Gee, maybe I should have got a dually!

[RJOL]

... As long as the SRW truck is not loaded above the truck's rating I think it is just as safe as a DRW.

And here is the rub... If your towing with a SRW 2500 or 3500, in most cases, if your towing a 5th wheel over 30' and it has slides (especially over the kingpin), you most likely are overloaded over the rear axle. You also may be overloading your rear tires. You can play with the data all you want. You can tell yourself that this CTD will tow anything. You can take comfort in all the others that are doing the same thing you are doing. But... The bottom line is you can't change the fact that you are probably overloaded... . JMHO...

 

[Bertram65]

And here is the rub... If your towing with a SRW 2500 or 3500, in most cases, if your towing a 5th wheel over 30' and it has slides (especially over the kingpin), you most likely are overloaded over the rear axle. You also may be overloading your rear tires. You can play with the data all you want. You can tell yourself that this CTD will tow anything. You can take comfort in all the others that are doing the same thing you are doing. But... The bottom line is you can't change the fact that you are probably overloaded... . JMHO...

I know I am not, I am towing a 28' 5th wheel with 1 slide. I am not overloaded in any way.

I do not understand the stability comments either, if you have a dual pivot 5th wheel hitch very little sway from the trailer in crosswinds should be transmitted to the truck, it may be a different story with the bumper pulls but I do not feel any sway when I pass or get passed by an 18 wheeler or in heavy cross winds.

DRW make sense for the bigger trailers or slide ins but there are plenty of DRW trucks out there overloaded that are just as unsafe as the overloaded SRWs

A lot of hype about DRW and stability, they way some people talk about it you would think you should not even tow with a SRW truck, same type of hype as the exhaust brakes and how you cannot tow in a hilly area without them, use common sense and tow within the rated limits of the vehicle and you will not have any problems.

 

[Foil Freak 1211]

I think many people are making way too much out of the need for a dually to tow a larger 5er. Unless you go way big, I doubt you will ever be over the GVWR. Straight from the 2006 Guide to Towing published in TrailerLife: "most fivers have 20% hitch weight or less". That leaves room for a lot of fivers to be pulled by a 2500 or 3500 SRW.



I agree with the earlier statement, if you are concerned about blow-outs, shouldn't you be worried about the front tires as well? I've never seen a dual front wheel truck.



Bottom line, if you think you are going to be close to the weight limits, put the trailer on a scale before you buy it. Then you will know what your into for sure.

 

[Ol'TrailDog]

I've never seen a dual front wheel truck.

Reckon thats because most the hauling weight is on the rear?



Personally, it seems to me pickups aren't really the right implement for hauling the monstrous trailers I've seen being hauled to and fro. Seems it would be better to have a 4500, 5500, Freightliner, Sterling, or better yet..... a Peterbilt. :-laf



I'd say get the SRW. That way you will have good reason for getting a new pickup (DRW) in a couple years.

 

[Texas Diesel]

Your truck is still single wheel in the front right?

What do you think would happen if you have a blowout on one of the front wheels?

Buying a DRW truck for safety in case of blowout does not seem to be a good reason when the front still only has one wheel per side.

As long as the SRW truck is not loaded above the truck's rating I think it is just as safe as a DRW.

Well I have never had my 4500 pound camper on the front axle, or the heavy FW on the front axle, have you?



The issue is the WEIGHT and COG on the rear axle, the same doesnt apply to the front.



Agrue all you want, DRW's can carry more and are much safer. Ever wonder why all wreckers, delivery trucks, OTR trucks have DRW's? Take it from the pro's, DRW's are the way to go if you carry a load.

 

[Bertram65]

Well I have never had my 4500 pound camper on the front axle, or the heavy FW on the front axle, have you?



The issue is the WEIGHT and COG on the rear axle, the same doesnt apply to the front.



Agrue all you want, DRW's can carry more and are much safer. Ever wonder why all wreckers, delivery trucks, OTR trucks have DRW's? Take it from the pro's, DRW's are the way to go if you carry a load.

Weigh your truck some time with your camper in, you will be surprised how much of the load is carried on the front wheels.

I never said dually's could not carry more, if you are within the rated capacity of the truck the dually is no safer, actually for driving in wet, snow or icy conditions the SRW is safer.

 

[Texas Diesel]

Considering the FW hitch is positioned directly over the rear axle (same for a camper), it seems silly to compare the load to with the front axle. Check your tire pressure recommendations, I bet you find the rear tires are inflated more. I think my manual says 60PSI FRONT, 80PSI rear. This was on my 2500. 80PSI in the rear seems to show that atleast the factory understood the rear tires are loaded much heavier.



