Our first 5th Wheel... Soon

[Cincinnati Kid]

You will almost certainly exceed your payload with this Eagle on a 2500. We have a 250 gas and an Eagle HT, 2000 pounds lighter than your trailer, and feel that we are right at the limit. Your diesel costs you about 400 pounds of payload by itself v. a gas engine.
We're happy with our setup, but if we ever went with bigger trailer, we would only get a 350 dually. Your 2500 available payload is the rating of truck- (10,350 lb) minus the actual loaded weight of the truck. Like the poster said above- look at the yellow sticker of a similar 2500 diesel on the lot. Estimate weight of hitch, passengers, fuel, cargo EVERYTHING counts against your payload. You will see that you will run out of payload.
There is no reason to get a 2500 for anything but the smaller 5th wheels, like we have.

[icr21801]

Originally Posted by Dangerboy

Thanks for all the feedback - I appreciate it. We found the unit (and deal) we were looking for in a 2020 Jayco Eagle 336FBOK. Able to order the unit in Florida and take delivery in Albany, NY in May. That made things a lot simpler for us. Ample time to shop for a truck.

The target truck now is a 3500 or F350, single - non-dually. It should have no problem with the 13,750 GVWR, which allows for all the extra stuff that snow-birding calls for.

I have not had a Ram before. Their pricing looks attractive and the I6 Cummings looks bullet proof. Does anyone have firsthand experience with both the V8 and I6 diesel engines? A friend at the RV park that has the new 10 speed Allison says it is really sweet for towing.

I tow with a RAM 3500 DRW. CUMMINS motor is unstoppable, hands down the best towing power plant with a simple and serviceable I6 motor. The build and quality of the truck however are not anywhere close to Ford. Waiting for a custom shop that will drop me a CUMMINS into an F350 Dually!

[Dangerboy]

Thanks for the feedback Cincinnati and ICR. We are starting to lean toward a dually after talking to the sales folks. We just learned about the two different I6 Ram diesel choices - did not know there was an HO option until taking a look on Thursday. The salesman said the power difference was not really noticeable, maybe up a steep grade, but he said the bigger thing was the beefier transmission that is coupled with the HO diesel. Also learning that there's no changes between 2019 and 2020 models like the others have by way of the new ten-speed transmissions. That allows for another two grand in rebates along with discounted units that the dealers want to move off the lots.

[Cincinnati Kid]

Originally Posted by Dangerboy

Thanks for the feedback Cincinnati and ICR. We are starting to lean toward a dually after talking to the sales folks. We just learned about the two different I6 Ram diesel choices - did not know there was an HO option until taking a look on Thursday. The salesman said the power difference was not really noticeable, maybe up a steep grade, but he said the bigger thing was the beefier transmission that is coupled with the HO diesel. Also learning that there's no changes between 2019 and 2020 models like the others have by way of the new ten-speed transmissions. That allows for another two grand in rebates along with discounted units that the dealers want to move off the lots.

The difference in payload capacity between a 250 and 350 SRW might make enough difference, but it's not a big amount of extra payload, if I remember correctly. You go into dually territory though, and it's a whole different ballgame, and you can tow just about anything out there. If we were younger and thinking about a bigger toy hauler or something, we would have gotten a dually.
But a big factor for us is that we use the truck for sightseeing, too, and we wouldn't want to be driving/parking a dually in downtowns and tourist areas. So we knew that with our 250, we need to keep it to a smaller (so-called half ton) fifth wheel, and this works for us. We're really enjoying the heck out of it.

[bstuck69]

Something I would consider with a dually is if the vehicle will be used other than towing the 5th wheel. As I wrote earlier, we purchased a RAM 3500 but went with a standard rear axle since I use the truck for other projects. A dually is a big beast for city streets and parking. As we all know dealers are out to move vehicles and sometimes their priorities don't align with our needs.

[triplebvalp]

Originally Posted by Dangerboy

Thanks for the feedback Cincinnati and ICR. We are starting to lean toward a dually after talking to the sales folks.

I haven't looked at the weight numbers for your soon to be new FW, just gonna give you my opinion.

If you use your truck for sight seeing/Walmart shopping a single rear wheel is the way to go. A dually is a bunch of truck around town and especially if it is a long bed.

