2018 RAM 2500 4x4 SRW Diesel - 25BH - 290BH

[jakelab]

**edit - title should say 28BH**

Man, I started this whole process with a grin. Before looking into 5th Wheel's i thought i was ahead of the game due to my ranching background and already having a 3/4 Diesel truck with a gooseneck. Pulled horse/cattle trailers, even tractors on low boys no problem. Now as I learn more, and start running numbers on my truck im a bit disappointed. I had my heart set on a 28BH. But we would be happy i think with a 290BH also.
However,
2018 RAM 2500 = 10K GVWR (Door Sticker)
Tire sticker says "The combined weights of occupants and cargo should never exceed 2046 lbs."
I haven't gotten around to actually weighing the truck yet with a full load of diesel and the whole family in it.

But, going back to the 28BH:
Average Hitch Weight is 1545lbs.
That only leaves me 501 lbs for people and other cargo. My family doesn't weight much but sounds like im too close for comfort?

The 290BH Hitch weight is 1280 lbs. That leaves a little more wiggle room @ 766lbs left for cargo.

Main questions would be. Which sticker takes precedence on my door. The one that lists my GVWR, where then i can weigh my truck and find my true payload capacity, or must I abide by the other door sticker, the tire pressure one that has the "never" statement.

Thoughts?

[jakelab]

Retrieved the owners manual, and it points to a https://www.ramtrucks.com/towing-guide.html for towing specifics. I pulled that up (Link) and it helps a bit more.
For my 2018 RAM 2500 4X4 SRW with A6 68RFE Transmission and Cummins Diesel:
GVRW: 10k
Payload: 2,380
GCWR: 25,300
Max Trailer Weight Rating: 17,160.

Redoing my numbers for 28BH: 1545 Hitch weight leaves: 835 lbs for cargo and people
290BH: 1280 leaves: 1,050 lbs for cargo and people.

[ramcneal]

**edit - title should say 28BH**
2018 RAM 2500 = 10K GVWR (Door Sticker)
Tire sticker says "The combined weights of occupants and cargo should never exceed 2046 lbs."

That seems like a strange thing for the tire sticker to say since it should provide just a maximum load rating for each tire. That would be something on the order of 3,200 pounds. I had the same truck, but different year 2014. The GVWR is 10k, but the payload as stating on the door jam was just over 2k pounds like yours.

But, going back to the 28BH:
Average Hitch Weight is 1545lbs.
That only leaves me 501 lbs for people and other cargo. My family doesn't weight much but sounds like im too close for comfort?

It worse than that actually. Most travel trailers place 15% of the trailer weight onto the hitch. If you load the trailer to its GVWR of 10995 you'll be placing 1,649 pounds on the hitch.

The 290BH Hitch weight is 1280 lbs. That leaves a little more wiggle room @ 766lbs left for cargo.

Main questions would be. Which sticker takes precedence on my door. The one that lists my GVWR, where then i can weigh my truck and find my true payload capacity, or must I abide by the other door sticker, the tire pressure one that has the "never" statement.
Thoughts?

Now we get to the crux of the problem. I had a 2006 Dodge 2500 years ago and my payload was lower than needed. At that time I looked and researched the difference between my 2500 and a SRW 3500 from Dodge. It turned out there were three items that we different. The badge on the truck, the sticker on the door jam listing the GVWR, and an extra spring in the rear. I felt safe adding air bags and pulling my trailer. Fast forward to today. It's my understand that there are real differences between a 2500 and SRW 3500. Enough so that I no longer felt comfortable just adding air bags so I traded my 2014 in on a 2018 Dodge 3500 dually. I got a great deal because duallies don't sell well around here and the salesman knew they were going to take a bath on the truck. So I got lucky. There are others on this site and others that will state as long as you don't go over the tire and axle limits you're safe. The reasoning behind that attitude is that they feel the stickers are more about classifying the truck for registration than actual limits. I know some of that is true, but it's not statement that I would tell others to work with. Does that make sense?

[BeerBrewer]

I too own the exact same truck, a 2018 Ram 2500 CTD Crew Cab and I was shocked when I read your post about the tires limiting the combined weights of occupants and cargo to 2046 lbs. So I went out to my truck in the driveway and yep...mine says the same thing! That is yet another reason to get ride of stock Firestone tires! Funny Ram claims that the payload on our truck is something like 2460 lbs. Well isn't something is only as strong as its weakest part??

Anyway, there is a lot of confusion about towing and weight capacities of pick-up trucks so about a year ago I downloaded the Performance Requirements for Determining Tow-Vehicle Gross Combination Weight Rating and Trailer Weight Rating Specification J2807 dated 2016-02, which I believe is the latest issue. All of the major pickup truck manufacturers (Ford, RAM, GM, Toyota and I think Nissan) follow this spec. The document describes in detail how the towing and capacity ratings are figured out and reading it was like watching grass grow and I'm an engineer. I copied the following paragraph from the spec .

3.2.2 Tow-vehicles at 8500 lb or Greater GVWR


TVTW is base vehicle curb weight plus one 68.0 kg (150 lb) driver and one 68.0 kg (150 lb) front seat passenger plus 45.4 kg (100 lb) of optional equipment split evenly between front and rear axles plus the tow-vehicle manufacturer’s available trailering package and/or any required trailering content and representative aftermarket trailering equipment as specified in 5.2. In the case where a trailering package is not available from the tow-vehicle manufacturer or it does not include a trailer hitch component, the representative aftermarket trailering equipment as specified in 5.2 shall include a trailer hitch component.
J2807™ FEB2016

According to this paragraph the testers assume that there are 300 lbs of passengers and 100 lbs of misc equipment in the vehicle during the testing. So there is no need to include it again. Lets say, a manufacturer claims that the Payload of their truck is 1000 lbs, that number already included 300 lbs for a passengers. So lets say your 4 passengers weigh 600 lbs. That means that there is 700 lbs of payload left. (1000 - (600 - 300) = 700. I know that 400 lbs is not a lot of extra weight capacity, but its good to know its there. The spec also tries to ensure that the Manufacturers don't test bare bones trucks either. They make them equip the trucks with the options that are popular.

