Hi guys, Im entertaining the idea of adding a modern 2020 or newer class 3 dually pickup to my business for primarily LTL contracts and the occasional move of my 8 ton equipment. Im most concerned with the longevity of parts vs a larger class 7/8 chassis. 25,000-33,000lbs is what the the class 3 will be towing. I have zero experience using anything less than class 7 right now. Ultimately cost is driving this decision and looking to find out if wear items on these smaller trucks are holding up long enough when used close to their max tow ratings?
Well, unfortunately, you are not going to receive a favorable review from guys on here in regards to towing an 8 ton machine behind a one ton, even though the numbers are probably fine.
Which models? 350, 450 or 550? There is a difference between a 350 and 550.
Im not all that convinced of the manufacturers tow ratings of up to 40k behind a dually pickup. You could say thats also part of my question for anyone actually doing it? Im looking at class 3 pickup trucks, Ford 350/450, GM 3500, and Ram 3500.
This Ram is a 2015 (14k GVW). Just got this truck in December as a support vehicle & for light hauling. Photo was taken Monday at the Little Fort brake check (Hwy 24 here in BC). Small (6200lb ASV RC50) on trailer, only a 10,000lb total load. Very long (over 10km) continuously steep hill with several runaway lanes. 4:10 gears, 3rd gear 60 km/h and exhaust brake did not provide adequate hold back. Can't even imagine hauling a heavy load on this type of terrain...really shows the drawbacks of a light duty truck... Have driven this same route many times with 'heavier' loads with this old International. No comparison safety wise...The 1 ton dually will, for us remain a light duty service type truck. Just my opinion, and I tend to be very conservative in regards to holdback on hills & braking. The class 8 has been very reliable (C12, 13speed) for our light usage....
Thanks you. At this point ive already test driven all three brands. I was able to hook up my unloaded trailer 11,500lbs to both Ford and Ram, GM dealer wouldn't allow me to.
I would prefer any of the 450/4500, 550/5500 over the 350/3500's. I think that step up gets you heavier tires , brakes, and axles. Or at least it used to. I don't have anything that new.
The position im in right now is weighing the options against my already owned 1996 Mack RD. If there is no cheaper to operate option ill just remove the dump bed from my Mack and turn it into a tractor. Im just starting at the bottom of the list with the class 3 trucks since the tow ratings exceed what ill need to tow. Getting up above class 3 adds back a lot of the insurance, registration, and tax that I can save running a pickup truck.
Buying a $80,000 pickup, to save on the taxes and insurance for a 1996 Mack , doesn't make sense in my world, but maybe you want a new pickup. I would rather pull around 30,000 lbs with the old Mack.
My Mack is do for an engine rebuild soon enough as well as wear parts are double the price of a class 3 pickup. Just crunching numbers according to the Mack's maintenance history, needing a rebuild, and then resale, if I can get the same lifetime out of a class 3 trucks wear parts, get better fuel economy, pay less for annual ins/reg/tax, a new $60,000 truck makes sense.
So you are hauling 8 tons on an 11,500 pounds empty trailer with electric brakes? I just want to get the numbers right.
A Class 7 or 8 will gain Safety levels will not ever see with the Class 3 to class 5, Is Doable yes, Longevity is NOT there where will be trading a trashed out Class 3-5 long before a Well Worn Class 7 or 8 needs major work PROVIDING is maintained appropriately.
Oh I'm sure people are doing it but should they be? Big difference in 25K lbs and 40K lbs behind a 550 sized truck. The 25K is doable but as others have said it's going to wear the smaller truck out pulling that load on a regular basis. 40K behind a 550? No way Jose. That's begging for a disaster. It'll pull it but stopping..
Highway 24 is probably one of the worst hills in BC. You know it's a slow go when there are places to pass trucks when going down the hill lol.
There's a guy out around Grass Valley, CA that will haul his 10 ton Mecalac with his 3500, but most of the time he uses his 5500 for his heavier stuff. Having a trailer with electric over hydraulic brakes makes a big difference in my opinion. I can't remember what he says in this video, but it'll probably help.