Snow and ice or rain are EXPECTED or anticipated, I can adapt. A blowout of a tire (pushed to it's max load and max PSI) is always a surprise. I have driven on snow, ice, and rain and never had a problem.



But a blowout, at 70MPH with 1-2 tons (plus the truck) on FW pin weight on the rear axle or 2 tons of camper on the rear axle are a risk I wont take.



It is the unexpected tire failure with a SRW that will lead to loss of control and death (quoting the truckers experience) that is the issue here. The extra wheels on a DRW are a minor inconvenience at times.

 

[PatrickCampbell]

TexasDiesel, A 5th wheel hitch is normally positioned FORWARD of the rear axle to purposely put more load on the front axle for safety, handling, steering.



RJOL, you will be hard pressed to overload the rear axle regardless of what you do. The axle is a 10,000 lbs or 11,000 lbs axle. The brakes are whatever the rear GAWR is on a dually... even on a 2500, so what is that, 9000 something lbs.



As someone stated a dually is going to help in the rear with a blow out but what about the front? A blow out in the front is more dangerous and the dually isn't going to help you there.



I am not going to argue that a SRW wth 16's or 17's is safer than dually (maybe in the rain/snow), but 19. 5's is as safe possibly safer, depending all on the circumstance.

 

[Texas Diesel]

Forward of the rear axle by how much? Few inches? 99. 9+% of the pin weight is on the rear axle. Esentially all, that was my point. I must correct you here, the FW hitch is forward of the rear axle by X inches so the pin weight donesnt tend to lift the front.



Which tire is more likely to fail, the SRW with the tire at max PSI and load or the front which is (on my 2500) running 20 PSI below max and only the engine/transmission/truck portion of the load? The 4wd has a Dana 60 in the front and a Dana 80 in the rear, seems the front must be less loaded.



The heavily loaded SRW tires will run hotter and be more likely to fail than the front tires on the same rig.

 

[AMink]

A little hijack but since singles and duallys are being discussed...

Why are tires rated less when used in a dually configuration? I see on the sidewalls they'll say (for example) 3000 single, 2800 dual. I would think that if a tire can hold a given weight single, it can hold the same weight dual. Just curious.

 

[RustyJC]

Why are tires rated less when used in a dually configuration?

Because the adjacent sidewalls on a dually can't get rid of heat buildup as effectively as the same tire in a single application.



Rusty

 

[RJOL]

... RJOL, you will be hard pressed to overload the rear axle regardless of what you do. The axle is a 10,000 lbs or 11,000 lbs axle. The brakes are whatever the rear GAWR is on a dually... even on a 2500, so what is that, 9000 something lbs.

This debate never seems to die... Patrick... Go out to your truck and take a look at the maximum load for your stock load range E tires. You will find that it is between 6-6500lbs combined. Now. . Are you really seriously going to tell me that you would load that rear axle to 10 or 11,000lbs and drive merrily down the road... .

 

[JUeckert]

This statement haunted me since I first heard it a couple of years ago. I fianlly dumped the SRW and got a DRW. Best decision I ever made, no regrets.



Much improved stability and peace of mind about a rear tire blowing. I heard a trucker once talking about SRW's carrying campers or high COG FW's. He said he ALWAYS saw body bags at the accident scene after a tire failure. With a tire blowout & DRW's, just saw people walking around pointing at the shredded tire on the rim ( the other tire was holding the weight ).



Once a drove a company truck with DRW's. On the way home one day I heard a bang. Looked in the mirrors and saw nothing, truck handled ok so I kept going. To my surprise, back at the shop I discovered that the passenger side inboard tire was nothing but two beads on the wheel.



Yes you can carry heavy loads on a SRW, but how much is your life worth?

lots of great opinons here,but this one really sinks in! for many a year i towed very heavy loads with 3/4 ton trucks. some i added helper spings to,and all of them i added upgrade tires to. theses changes alone made a real difference in handleing. some years i dindt tow what i considered very much,so i saw no reason to go dually. i will add for many years i towed without a single problem,as mentioned very heavy. well as times and lifestyles changed [seems trailer towing is constant now] my need for the duallys changed aswell. then one day while towing one of my smaller tractors on a bumper pull trailer it happened,i blew a tire and nearly lost control of the truck. [the tire didnt random blow,i unknowingly ran it low on air due to hitting a small piece of metal in the road]. it was based on this event in the mid 80's that i went and purchased my first dually and have never looked back. can a dually have a similar accident?yep,but it's about as rare as finding 20. 00 dollar bill's lying on the local walmart parking lot. my theroy,if your gonna take up full time rv'ing get a dually,it's worth the piece of mind. if you will tow on ocassion,stick with what you got and choose the trailer acording to what you know the truck will safely tow,not what some wise***** salesman claims.

