Hi Kevin!
As some of you know, I purchased a new Ford F-350 King Ranch DRW 6.7L diesel 8' box about three months ago. Fortunately for us, we bought at the right time. We traded in a '12 RAM DRW 6.7L CC 8' box and got more than we paid for it two years prior. They also discounted the new Ford around $6k off MSRP and dealt from that reduced price... WOW!
About toy haulers, many here have or have had toy haulers. As you know, we have the '12 Keystone Raptor with a 12' garage. It also has a half bath off the garage. Ours has three slides, one bedroom with a East/West queen bed and two in the kitchen living area. Toy haulers typically do not have the best layout in the living area for lots of seating and or table eating area. We use the garage and the folding table for our main eating area. There are some ultra light toy haulers, but most will be in the 14k# to 18k# gross weight. So what you're looking at is a pin box weight of 23% of 14k# = 3,320# and with mine at 18k#, I'm looking at a pin box weight of 4,140#.
My '12 RAM DRW diesel only had a gross cargo weight of 4,300#, that's dry without fuel, driver/passenger, hitch @ approx 125#, whatever else you put in the box, bicycles etc along with "stuff" in the back seat for the drive. I doubt that you will find many 3/4t that even come close to the lower limit at 3,320 pin weight.
Look at the yellow sticker inside the driver's door jam of any truck you look at for the gross cargo weight for THAT truck. A Platinum, Limited or King Ranch will have less cargo capacity than a XL simply because of the added amenities in the truck at the higher levels. Also be carful of the 1/2t towable from the saleman's mouth. That would be a 2wd, 2dr, stripped truck with the heavy duty trailer package. These are far and few between, but many people get sucked up in the, the salesman said I could pull it fine with my 4x4, CC, 1/2t truck.
I have a friend in MI that has a 1/2t, 4x4, CC, lifted Chevy and he pulls a toy hauler with a 14' garage. He does have the light weight model of toy hauler, but still his gross pin weight is almost 1,100# OVER his cargo weight without him and his wife, hitch, fuel or anything else in the truck. He says it pulls great and he can maintain speed or gain speed going up hills. The problem will come that he will not be able to stop the RV or he loses it on a curve or something weird like that. I could not convince him that he's WAY unsafe pulling his RV with his truck. He said that he's looking at a 3/4t, but the one he looked at was still under his pin box weight.
The old saying is that you cannot have too much truck! I thought I was good to go with my '12 RAM, but at 26,240# total with hauler and truck, I was 3k# over my gross towable limit. Although I was under for axle weight and cargo weight, but just barely. My new Ford has a 41,500# combined towing weight capacity and if I were to have a gooseneck with a backhoe on it at 31,500#, I would still be able to safely pull it.
My opinion would be for a good comfort factor, a 1t SRW that will give you some added growth if need later. These new truck ride SOOOO much better than they used to, it's unreal. Our F-350 rides almost like a car on good roads. But it will bounce you on bumps etc. Linda loves driving it more than our '16 Terrain Denali SUV.
You'll have to wait out the current crunch on limited number of trucks available, but IF you could sell now, now's the time to do it.
Also back three months ago, the dealer I bought from had two F-450's, one Limited one Platinum and two F-350's, my KR and a Lariat, both DRW diesels. AND they discounted from the MSRP!
I cannot express how much we like the 1,050 #/ft torque @ 1,600 rpms and 475 hp @ 2,600 rpms. Then add the new 10-speed automatic transmission and you have a dream truck to tow with. I will give the other two major brands their due as I'm sure their new models perform really well too, but it was night/day over the '12 RAM that I thought was a massive hauler...
Check out
https://www.laurafordofsullivan.com/ for their inventory, and yes, they do have trucks in stock that might be of interest. But they're not Chevy's...
Good luck with your adventure for a new truck! Tell Kathy we said hey.
Author
Topic: Truck shopping (Read 5030 times)