I don't have the numbers in front of me, but using a class 3-5 truck like your talking is about the most expensive cost per mile option out there. Tires, brakes, u-joints, suspension components, are often the same price if not more expensive than the big trucks and they last a fraction of the mileage. Also fuel mileage isn't nearly as good as everyone thinks. Get a newer, fresher, lower mileage class 6-8 truck with air brakes, whatever fits your budget. As far as safety goes there is no comparison. If you've spent all your time driving big trucks, put that load behind one of these new class 3-5 trucks and you'll immediately realize how unsafe it feels. My 2019 F250 is rated to tow 15000lbs, I rarely do it because it feels unsafe, when I do I drive slow and use an abundance of caution. The thing these pickup mfgs can't escape with their huge tow ratings is physics. At some point you just don't have enough truck.... BTW that guy in the previously posted vid is an idiot, I can't believe he's been promoting that crap on youtube as long as he has.
IMO most of them are.
Appreciate the feedback. I wasnt quite sold on it myself but I have seen enough of it going on around me to at least question if pickup trucks have come that far. Im just now coming out of the 90s so am a few decades behind anything modern. I have no issue keeping the Mack as its in great shape and just needs an engine overhaul in the near future. Numbers looked good on paper but I don't personally know anyone who keeps anything new long enough to run the numbers out over say a half million mile life or more.
here is the deal. If your truck weighs ~9000 or so and you put 27000 pounds behind it, you are betting everything on one blue wire. 1 to 3 truck to trailer ratio. The loaded trailer is just going to own you if that connection fails and you crest a hill and find out the hard way. it is a sickening feeling. I think weights like that need air brakes, and that is not popular in many lightweight circles. It has nothing to do with modern truck advancements in the light trucks, and everything to do with the failure modes of air brakes.
I do agree, and like the default safety of the air brakes in event of failure. Ill just stay with my Mack and tag trailer.
Really, in a lot of ways, not entirely different than a 20k tractor in front of 105.5k..... Just sayin'.
No, because of the way air brakes work. If the blue wire breaks disconnects etc you get no warning and more importantly no safety brake application. If the glad hand comes off or a fitting breaks or whatever, you come to a stop. Been there done that and had to fix a line. It was really dramatic, going uphill with an empty truck on I-5. Luckily I had what I needed. Electric brakes only self-apply when the trailer comes loose and pulls the lanyard, *AND* you have a charged up safety battery. I think that's a wee bit too late
I've spent the last 5 years hauling around a 10 ton goose neck with my f450. I am at max with my trailer. Basically I am using my truck to hotshot a 17k motor grader. The Ford f450 6.7 power stoke and 10 speed is one hell of a combo. Best truck I have ever owned. This truck has been worth it's weight in gold. I typically get to dump the trailer and load and then have a decent vehicle to get around town in unloaded. The DOT are harassing big trucks non stop here. I completely avoid them unloaded. My truck has rolled 140k never been to the shop. At times the load seems unsafe mostly when crowded by bigger trucks on the road. I own bigger trucks but I use the small one when I can. I got 90k miles out of my rear 19.5 factory tires, 45k out of the fronts. Never rotated the rears. It's nice getting 16 mpgs unloaded. Really saves on fuel. When loaded 6.5 to 7.5 mpg I have hauled several large trailers that had no brakes. I have seen guys moving d4s not me. Truck takes double the distance to stop if your trailer brakes stop working. My truck tells me if the trailer brakes become disconnected so normally you know to watch out Heaviest load. Blew 3 trailers tires on that one. Typical load below 12' 850 blade assembly. Frame and rake
One thing not mentioned {parking brakes}. A 3030 air can equipped brake system has to be able to hold the max GVW on a 20% with only a roll back of 12" when applied otherwise you might see electric brakes on 80K loads. It would be interesting driving a Quad dump & pup with juice/electric brakes wouldn't it. * I can see the DOT sign at the top of Cabbage Hill--Truckers Check your Brakes--Make Sure Blue wire is Working.
I've towed heavy in pickups a lot. I do it at low speeds around 60 mph. Do not do this in a 1 ton, a f450 maybe but it will be expensive as it will be a throw away truck. Put 20k into your mack and it will out live you, then part with the extra 150k you will have, 60k less from purchase price and the rest from taxes, tag, insurance, and tires.
In my area. a running driving dump truck- even getting due for a engine rebuild, is worth twice what a road tractor is. Prices have really dropped on day cab road trucks, from a year or two ago. Dump trucks are still $40,000, day cab road tractors are back under $20,000 I think you could buy a decent road tractor, for less than the cost of paying someone to do a engine rebuild. Of course if you rebuild the engine, you kind of know what you have, etc. But I wouldn't pull a dump bed, to make a road tractor.
