Ford F-350 6.7 V8 Diesel 4WD SRW Crew Cab & Long Bed and Towing Capacity

[Daveh]

I understand it is not your first choice but before you unload the truck take a look at your options for travel trailers.,

[Bobi and Dick McKee]

Thanks Greg...

[GeorgiaHybrid]

Guys, one thing to remember is that a pickup (like my F350) that has a trailer brake failure (and I have...) will get shoved thru an intersection when pulling a heavy trailer. A big MDT or HDT hauling a commercial trailer that has a trailer brake failure will stop right there. The trailer brakes on a commercial trailer will lock up when you lose air pressure and you aren't going anywhere until they are fixed. I felt comfortable hauling a 15,500 pound fiver around with my F350 that had a towing capacity well in excess of 20,000 pounds. Comfortable right up to the point the trailer brakes failed due to a bad umbilical connection (tech at Camping World had pulled it out by the wire, not the plug).

 

Our fivers don't have air brakes on our trailers (well, most of us don't) but the brakes on them WILL stop an average fiver without the trailer even being hooked up (don't ask how stupid I am to know this...). Having said all of that, I still have my F350 as well as a Freightliner M2-112 as they both have place at home, just different duties. They will both get the job done and everyone will have their own safety and comfort zones for their choices. One thing I think EVERYONE here will agree on however is that a SRW F350 is not the truck to pull a heavy fiver with. A nice travel trailer as noted above is a good option but if a person is set on a big, full time fiver, a minimum of a dually should be the truck you wind up with.

 

If you buy the truck before the trailer, overbuy the truck to make sure you have a big enough truck....

 

Edit: One thing to remember when running numbers, if you add the pin weight from the fiver to the truck's GVWR, don't forget to subtract that weight from the trailer weight when figuring your GCWR.

[Gannet]

To the OP: to make towing happy and comfy, I recommend you try to stay at no more than 80% of rated values. Yeah, that means you need to trade off your truck. At least keep the one you have until you decide for sure how large your trailer will be. If you stick with a pickup, check out the Ford F450. These are very good value for money on the used market so far as towing capacity goes. or you could try reading Bob Wells and follow his method.

 

To the comments about big duallys, MDTs/HDTs, this is part of how we ended up being pretty sure we want a DP. By the time you get a trailer big enough to FT in, you need a tow vehicle so big it's not much fun to use as your get-around car. Or so it seems to us, we realize everyone has a different answer as to what works for them.

[justRich]

The rear axle rating and the GVWR for your SRW truck are based on the wheel and tire capacity.

Wheels and tire capacity is the limiting factor. To my knowledge, the big 3 have been using the same axle on both the F250/2500 and F350/3500 models - axles that their manufacturer rates at 9000 pounds.

Truck camper owners often upgrade to 19.5 inch wheels and tires in order to increase payload capacity.

Short answer is that you can upgrade to the 19.5 wheels and tires to gain the safety margin that you seek. (cost is around $3K).

You might want to drift on over to rv.net and the slide-in camper forum and do so searching there on payload, GVWR and axle ratings. You'll be okay with your truck.

[TreyandSusan]

All of the weight ratings have to do with how the truck functions.Towing is one of the functions of a multipurpose pickup truck. So, the ratings on federal compliance label on the door jamb has a great deal to do with towing in that one is loading the truck with the pin weight of the trailer which affects the vehicle weight of the truck (comparative rating is GVWR) especially loading the rear axle and possibly offloading the front axle (comparative rating GAWR front and rear). And since this heavy loading also affects the tires the load carrying capacity (rating) of the tires and related tire pressure is important - the most important safe towing consideration. Therefore, the federal compliance ratings on the door jamb are very much related to the towing capacity of the Truck. Also, the towing guides put out by the manufacturer refer to these ratings as something to consider because they are often likely to be limiting factors of the safe towing capability of a truck. The GCWR is a towing specific rating, but all of the safety ratings are important criteria to consider with regard to towing with Tire capacity and GAWR being the primary safety considerations.

Quite often one can be within the GCWR of the Truck but exceed the GAWR, or tire capacity, and/or GVWR.

[yourpcgeek49]

I have created an Excel spreadsheet that I used to evaluate my truck options for pulling our Heartland Bighorn 3670 -- it is listed at a dry weight of 12,200 and a GWVR of 16,000#. You would have to plug in your numbers for your truck & trailer under consideration, however if you exceed ANY of the Rated Capacities, you are in a dangerous situation. For us, every 250 & 350 class truck claim to be able to tow a 16,000# 5th wheel. However, when looking at the details of payload and rear axle rating, only the 350 DRW met all of the criteria.

 

Yes, figuring out the actual capacities for your truck & trailer combination is a lot of work; but it's better than losing control and having an accident.

 

I cannot attach a spreadsheet to this post, but contact me directly and I will email it to you.

My address: mhouser at yourpcgeek.com.

[Deezl Smoke]

We had some pretty strong cross winds on US 26 here locally saturday afternoon west of Portland Oregon and there were a ton of rvs caught in it. I had to run up the highway twice and it was not fun getting caught up in the jam of people too scared to pass a swerving, leaning rv. But i have to say, the 5ers with either srw or drw held the road pretty well compared the smaller motor homes. A fairly new class c maybe 25' or so, was having a dickens of time. Course the smart cars, IQs and motorcycles were'nt having much better luck.......

[yzg]

Be very careful when talking to salesmen... you know the old joke, when can you tell if a salesman is lying to you ? His lips are moving..

 

We were looking a 30 foot 5th last year and the salesman said, "yeah, you will not have any problems towing this with your shortbed RAM 1500"... right.

 

Ian.