Well I was talking to a foreman at work. And he has a newer Dodge half ton crew cab 4x4 with a hemi. And he had a gooseneck hitch installed and pulls a 3 horse trailer. Yes with teh gooseneck. He said the trailer is only 15 feet not included the gooseneck. And goes good down the high way good at 75 mph. And over the weekend I seen an older dodge 2wd standard cab pulling a 2 horse gooseneck trailer. Now my question is, if a dodge can do it, why cant a Ford??? Wouldnt the gooseneck put a little more weight on the front axle? And what would be the differnece of having hooked out back or in the bed?

 

can it do it? yes. but not safely and your truck will not last long. you will be over gcwr. If he pulls that trailer often his tranny will go **** up. also it is very hard to mount a 5th wheel hitch on an 04-current f150 due to the hydroformed frame. you are not supposed to drill into these frames and the custom wrap around brakets are only made for a 2wd. bottom line is a 1/2 ton is not a 5th wheel puller.

 

People pull 10k pound trailers with 1/2 ton pickups because the commercials and two sales people (truck and RV dealers) said they could. Does that mean they should?

All 1/2 ton trucks have about 1500 pounds of payload before they exceed GVWR. That's what most people exceed before any other rating, often @ 2k under GCWR. If you can keep your truck under GVWR, there is nothing wrong with goosneck or 5th wheels trailers. There just aren't many traielrs that can do that.

 

This forum seems to be big fans of staying within or under the GVRW, max tow weights. Sure your truck could do it but a 3/4 would be a better choice and that is what you will hear from most here. Just about all the members that tow do so completly within the cability of the truck and the law. Can't fault these guys for keeping it by the books and keeping the streets safe, but at the same time they will be the last to recommend anything like towing 10k with a 1/2 ton or dropping a gooseneck in the bed.

 

2 things to ponder.

1st -Had a customer today want buy an old 1972 (4200lbs empty) 4 horse in-line bumper pull trailer to pull behind his Ford Explorer. (no trailer brakes)

2nd -Dodge
In 1999 Dodge Viper RT had a top speed of 206mph. If you went that fast you would blow your upper radiator hose from cooling issues. Dodge to compete with Ford and GM have commonly disregarded safety limits like rev limiters etc. to have more horse power or more pulling power etc. For comparison:
A little earlier time frame Ford dropped that SVO Yamaha tuned 3.8 in the Taurus and called it a SHO. The motor had a 14,000RPM redline. The rev limiter kicked in around 9k and the guage said 6k redline. Why not let the engine rev to 14,000rpm?? Because it would burn out the AC, power steering and water pump. Never seen a Viper with 100,000 miles on it. Seen many SHO Taurus though.

Ask that Dodge owner in a few months if he has had to replace his transmission yet....if not, he will.

 

Well i am not planning on doing this just to let everybody know. I was just wondering if he is stupid or the trucks could handle it. But I am planning on pulling a horse bumper pull with my truck. It should handle it no problem. It would be funny to see my boss broke down on the side of the road though..lmao...I bet any money this summer when he goes to wyoming, from ohio, That truck will give out.

 

What are you talking about, I just sold my ACR and will be getting an 08'. The R/T never had a 206 mph top speed, nor did the GTS, nor did we ever have cooling issues going full out on tracks from Sebring to Willow with 550rwhp. And I can show you plenty of Vipers in the club with near and over 100K mph including cars that are still tracked hard with 100K on the motor and still running like new. 08's top speed is just north of 200.

As for the truck, you can do a lot of things, but safely? Heck I had to tow a 27ft Fountain once for a short distance with a V8 Mountaineer, it handled it fine, but I wouldn't want to do that long distance.

 

The SHO V6 was a high-tech design at its debut in 1989. Displacing 3.0L (2986 cc/182 in³), it was an iron block, aluminum head 24-valve DOHC engine with an innovative variable length intake manifold. Its oversquare design, which sported an 89 mm (3.5 in) bore and 80 mm (3.1 in) stroke, gave the high-revving engine an output of 220 bhp (164 kW) @ 6200 rpm and 200 ft·lbf (270 N·m) of torque (271 Nm) @ 4800 rpm at the flywheel. Redline was 7000 rpm, and fuel cut-off occurred at 7300 rpm. It should be noted, however, that the true redline was over 8500 rpm, but was set to 7000 due to accessories in the prototypes blowing out at around 8000 rpm. This engine was only available with the Ford MTX-IV transmission only.

 

I guess I shouldn't believe the TV years ago where there was a whole episode on the fastest cars and they took a viper to 206mph...heck maybe it was 196...maybe it was 166, but there was a 6 somewhere in that speed number.... anyway each time it blew the upper radiator hose.....then they tried it with a different Viper with the same results.... now from memory almost 10 years later I can't tell you what show it was. Point was the car was capable of a top speed with no limiter keeping it from destroying itself.

I really ought to quit typing when I am tired and without hard facts...sorry

But I'll have to take your word for 100k Vipers...still never seen one in person, but I have seen many, many SHO Taurus's with 100k.

Yes the production SHO V6 was a 3.0 and 3.2 and not a 3.8, later replaced in 1996 with a 3.4 V8. The V6's were produced to a 9k reline but limited to much lower with fuel supply and timing as stated by GLC.

Side note...yes there was a 3.8 SHO V6 5 valve code name "GN-34" but it never saw production out of the prototype stage.

BUT>>> My original point and things to ponder still remain
GM and FMC build in limiters to increase reliabilty and longevity...whether it is GCVW or RPM.

 

I hope Dodge has fun with all the claims on their lifetime powertrain warranty.

Dodge is limiting towing - the max they rate a 1/2 ton for is 9100#.

 

Sorry if I came off harsh but I don't know what shows that was or what they did, but all these years and all track events I've never heard of one person having that happen. They have cars putting down over 1K rwhp on 93 pump gas and not having any issues like that, and they go well over 200 lol. Car is hands down a brutal machine and reliable as a Civic. No other make can handle reliably what he Vipers can on track, heck usually in test all other makes have issues and Viper just keeps going and going and going with no brake fade or overheating (ala ZO6 lol). We used to run Porsches, I would not choose any of them now in comparison for track use.

Agree on the trucks though, Dodge interior is cheap blahhh, Ford does everything right but keeps leaving us with underpowered motors, that boss engine comes out, F-150 will be perfect.