Air brakes are definitely safer, but I put juice brake medium duty trucks way above the blue wire on the danger scale. As a kid I was banned from riding with my Dad in the F700 after the brake booster failed catastrophically on a hill. I've never had a electric trailer brakes just stop working. Well, one trailer got struck by lightning while it was loaded with hay, but the trailer wiring being converted to magic smoke was the least our problems at the time.
I have never heard of a trailer getting hit by lightning. Did it burn?
Have had the Pucks fail open, wires to axles corrode or get snagged away and still had closed circuit on controller with next to no braking, steel tube on truck frame rapid decompose blow out with trailer on, used electric system to get home on. Have had auto slacks quit, drums heat swell, air lines pop or blow off fittings and chambers fail, so far always managed to limp home. Old Pete I had driven local would not accelerate one day, check engine light on for multiple failed sensors. Lightning had dropped a tree alongside it, the shock electrical blast smoked the Cat ECM.
I'll bet @Pops52 knows him!
Drive through a cut corn field just a little bit and e trailer brakes will not work. Drive a little bit down county roads and it only takes one rock to take out one or more brakes. Factory wiring is horrible wiring One who drives fast enough in a pickup or pickup derived truck and relying on electric trailer brakes is one that will get into a wreck.
Most of the round bales did. The trailer has a diamond plate deck, so there wasn't much to burn besides the tires. My dad fenced off this 10 acre patch from a larger pasture after a third cow got struck by lightning in like 300' radius. He had just finished loading round bales on the trailer when lightning hit the neck. The concussion blew in the back window of the tractor. He was able to unload the burning bales before any of the tires caught fire, but it ruined all the wiring, lights, and brakes on the trailer. He was lucky the lightning didn't do anything to the tractor. There are trailers like that, but none of mine are and none of them anywhere I've worked were like that for long.
Thanks for the info, that's what I was looking for. Do you travel a lot of rough terrain to get so little life out of your steer tires or were they cheap tires? I know my Mack isnt exactly comparable to your F450 but im getting close to 110k out of steer tires. Your fuel economy is also lower than mine (7-8mpg) and I currently gross 64k as a dump or tow a 29k excavator on an 11.5k trailer.
I had that experience too as a young man logging firewood. We had a 62' F600 with the 292 4&2. I was coming down off Raven Roost on Little Naches and the booster diaphragm was holed, and instead of pullng on the brakes and helping me, it was pushing against my foot and not doing a dang thing to slow it down. I was able to scrub it down in the ditch and not lose a tire or my life. The booster was a remote under the seat in that truck, an odd and complicated set of plumbing on the brake lines.
I probably have 25% left. I change them early once I notice vibration from the edges cupping. I am not sure why they wear faster other than all the turning. I run factory continentals so they are top of the line at $550 each. I drive in and out of sites on typical construction entrances. I would not say that it is rough terrain. If it is even slightly soft the truck gets stuck with a load on it. The main advantage of the f450 is it can also serve the role of a f250. So I normally drive it everywhere. It turns better than a 350 or 250 because the front axle is wider. It does have 550 axles, tires, wheels and brakes which means your slightly heavier than a 350 which gives you slightly less towing capacity. It easily can do a 10 ton bumper pull or a 12.5 ton goose neck. The 350 gets about 1 mpg better at 76 to 80 mph if you drive that fast. The 450 is lower geared so. The rpms run about 2250 to 2400 at 78 or 80 I have the same experience running the f350 the guy I used to work with had 3 of them. I would take the 450 over the 350 every time
That makes sense. I never travel more than 65mph and my E7 putts along happily at 1600rpm. I think these small displacement engines just about make their torque where mine makes its HP. Ive gathered a little bit of info from Ford and Ram forums but its pretty limited as it seems not many people at least on the sites ive asked are operating like this. Its looking like im just going to designate one of my Macks for the LTL contracts ill take on. Ive got a single axle DM600 with the 237/6spd that will probably work better than my RD690 300/7spd.