 

[DaveK98]

As others stated I think the dually is safer if you have a rear tire blowout. No I don't have duals on the front but still 1/2 backup is better than no backup. If you took the approach that some have you shouldn't get airbags in the front of your car because they don't have front airbags for the 2nd or 3rd row seating on some cars. I'll take any little bit of safety I can.



I just didn't see many disavanatages of the dually. Ok, so you have to replace 2 more tires, slight decrease in mpg and maybe parking is a little more difficult?



For better load carrying (don't dispute this as others have mentioned look at any tow truck, etc what do they have?), safety if one tire blows out (I've been in my friends 35k lb motorhome when we lost a rear tire (twice on different trips) both times it happened we were like crap that stinks and limped into town to get a new tire put on vs who knows what!



At least we all have a CTD under the hood!

 

[JUeckert]

This debate never seems to die... Patrick... Go out to your truck and take a look at the maximum load for your stock load range E tires. You will find that it is between 6-6500lbs combined. Now. . Are you really seriously going to tell me that you would load that rear axle to 10 or 11,000lbs and drive merrily down the road... .

i guess i'am gonna join patrick on this one. whats the difference in those same tires being used on a duall tandem axle trailer with a 20k lb haul capacity?and unless i'am mistaken the axle is rated to a 10k lb or 11klb capacity depending on the model. suspenson have that capacity,no way. but i read patrick post as saying axle capacity. not being rude,just trying to understand the debate. .

 

[PatrickCampbell]

This debate never seems to die... Patrick... Go out to your truck and take a look at the maximum load for your stock load range E tires. You will find that it is between 6-6500lbs combined. Now. . Are you really seriously going to tell me that you would load that rear axle to 10 or 11,000lbs and drive merrily down the road... .

RJOL, no. But you were bringing up the axle and tires as 2 seperate points I was addressing the axle, not the tires. The axle is pretty much never overloaded but the tires will be. Oo.

 

[Grizzly]

I bought my first dually in, '95, not because I needed it, but because I liked the looks of the dually. In '98 I sold my 29' 5th Wheel and bought the biggest cab-over-camper I could get only because I had the dually. In '05 I bought a dually because I needed it. After the good experience I have had with my duallies, I don't think I could ever go back to SRW. A dually is safer when you are hauling or pulling a big load and a whole lot more stable. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

[RJOL]

RJOL, no. But you were bringing up 2 seperate points: 1 the axle, and 2 the tires. I was addressing the axle, not the tires.

I know you were talking about the axle, but when I see this topic come up no one ever seems to want to talk about the tire ratings. Many will just keep telling you that the "mighty CTD" will tow anything. Just load her up and let her go. Fact: A dually is safer than a SRW 2500 or 3500. It carries the load better, has more GAVW capacity, and has an additional safety factor of four tires in the back for a high speed blowout. I don't care if you add spring packs or air suspension. If you're towing heavy with a SRW CTD you probably have overloaded the rear axle weight limits and load capacity of your stock tires... .

 

[Texas Diesel]

What makes these thread so interesting is that whenever a person asks this question, it is the SRW crowd that makes the most noise. You never hear a DRW person saying "I wish I would have bought a SWR".



It's like the SWR guys are trying to convince themselves that DRW's offer no advantage in safety, stability and capacity.



Better yet, post a question asking how many DRW people who had a blowout (rear) while loaded , I for one am in that group.



Than ask how many SWR people have had a blowout while loaded , problem is most of them are staying the cemetary.



This needs to be said again, on a SWR, of the 4 tires, the max PSI & Max loaded ones on the rear axle are the most likely to blowout.

 

[nps]

Better yet, post a question asking how many DRW people who had a blowout (rear) while loaded , I for one am in that group.



Than ask how many SWR people have had a blowout while loaded , problem is most of them are staying the cemetary.

No - the real reason is the DRW has twice as much of a chance to hit something on the road, combined with the fact that the DRW's wider rear end means the tires have to track farther onto the right shoulder where all the trash is at. The DRW is just more susceptable to blowouts. :-laf