,980 lbs (1 351 kg)

That max payload number might be for a base model, so watch that, yours may be less. See what is noted on the door jam placard. In this example you are working against the trucks GVWR not the Rear GAWR.

2980-300(hitch etc)=2680 So 2680/.2=13,400 for GVWR of a 5th wheel trailer.

However, you should work with actual numbers as I note in the being of this reply. Also you can see that the 17,810 max tow is hard to come by without overloading the rear axle!!!!! As you can most likely not handle 3560 pounds of pin weight. You would be almost likely be over the rear GAWR, 1000 over the trucks GVWR.

Now for the fuzzy part. What weight are the tires rated at? If they are the 18" ones rated to 3750 and the rear GAWR is way below the 7500 mark, you have a grey area to operate in and will need air bags to help keeping the load level. Some go there and many do not!!

SNOKING

 

[RVTRKN]

I have towed my Arctic Fox with the 2500 in my Signature, and it towed it extremely well. However there were issues I had to deal with, as Snoking has mentioned I had to have it weighed connected to the 2500 to see if it was within the DOT legal axle weights, not Dodges GCVWR's. I found I could legally tow it per DOT, however the holding tanks had to be empty, except for enough water to allow toilet use. Unfortunatly Arctic Fox located the fresh water tank at the front that put a lot of weight on the 2500's rear axle through the pin weight.

 

[RVTRKN]

I'm posting actual weights for the 04.5 2500, connected to my 34' Arctic Fox.

 

[PMcCall]

Good info, many thanks to everyone that replied.

Does replacing the factory coil springs with a product like the kelderman airbags improve the rear axle weight spec? They don't say anything specific about this on their website other than to say that "it (the truck) can handle more weight"? I checked with PAC brake as well and they don't have anything for the 2014 2500 with the coils yet but they are working on it.

 

[SnoKing]

Sorry, I just have to do this.

#ad

 

[fthorsby]

Just keep in mind, adding air bags or switching to a Kelderman's suspension, won't increase your total towing weight (17K). However, it may increase the amount you can load over the axle. So, you could possibly get closer to that 17K weight limit (.20 X 17,000 = 3400). Most 2500's have a payload limit of about 2500 lbs.

 

[bigblock_doc]

No, only the vehicle manufacture can change the GAWR. Its not just the springs, but bearings, brakes, axle shaft size, along with diff. size and ratio.
It could improve it, but don't go over the gross.

 

[PMcCall]

here is what Kelderman said in their email...

"The air bags that are used in the Rear Coil Replacement kits for 2014+ Ram 2500 trucks are rated to 2,772 lbs/each at 90 psi. This effectively makes the max payload rating of the truck increase to 5,544 lbs @ 90 psi. We use an industrial line of air bags that are capable of going over 200 psi, so they are capable of carrying a substantial amount of weight."

If I am understanding all of this information correctly, this is misleading of them or as SnoKing so eloquently put it, "lipstick on a pig" because...

The GAWR is F6000#/R6500# for my truck. The base weight is 2969# rear, so the bags would, in theory, get my payload up to 3551 bound only by the Rear GAWR (6500-2969=3531). However, this is negated by the 10K# limit on the GVWR which limits payload to 2180# (GVWR - total base weight). So... the airbags dont really do anything for me on increasing payload weight because of the limiting factor of the GVWR. All they really help with is leveling then... right?

 

[SnoKing]

A licensed up fitter can re-certify a higher load capacity and place a modified placard on a vehicle. Mail order or parts purchased from a retainer do not qualify to increase the numbers on the placard.

Many people become really confused about what is warranty, legal and not legal on loading a pickup. To start with a pickup is hard pressed to exceed the Federal Bridge Weight laws that are enforced at weigh stations or mobily in the field for commercial hauling.

So beyond warranty issues, the tire ratings become the most important ratings for pickup trucks, particularly on the rear axle. Pickups normally have a front axle rating the is below the combined tire rating because of a lighter duty differential. The rear axle capacity is way above the tire rating, thus the tires become the limiter. Inner 19.5 rims and tires that some install.

Plus if you live in a state the charges tonnage then you have to pay the correct amount for the max load you intend to haul.

In Washington State where I live, they take the tare weight of the truck times 1.5 and round up to the next even 1000 pounds. So my 2001.5 2500 4x4 Cummins is licensed to 12,000 pounds and can carry that legally in Washington and the 49 other states and in Canada via reciprocal allowances, as they follow the same or similar Bridge Weight laws!