You can't go wrong running what you have. I live in a small subdivision that does not allow big trucks, so mine has allowed me to keep a "work" truck at home. The milage is so much better than my 7.3 i don't even want to use it. 225 miles needs a fill up. I have gotten 650 miles out of the 43 gallon tank in the 6.7. The biggest cost is fuel by far. Lastly the 6.7 is quiet to drive, i can use a speaker phone and hear. It uses def so it does not stink like diesel. I actually am OK with def as long as the system works ok. It is so much more truck than the 250s. I just traded my last 250 for a dozer. Not sure that I will replace it, again. Anyway good luck.
Yeah all the old class 6-7 trucks with single pot master cylinders and hydraulic brakes are pretty scary when you think about it. Blow any line and the pedal goes to the floor. Booster goes bad and it's two feet on the brake with all your might. And in an emergency that driveline brake, assuming it works at all, gives you about 5 sec of braking before the shoes burn off it. I learned to drive 'big trucks' on 70's vintage medium duties with hydraulic brakes and was always taught to drive like you don't have any brakes. Anticipate that stop or turn well in advance and start slowing down. Always be in the right gear to descend a hill with little to no application of the brakes, usually the same gear you'd climb it in (at like 5-10mph). Don't touch that 2spd rear end at the top of a hill or on the down grade, and so on. Drive like that and 'hopefully' when you really did need the brakes they'd work.
Hydrovac brake boosters were job security on medium duty trucks in the 70s/80s, farmers here still have a few but repair parts are damn near non existent and rebuilders long gone. Other than on cars and light duty trucks, juice brakes are about as antique tech as it gets and as scarce except the asian and euro equipment.
I appreciate what you've had to say. This is a decision that doesnt have to be made right away so ill sit on it for a while and hopefully talk to more operators. I did test drive a Ford F350 and F450 already, yes much quieter than a Mack. The technology in the new trucks is impressive and like you mentioned the truck is so quick to warn you if the trailer is connected/disconnected, brake faults, low tire pressure, all sorts of stuff I check for multiple times a day on the old trucks.
Some people like all that, the never ending messages, warnings, lights and nanny's drive me insane. Yes, my tires are at 50psi instead of 80psi, they are larger than stock and don't need to run that kind of pressure, but the computer doesn't know that and is constantly upset. Messages about low washer fluid, oil change due soon, trailer wiring fault (there isn't, all is working fine), a tire just slipped, and a constant bombardment of other useless information. If that little screen didn't also have the odometer I'd have put a piece of tape over it long ago.
My pickup is a 06 and often tells me that the trailer is disconnected even when I don't have a trailer behind me
I brought my boat and trailer from northern MI to central FL, about 1500 miles. It was a little over 20k. I hardly knew it was back there. Coming down the mountains in TN it held 55 mph with the exhaust brake and literally one or two 1 second taps on the brake on the steepest and longest grade. 2021 F-350 diesel dually, long bed, crew cab, 14k GVW.
You could say it isnt wrong telling you that. All kidding aside I wouldn't substitute the technology in place of physically checking. Im still going to pre trip check before every use and multiple times a day as I do now. I could see the tire pressure monitoring come in handy if you pick something up in a tire and are losing air quickly, same with trailer brake faults or lights out. Stuff that can happen immediately even if you're paying attention. I have a new Tacoma and turn most of the assist features off and just press ok to clear any warnings upon startup. Lets just say I know more people who could use those warnings than not unfortunately.
^This. In addition to all those annoying messages my 22 350 in Fords infinite wisdom made the back up sensors so damn sensitive that the pintle combo hitch sets it off 80% of the time. You can turn it off but when the key cycles, it goes back to on. Come on Ford the truck has a receiver hitch rated to pull more than the truck should so you'd think they would've taken into account a big assed hitch back there. Very frustrating. Love the truck but this drives me nuts.
My wife's Navigator does that with the hitch but also applies the brake so the truck doesn't hit its own hitch.
Same. My 2019 gives messages like 'trailer wiring fault', 'trailer disconnected' etc when there is no trailer attached. Probably some wiring gremlins in the truck which is concerning, considering its still in almost like new condition.
Try driving around with the tailgate down, the sensors don't like that either.
Well, it's not lying then!
The work 1 ton is pretty beat, and I put a class 5 hitch on the dump truck so I can haul the mini. I rarely do otherwise. The dump truck does not care about the mini back there and I get to bring the bedding with it on the same trip. I may haul the mini a dozen times year. I can suffer through rowing the gears and listening to the 3406.