Unfortunately, I don't know if or how the tire sticker on the door follows the J2807 spec. My hunch is that it doesn't.

We own a Transcend 26RLS with a Hensley Arrow hitch and my Ram handles it with ease, but my is less GVWR at only 8495 (we actually weigh around 7600 loaded) and my tongue weight is 900 lbs.

I hope this helps.

[xrated]

Let's look at the 290Bh, the lighter one of the two. With a GVWR of 10,195 lbs you would need to plan on approx 20% of that number for pin weight on the truck. It may be even a bit higher...21 or 22%....which would put the pin weight at 2040 lbs if the trailer is loaded to or near the GVWR. You always want to base your tow vehicle needs on worst case scenario....Loaded to the GVWR. So now, you need to include the weight of the 5ver hitch (approx 175 lbs unless you go with and Anderson hitch). Next up is the weight of anything and everything that goes in/on the truck....passenger(s), toolbox with tools, firewood, extra fuel, generator....what ever you take along that resides in/on the truck. Whatever that number is, as you can see, will be over the rated payload capacity of your truck. Tow rating is pretty much a useless number when towing 5th wheel camping trailers, as you will usually run out of payload capacity long before you reach your towing capacity. So the answer, although it is painful, you don't really have enough truck for even the smaller of the two trailers if you plan on staying within the manufacturer's rated capacities for every category. Sorry

[BeerBrewer]

Let's look at the 290Bh, the lighter one of the two. With a GVWR of 10,195 lbs you would need to plan on approx 20% of that number for pin weight on the truck. It may be even a bit higher...21 or 22%....which would put the pin weight at 2040 lbs if the trailer is loaded to or near the GVWR. You always want to base your tow vehicle needs on worst case scenario....Loaded to the GVWR. So now, you need to include the weight of the 5ver hitch (approx 175 lbs unless you go with and Anderson hitch). Next up is the weight of anything and everything that goes in/on the truck....passenger(s), toolbox with tools, firewood, extra fuel, generator....what ever you take along that resides in/on the truck. Whatever that number is, as you can see, will be over the rated payload capacity of your truck. Tow rating is pretty much a useless number when towing 5th wheel camping trailers, as you will usually run out of payload capacity long before you reach your towing capacity. So the answer, although it is painful, you don't really have enough truck for even the smaller of the two trailers if you plan on staying within the manufacturer's rated capacities for every category. Sorry

Sorry but I think xrated is correct. I miss read your post, I thought you were deciding between a small 5th wheel and Travel Trailer, I didn't realize both were 5th wheels, me error. If your 2500 had the 6.4 L gas engine you'd probably be okay with one of thoose 5th wheels because it has a 3300 lb pay load without the diesel engine. The diesel takes about 800 to 900 lbs of payload away from the truck due to its weight. You could probably safely tow a Travel Trailer with a similar layout like an Imagine 3100QB or a Transcend 29TBS.

[xrated]

Sorry but I think xrated is correct. I miss read your post, I thought you were deciding between a small 5th wheel and Travel Trailer, I didn't realize both were 5th wheels, me error. If your 2500 had the 6.4 L gas engine you'd probably be okay with one of thoose 5th wheels because it has a 3300 lb pay load without the diesel engine. The diesel takes about 800 to 900 lbs of payload away from the truck due to its weight. You could probably safely tow a Travel Trailer with a similar layout like an Imagine 3100QB or a Transcend 29TBS.

Yea, I went through the same thing several years back except I had the Ford version...3/4T, diesel, 4x4, Crew Cab, and a WHOPPING....2148 lbs of payload. Of course it had plenty of towing power, but the payload capacity was the Achilles heel for trying to get a 5ver. I bought a Dually in 2017 knowing that at some point in the near future I'd be looking for a large T.H., and that happened in March of this year, a Momentum 394 with a GVWR of 20,000 lbs

[BeerBrewer]

Thankfully the dealer where I purchased my truck had their S*** together. The salesmen explained to me that if I wanted a 5th wheel and a 2500 that I should get the 6.4L. Since we didn't want a 5th wheel, we got the diesel and have not looked back.

[Calbar]

The sticker on my 2019 3500 SRW says 3930 lbs payload. When I pull the VIN on line from FCA it says Max Payload 4070 lbs. Not that I am that close to the payload with the 297RSTS but in the future might be nice to have the extra 140 lbs. Guess if I am that close then probably need a new truck.

Rob

[JKellerJr]

Retrieved the owners manual, and it points to a https://www.ramtrucks.com/towing-guide.html for towing specifics. I pulled that up (Link) and it helps a bit more.
For my 2018 RAM 2500 4X4 SRW with A6 68RFE Transmission and Cummins Diesel:
GVRW: 10k
Payload: 2,380
GCWR: 25,300
Max Trailer Weight Rating: 17,160.

Redoing my numbers for 28BH: 1545 Hitch weight leaves: 835 lbs for cargo and people
290BH: 1280 leaves: 1,050 lbs for cargo and people.

The towing guide will only list a number with limited options for your model. The door sticker is your truck's actual weight. Payload is that number subtracted from the GVWR. The towing guide is not what you go by if you want to stay under that sticker. Because its a 2500 the GVWR is 10,000lbs to stay a class 2 truck.