I appreciate everyone's feedback. I think I'm starting to wrap my head around some of these concepts.
I needed a visual to see the numbers


results are based on 80% safety margin

Holy crap I.AM.A.NERD

 

I'm a nerd right there with you... I had two epic spreadsheets (one for trailers, one for trucks). One sheet of the truck spreadsheet had my predictions for the truck height at the threshold of my garage as a function of front-axle distance from the threshold. My driveway is at one slope and the garage floor is at another. I just barely clear... almost exactly as predicted. I would not clear without the downslope of the driveway keeping the rear of the cab low just long enough... I also had predictions for the axle loads on each axle well before I actually had the truck. You've got to do what you've got to do!

 

The numbers don't lie.

 

 

Have you ever given any thought about the possibility of being involved in a fatality accident that you caused......and being overloaded? The victim's family will sue you and quite possibly win, for everything you own, and maybe some stuff you don't even own yet......especially if it can be proven that you knowingly drove the truck/trailer in an overloaded condition. You obviously, along with anyone else that chooses to do that, are free to make adult decisions. Personally, I won't take that chance. Think about it for a while....think about how you would feel if something like that happened and how you would handle the fact that you were the person that decided to go ahead and tow overloaded and caused a fatality accident. What if it was one of your own family members that perished in the accident.......which really isn't an "accident" if it was known ahead of time and you willfully did it anyway.

 

If being overloaded by a few hundred pounds caused you to have an accident then maybe you shouldn't be towing, 500-700 lbs won't make much a difference In handling and once again your axle ratings won't be exceeded which is what they go by if they weigh your vehicle.

 

 

Reading comprehension 101..........Go back and read my post above. No where in my post did I say that being overloaded CAUSED you to have the accident.....go ahead, reread it. I stated that the accident that you caused......and were overloaded. DOT regulations are the laws of the road.....but that won't stop a civil suit from happening as a result of someones willful neglect by towing overloaded. Did I say anywhere in my post that DOT would intervene in an overloaded accident involving a non-commercial vehicle? Nope! All I'm saying is that if you are involved in an accident that is your fault or that you caused.....maybe by being overloaded, attorneys are going to come after you and they will be breathing fire because of your negligence.....and in my opinion there will probably be a good chance that you will be found guilty in a civil suit and an award given to the surviving family......and probably the same results if someone were just injured severely enough....huge hospital bills to pay, permanent disability....thing quad or paraplegic.

superrangerman2002 wrote:
I agree, it's old, and some people never learn, so the purpose, once again is to educate folks enough to be able to think about things that can and do happen, and then make an informed decision

 

How are they going to prove you were overloaded if they don't weigh your truck and trailer? And if they do it will be weighed by the DOT which goes by axle ratings. Also someone can sue you for pretty much anything these days so if you are worried about that then maybe you shouldn't leave the house.

 

I believe it's counterproductive to create gloom/doom scenarios when they really don't pertain to the current thread. I also believe it's important to give pros/cons of the different options. While it is important to watch all weight numbers, it's also worth mentioning there are reasons why TT's require weight distributing hitches, sway bars, and chains...fivers don't require any of that. It takes experience, trial, and error to get a TT to approach the stability of an equivalent size/weight fiver. If you shift weight around in the TT, you may then need to readjust the hitch setup.

The fiver, having the hitch centered in the truck bed is inherently more resistant to side/side and up/down motion where a TT can tend to act like a tail wagging the dog. Also, having a little more weight in the truck makes me feel more comfortable since most 3/4 ton trucks have better braking (large disks and ABS) compared to most towables. And should brakes fail on the towable, I definitely want more weight centered in the pickup bed instead of hooked to the rear.

TT's can tow just fine but I wouldn't promote them over a fiver for the sake of safety and stability especially in this particular case where all camper options are within the ability of the truck. Again, it's all about comfort and wants/needs of the person buying.

 

In my opinion, in order to make good decisions regarding buying the correct setup for towing a trailer involve knowing/learning as much as you can about both the trailer and the tow vehicle. There are obviously many things involved in this process from quality, condition, (if used vs. New), type of trailer, weight capacities and what each of them mean, AND the possible consequences of what could happen if you take short cuts or just randomly pick something because you didn't want to go through that learning curve. None of us here want to think that the next time you hook up the camper that you are going to be in an accident....but they happen every single day. So, in my opinion, we do the things that lower the risk considerably of having or causing an accident doing the things we love to do....check tire pressures before leaving, make sure the brakes are working correctly, lights on the trailer are working, hitch and chains are connected properly...and so on. Lots of folks use checklists for this purpose, it helps keep us on track with what we need to do to help insure a safe and fun trip. Unfortunately, some don't consider all the weight capacities involved in towing safely, and their reasons are many. Some were simply given bad advice from a neighbor, a salesman, brother-in-law, co worker, who ever, and they ran with it instead of doing the work of researching themselves. Others don't research enough to really understand the whole towing process, so the make random decisions and may get it right...or they may get it wrong. Then there are the ones that choose to simply ignore all that information that a manufacturer has provide about weights and capacities and how you should never exceed ANY of them. They obviously know more than the teams of engineers that designed, tested, prototyped, and built the product. But the bottom line is that every single one of us will have to face the consequences of our choices and whether or not, in hindsight, whether we made the correct ones.

 

Xrated, I appreciate that you have the right intentions ...to be helpful. As someone who has provided technical specs on products, I realize the final print seen by the end use customer is a compromise between technical, marketing, and the manufacturer's legal department. It's often up to the consumer to understand that strict adherence to an owner's manual can lead you astray. It's analogous to blindly following a gps unit while driving as you drive into a body of water (it has been done). It often pays to read the owner's manual and then set it aside and consider what you're actually doing.

 

Xrated.... FTLOG, just get off the pulpit. We can make decisions on our own without having to, constantly, hear from you on how we are going to burn on the blacktop of hell.

 

If I could do it over again, I'd be really tempted to get the Imagine XLS 21BHE. I'm generally a "smaller and simpler is better" person. I haven't looked at it in person yet, but the floorplan sure seems to cram all the essentials into a small space.

 

Investigations with fatal accidents are pretty thorough. I would expect the rig to get righted before towing and weighed at the scene. Personally, I wouldn't count on "I know that I was xxxx pounds over my GVW, but I was fine on my axle weights" argument in front of a jury. But staying legal for that reason alone is only self-serving.

Many times on this forum, I've seen folks suggesting it is OK to run combinations that are way over the GVWR (e.g. family of five + big fifth wheel trailer on a F250). When things are going fine for 99.999 of the time on the road, it feels fine. It's the 0.001% of the time that we make a mistake, or another driver does something dangerous, or a tire fails, or a deer jumps out, or... that having a marginal tow rig can make a life or death difference. The overloaded truck driver made the choice, but others may well pay the price. It's just plain selfish, arrogant, and quite simply, not the right thing to do.