Lets see if I've done the math right! If you tow a 5th wheel RV with a SD with 8' bed and the hitch is in the middle of the bed, you only lose a foot using a 6' bed truck - am I right? I'm sure this is a big "foot" when you're close to jack knifing the RV into a tight spot, but is it a big difference?

Seems like there are more crewcabs with 6' beds and supercabs with 8' than vice versa!

 

They are actually 6.5 foot beds, so there is 18 inches difference and you lose 9 inches.

 

The crew cabs with the 6.5 ft box JUST fits in the garage. A 8 ft box wouldn't fit. Besides parking the 8 ft would just about be impossible in a parking lot full of cars.

 

I was doing a camp ground move for some people who had their 33' fiver parallel to the river bank. The only way to hook up was to be jack-kinfed. A short bed would not of been able to do it (I know I have a dent in the cab to prove it). If I can get the pics from my cell I wil post them.

 

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i dont meen to be the sore thumb but they are actually 6 3/4' feet long.

 

BURN!!!!!!

 

I went out looking some today. Its actually a worse difference than I thought. The long beds have the axle back the difference in bed lengths. The axle is not in the middle of the 8' bed like it is the 6.5' (I stand corrected). I think the difference for towing will make me want to hold out for a long bed. But I drove a sweet King Ranch today with the short bed. It road well and had plenty of power. The F350 DRW I drove after seemed to work harder to get up to speed. They both beat the snot out of a Dodge 3500 DRW with an 8.0 gas engine. The PSD overhead indicated @ 16 MPG while the Dodge looked like 12 MPG on the highway was the best it could do. It saw 6 MPG pulling away from a light!

 

I'm sure that the dodge will do more than 12 on the highway. A two wheel drive will get low 20's easy, A 4x4 high teens. I'm sure It's just the way the drw felt from a stop. It should not be much (if any) slower than the KR you drove.Good luck finding a truck. IMO a long bed is far better in every way except for when your wife drives it and has to park it in a tight spot. It is nice to have the extra room when towing a fiver.

 

I would go with the eight foot bed,I tow a 32' Toy hauler with a super duty with the six foot box .you will have a rear window full of camper and I have to be "SUPER" careful in a tight spot.I ended up putting an 10'' inch extension on my camper so it would clear the cab.Also I have my hitch mounted directly over the wheels ,with the long bed you can move the hitch about four inches in front of the axle to put a little more weight on front of truck.
Also I hear these big tales of fuel mileage that these people can get,well I never have.
Fully loaded my camper (with the Harleys on board) weighs just under 11,000 pounds.
If I stay in the right lane and use a light foot I can get around 11MPG.If I move over and really run hard my mileage will drop to about 9 MPG.
In the past I ran a 460 And got around 6 MPG driving easy So I still feel like I,m getting a bargain.I have a friend with a 99 dodge cummins and he kept tell me about what great mileage he got.In may of this year we went to Myrtle beach for bike week.We ran together for the trip I averaged about 10.5 and his was close to the same.Keep in mind that I live and tow mostly in the mountains of eastern ky so the flatlanders will probably get a little better mileage than I do.
I have never checked the mileage with an empty truck ,but a close guess is about around 17-20.

 

You think I outta give the Dodge another thought? It was by far the lowest price. It will tow the 5th wheel I'm looking at and it already has the base rails in the bed!

 

You're talking about the V-10, correct? No way will it get very good gas mileage.

 

What year was it, and what kind of milage/options? I am very leary about dodge anymore. Between my dad and I we have had 4 of them (one was mine) and we always had the same problems. They do feel and IMO are cheaply made. Don't get me wrong I think that the Cummins engine is the best one out there. It has a good balance of power/longevity, but the Mopar parts around it is another story. I will look into a swap if the 7.3 ever dies

 

if you use a short bed, you can also get a sliding hitch that moves the trailer slightly backwards as it turns in the track, i think one of them is called a Sidewinder or something like that.

 

It is a 2003 Quad cab (not Mega cab - they had one of them on the lot, but it looked like it had a 4' bed) with front bench. It did have many power options. It had big mirrors, but not nearly as big as Ford's RV mirrors. And it was a 8.0 V10 with automatic. It felt as quick as the F350 but not nearly as quick as the F250 King Ranch. I'm going to look at another F250 that was listed in our papers classifieds. I talked to a woman who didn't seem to know all she was talking about with the truck. It is a 01 with a 7.3 and she says an 8' bed listed for $15000. We'll see.