First post here. We're getting ready to make the plunge to fulltiming and are currently shopping for a fifth wheel toyhauler - we both have motorcycles and having a "shop" is appealing since we both have hobbies which could use the space.
We seem to have a lot of this figured out, but aren't sure what to do about CA's laws regarding fifth wheels >15,000GVWR. The ones we like come in at 17,000-18,000 which is no problem for our truck, but is a problem for our license class.
We won't be able to change domicile until sometime after this adventure because of my current employment (it was enough work to convince them to let me do this - I don't want to add more work for them just yet). So this means we are stuck with following CA's laws and from what I understand, we would need a non-commercial class A license to be able to legally do this.
Cool, I thought. There are places nearby that will rent us a truck and trailer for the driving test, so not a problem.
But then I discovered that in CA the non-commercial class A ONLY includes RVs (or a livestock trailer if I go buy a farm), but not any kind of cargo hauling vehicle. So we couldn't just use one of the commercial options to go get the license to then go get the fifth wheel.
We have a bit of a chicken and the egg problem. It seems we would need to get the non-commercial class A permit, then the fifth wheel AND have someone with one of these rare unicorn licenses to come ride along for the DMV test, because of course they check how you got there.
Has anyone else dealt with this? Is there somewhere that you can hire an RV and driver to go take the test? Is there another loophole?
-David