We camped near Savannah, Ga last Christmas. Driving in town (to a public parking lot) to do some sight seeing, was a real challenge with my SRW 8' bed truck. Had I had a dually, Uber or Lyft would have been my choice of transportation.

[Maddiemae81]

Originally Posted by bstuck69

Something I would consider with a dually is if the vehicle will be used other than towing the 5th wheel. As I wrote earlier, we purchased a RAM 3500 but went with a standard rear axle since I use the truck for other projects. A dually is a big beast for city streets and parking. As we all know dealers are out to move vehicles and sometimes their priorities don't align with our needs.

I concur. Our F350 is bad enough to park when we want to leave the campground. Trying to park in a metro downtown area with that pickup is no fun - a dually would be more challenging. It's true that your towing power goes up considerably with the dually, but for the sake of simplicity, it might be worth it to step back and think of how big of a camper you really need, and how you want to camp. It's like buying a huge house for Thanksgiving dinner guests - to each his own, but sometimes we oversize when smaller really would have been fine. Our F350 diesel pulls our Eagle HT 28.5RSTS no problem - so easily, in fact, I sometimes start singing to the radio and forget it's attached. Really freaks out the hubby! Happy shopping!

[triplebvalp]

Originally Posted by Maddiemae81

Our F350 diesel pulls our Eagle HT 28.5RSTS no problem - so easily, in fact, I sometimes start singing to the radio and forget it's attached. Really freaks out the hubby! Happy shopping!

We pulled our FW for 2.5 years with a Silverado 2500 gasser … Now have a Silverado 3500 diesel and while pulling the FW, I tell my wife it's almost boring, it so easy.

[Kkjayco]

Originally Posted by Dangerboy

Thanks for all the feedback - I appreciate it. We found the unit (and deal) we were looking for in a 2020 Jayco Eagle 336FBOK. Able to order the unit in Florida and take delivery in Albany, NY in May. That made things a lot simpler for us. Ample time to shop for a truck.

The target truck now is a 3500 or F350, single - non-dually. It should have no problem with the 13,750 GVWR, which allows for all the extra stuff that snow-birding calls for.

I have not had a Ram before. Their pricing looks attractive and the I6 Cummings looks bullet proof. Does anyone have firsthand experience with both the V8 and I6 diesel engines? A friend at the RV park that has the new 10 speed Allison says it is really sweet for towing.

Sounds like our story. We went with 336 FBOK and 2020 Chevy 3500 CC Diesel and picked up our fifth wheel in Albany at RVOne. Best price by far. It's a great setup.

[Kkjayco]

Sounds like our story. We went with 336 FBOK and 2020 Chevy 3500 CC Diesel and picked up our fifth wheel in Albany at RVOne. Best price by far. It's a great setup.

[rkymntsno]

If we were full timing or snow birding, we would've gone with a dually. A dually isn't that much more in price but there's more than price to consider such as drivability without towing. We opted for the Ram 3500 SRW. Our 2018 has 4200 lbs of payload. And I need it for the beast we're towing, 355MBQS.

[AndyO]

No matter which truck you buy, always check the yellow sticker on the driver's door post. Do not assume that all are anywhere near equal. I test drove two "similar" 2020 Chevy Silverado 2500 D/A LTZ Z71 4x4 one had a payload of 1920# the one I bought is 3248#. Those stickers show the actual numbers for that actual truck, the online numbers you see are "general" numbers.

[Dushoe]

I bought 2019 Ford F350 Lariat DRW 6.7L Turbo

I can’t out grow it. I love driving it.

[Big1]

When you get your setup don't forget to post some pics.

[AndyO]

For sure we will! Very excited for our first fiver!

[bstannard]

Had a 2017 2500 Silverado crew cab long bed SRW DuraMax that we really liked towing 13,000# Eagle. Moved to a 2020 F350 PowerStroke CC LB dually after looking hard at 2020 Silverado 3500 (as we get GM employee pricing). Wow, what a game changer! Power, fuel mileage, and cab room all considerable improvement. Use the truck quite a bit as a car when snow birding and didn’t mind the dually at all. Trade price was close to Chevy too.
Good luck on your decision.
Bill