You've gotten good advice! In general, I would suggest: tow capacity first, budget second, trailer third.
Once you have determined that you can tow it and you can afford it, then I would check for leaks and water damage.
I would buy from someone who actually owned and used the trailer themselves. I often see ads where people state they are "selling for a friend" and they don't know anything about the trailer. Another one I see is they bought it to fix it up and now don't have the time (or the money, or the interest, or whatever). I suspect these folks will tell you whatever you want to hear, just to unload the trailer.
Finally, don't worry too much. Do your homework, then do the best you can to get a trailer that works for you. Then, have FUN! If it's not perfect ... well have fun anyway.
Another option to increase your vehicle's tow capaicity would be to have the Axle Ring and Pinion gears changed out to a 3:92 ratio, typical runs $600-$800 for a 4x2 model truck and $1200-$1600 for a 4x4 truck. By doing the gear change is will certainly allow you to expand into a larger pool of trailers.
* This post was
edited 05/16/08 09:22pm by Nascar24 *
Good Luck and Happy Trails
2007 Dodge 3500 4X4 MC,SRW,CTD EB
2004 Citation 29NP
Equal-i-Zer
Yamaha EF2800i
Nascar24 A lengend in my own mind, A Scary thought in someone else's!
inthepink wrote: Bumpy, Do you have a V6 or a V8? What do you tow with yours? If we get a very small (18' or so) "regular" one do you think it might work out?
Nascar, it is going to be tough. We're looking at pretty old ones (1998 or so) and so far we have found two in that price range - although they're too big for us to tow. We may have to wait until we want to spend a little more.
I'm going to post some towing questions but I'm thinking I should start a new thread since it is sort of a new subject.
Thanks again everyone,
Rae-Anne
I have a V8 and have towed a boat and a fairly large and loaded utility trailer. I "thought" it was rated to tow 4300 lbs. but that is just a silly wild arsed guess.
bumpy
Thanks for the encouragement everyone. It is a real bummer that we just didn’t know what to look for when buying our truck. We knew we wanted to move up to a TT once we had a baby so we purposely bought a truck with a V8 and a tow package and thought it would be enough for us to easily pull a small TT. I’ve got to admit, once I learned how low our towing capacity is I felt pretty discouraged about finding something. Even many of the “lite” ones have a GVWR way over what we can tow and from what I’ve learned on here if my towing capacity is 5050lbs, I better get something with a GVWR more like 4000-4500. Not so easy to find used and in our price range.
Nascar, That Terry one looked really promising and was considerably under our price range but the fact that it doesn’t have a stove and oven concerns me. The ad says we could add it, but as handy as my husband is it makes me a little nervous to do something like that when we know absolutely nothing about rvs and trailers. As for changing our axle, you are right. It would bring us from 5050lb towing capacity to 6000 lb towing capacity. With a 6K towing capacity I could buy the trailer that I want tomorrow at the price I want, but the guy at Dodge said it would reduce our gas mileage and we don’t want to do that. The truck is my daily driver.
I will just keep checking Craigslist and hopefully that one great deal will come along or we’ll find the right thing after we’ve saved a bit more money.
"As for changing our axle, you are right. It would bring us from 5050lb towing capacity to 6000 lb towing capacity. With a 6K towing capacity I could buy the trailer that I want tomorrow at the price I want, but the guy at Dodge said it would reduce our gas mileage and we don’t want to do that. The truck is my daily driver."
I "assume" that changing the rear end gearing would only provide additional power and wouldn't "strengthen" anything safety related, suspension,brakes,etc.??? if so you could go ahead and tow it and see if you actually need more oomph???
bumpy
inthepink wrote: Thanks for the encouragement everyone.
Nascar, That Terry one looked really promising and was considerably under our price range but the fact that it doesn’t have a stove and oven concerns me. The ad says we could add it, but as handy as my husband is it makes me a little nervous to do something like that when we know absolutely nothing about rvs and trailers.
I will just keep checking Craigslist and hopefully that one great deal will come along or we’ll find the right thing after we’ve saved a bit more money.
By the looks of the cabinets in the Terry that is a real easy solution, it looks like someone just blocked in the front and placed a counter over the top, very easily reversable! What do you Modification Maniac's think, is this an easy reversal or what?
New Ranges are typically around $400,I'm sure they are all over E-bay, heck there's a guy back here on Craigslist that sells new ranges for $350, You can also get them at Arizona Rv salvage if you want to get one used and save a few more $$. Ranges are a very simple appliance to install, 4-6 screws and one LP connection, that's it!
So don't let that Terry on E- Bay discourage you, if your close go and look at it, check it over and if it's solid wait until there's 25 seconds left on the auction and bid the highest your willing to spend on it, I'm sure you'll own it!
Another comprimise would be is to go with 3:73 gears it would put you right in the middle , you'd get an increased towing capacity and still get better fuel mileage than the 3:92 gears. You may have to go with a set of after market gears if Dodge doesn't use that ratio, I'm sure any good off road or speed shop can help you out and probably for a lot less money than the Dodge service dept.
Jay
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