I was wondering how big of travel trailers anybody is pulling with their 4.7. I have a 04 QC 4.7, and I am looking at geting a new trailer. Is 7000 lbs. a tough pull or is it still a farely easy pull. I have a 5000/7000 lbs rated hitch, just wondering if can pull all 7000 pounds. I have put some power adders to it so it should have about 250+ HP and 300+ TQ.

 

Quick and dirty, no, you can't pull 7000 pounds. I believe the new generation are rated to tow that much, if optioned properly, but the 2nd gen ones are 6000-6500 max, depending on the engine, tranny, ring and pinion ratio, and tow package options.

Can you pull it? Yeah. Is it legal? No. Do you have the HD tow package from the dealer? If not, you'll want a tranny cooler and an electronic trailer brake controller

 

I have a brake controller with my 7500 max lbs. hitch. My truck has a trany cooler on the 5 speed auto. I also has the 9" 3.55 rear end, and heavy duty suspention on the 2wd, witch is basically a 4x4 minus the transfer case and front axle.

 

Ok, but you're still legally rated to tow a max of ~6200 pounds iirc. You'd have to look up the specs for your particular setup, but just because the hitch says it can tow 7500 pounds doesn't mean your truck was designed to. I can put a 10k rpm tachometer in a Cummins and it doesn't mean that the motor will suddenly be able to spin over 3 times as fast as it used to.

You need to consider frontal area as well, when towing. My 360 Dakota tows 5500 pounds like cake, 7000 pounds wouldn't be much of a struggle for it at all, but when you start overloading components you start breaking stuff. The axles are not full float, so your axle shafts themselves carry weight and will bend and wear with too much weight. The frame isn't designed to have XXX amount of weight on the far back end, the U-joints, driveshaft, bearings, and tranny weren't designed with that much load in mind, etc.

Also keep in mind that most trailers are advertised as a dry weight - throw 500 pounds of propane and water, then load up the fridge, put some suitcases/clothes in it, dishes, a TV, whatever, and your 7000 pound trailer now tips the scales at 8500 pounds, and you've suddenly got 1200 pounds on the tongue which is far more than the Dakota was designed for.

I was looking into getting a travel trailer to pull with my Dak, and there are a bunch out there that would work great. Instead, I'm selling the Dak and I'm going to get a dedicated Truck truck, so I can have a car for work and a truck for play.

 

The trailers I have been looking at have a dry weight between 4700 and 6000. Rarely do we put water in the tanks. So I'm looking at about 5000 to 6500 lbs total. That is if we go with the 25 footers. I have been looking at a 20 foot that fully loaded (GVWR) is 5800. I think I will be fine. It is not a Ram, but it is still a Dodge.

Thanks![sm=smiley20.gif]

 

The 3.55 ratio is gonna hurt your towing capacity. My 04 QC 4.7L ATX 4x4 is only rated at 4450 lbs because of the 3.55. You can check it here:

http://www-5.dodge.com/towing5/D/home.html (click "by vehicle" then pick the right year...)

 

Ok so according to the link with your 2wd quad cab 4.7 5-speed auto with 3.55 gears you can tow a MAX trailer weight of 4750 legally.

 

Boy, that don't leave you with much of a trailer. I have seen a 06 3500 Cummins 6 speed pull two grain wagons that the contents alone weight over 37k lbs. And that was up a step incline and without touching the acelerator it just trucked up there all by itself.

 

Yeah, my old 86 Ram I put ~7000 pounds of gravel in the bed and then hooked up a 2500-3000 pound heavy equipment trailer and put a Komatsu (??) tractor on it for a total combined weight of about 18,000 pounds - it was able to go just fine, but it certainly wasn't good for it or legal.

 

I still think that I will be fine, especialy since I forgot about trailer load (weight) distribution. Besides I never seen anyone pull over or make a driver park their Dakota because they are trying pulling something that maybe a little big for. If that was the case, about 85% of people that tow would have to stop.

Thanks anyway, I will take my chances.