craig333
Riley's Human
Curious why you call them high maintenance. I consider mine to be very low maintenance. Oil change, fuel and air filters once in a while and thats it.
bsharp007 said:I took a serious look at the Ford F250's to haul my Hawk and they are HUGE vehicles, just too big for driving in a city or fitting in a standard parking spot. If you use your truck as a daily driver like most of us do, the bigger trucks pretty much suck. Sure if you're living in a rural environment it works OK. But the modern diesels are high maintanance vehicles and you have to deal with the costly DEF fluid. Totally not worth it IMO. I have had a fully loaded Hawk on a 2012 Ford F150 with airbags in the back and E rated tires and I have had zero problems, the truck is well within its payload rating. The brakes are more than adequate with the Hawk on.
And now the newer Ford F150's have more payload, more power and more MPG than my truck.
You do not need a diesel either for safety or MPG.
I did take a serious look at the new Rams and I really liked them, might be the most luxurious vehicle I have ever been inside, unfortunately the height of the bed to the top of the cab didn't work with my current Hawk.
So I went with a new Ford F150 with a payload of more than 3000lbs, plenty to haul any FWC.
Maintenance is hardly any different on a diesel than a gasser. 15k mile oil/oil filter/fuel filter intervals, air filter as needed, 60k transmission fluid, rotors and pads last a stupid long time. All this maintenance i can do myself which cuts the costs. My Cummins ram 3500 handles my camper/37” tires like a walk in the park. Def fluid is cheap and you don’t need it often, practically negligible cost factor.bsharp007 said:I took a serious look at the Ford F250's to haul my Hawk and they are HUGE vehicles, just too big for driving in a city or fitting in a standard parking spot. If you use your truck as a daily driver like most of us do, the bigger trucks pretty much suck. Sure if you're living in a rural environment it works OK. But the modern diesels are high maintanance vehicles and you have to deal with the costly DEF fluid. Totally not worth it IMO. I have had a fully loaded Hawk on a 2012 Ford F150 with airbags in the back and E rated tires and I have had zero problems, the truck is well within its payload rating. The brakes are more than adequate with the Hawk on.
And now the newer Ford F150's have more payload, more power and more MPG than my truck.
You do not need a diesel either for safety or MPG.
I did take a serious look at the new Rams and I really liked them, might be the most luxurious vehicle I have ever been inside, unfortunately the height of the bed to the top of the cab didn't work with my current Hawk.
So I went with a new Ford F150 with a payload of more than 3000lbs, plenty to haul any FWC.
most states require any trailer that has a gvwr of 3000lbs or higher to have trailer brakes.rubberlegs said:I don't get the brakes problem. For example, a recent Tacoma can tow 6400 lb. Of course, trailers often have brakes, but not always. Our Tacoma seems to brake ok. I hate to brake super hard but had to recently and it performed ok. Maybe I don't get the trailer brakes thing -- I've never had a trailer.
By 'lock up the brakes' I am talking about having the ABS kick in, which is the modern equivalent of locking up the brakes. What this tells you is that your brakes can provide enough force to stop the truck, in which case going to bigger brakes or a truck with bigger brakes will not shorten your stopping distance. Once you are hitting the ABS, stoping distance is entirely dependent on the friction between your tires and the road surface.ntsqd said:Unless it's brakes are more effective at turning Kinetic Energy into heat and then dissipating that.
snip........
All other things being the same (tires, road etc) a 3/4 ton truck will have a longer stoping distance than a 1/2 ton, simply because it is heavier and therefore has more inertia and tire friction is not strictly proportional to the normal force.
Assuming that you could disable the ABS on a modern truck, being able to lock up the tires is not really a good test of anything. Look for a stopping distance test. Hopefully you can find one with the trucks loaded.
We started out with a 6.5' camper in our 3/4t and it didn't need anything done to the suspension. Truck barely knew the camper was there. This Cuchara XL is a different story. the combo is no longer light and nimble. It sways in corners and definitely has inertia of its own that I have to drive aware of. It now also sits slightly nose high. I'm pondering the rear spring options.
Unfortunately, with ABS you cannot lock up your brakes so the coefficient of friction between pad and rotor are constantly changing, so the assumption that a loaded 1/2T (with smaller brakes) will stop faster than a loaded 3/4T pickup in a panic stop is not clear.rando said:The brakes issue is one of heat, not stopping distance. If you can lock up your brakes, and with a modern truck you almost certainly can . . .
All other things being the same (tires, road etc) a 3/4 ton truck will have a longer stoping distance than a 1/2 ton . . .
I'm sorry Rando but I'm going to have to call you out on this statement as it is simply false.rando said:......
All other things being the same (tires, road etc) a 3/4 ton truck will have a longer stoping distance than a 1/2 ton, simply because it is heavier and therefore has more inertia and tire friction is not strictly proportional to the normal force.
Ntsqd do you have a rear sway bar on your truck? When we bought our rig we didn't have one but after installing the Hellwig Bigwig bar it made a significant difference.ntsqd said:......
We started out with a 6.5' camper in our 3/4t and it didn't need anything done to the suspension. Truck barely knew the camper was there. This Cuchara XL is a different story. the combo is no longer light and nimble. It sways in corners and definitely has inertia of its own that I have to drive aware of. It now also sits slightly nose high. I'm pondering the rear spring options.
With heavy rigs where you don't have sufficient braking force to stop the wheels from rotating, then this is likely true.smlobx said:I'm sorry Rando but I'm going to have to call you out on this statement as it is simply false.
Larger brake rotors provide more braking surface and therefore more "bite" for a given amount of travel (i.e. Rotation of the tire).
If you put 2000 pounds in a half ton and the same weight in a one ton I can guarantee you that the one ton will stop quicker even though the gross weight is more as that is what the truck was designed for. I say this coming from over 30 years of having my Class A license and have driven a lot of heavy rigs.
Unfortunately, its not same loads:rando said:Here is some data to back this up (all 60mph - 0 mph distances in feet):