Can my tow vehicle tow a 310GK

[Gronk1]

With the 310 you would be driving a billboard down the road at 13'5" tall (my measurements). With a short bed, 3/4 ton you would be pushed all over the road with any appreciable side wind. Driving white knuckle for two-three hours will take a lot out of you. I like the journey as much as the destination & try to leave the drama at home.
There isn't a Solitude made that should be towed by a 2500-F250, even 1 ton SRW is marginal. JMHO

 

[Redapple63]

Lots of back and forth here. Essentially, if you use the GVWR of the trailer of 15k and pin weight of about 22% you get a number, that number is solid.

So at 15k and 22% you get a pin weight of 3300 lbs + hitch weight of 200 lbs, that gives you a top number of 3500. At the minimum of 20% you get 3k + 200 or 3200 lbs.

Everything else becomes a function of loading.

Thats where your variables come in and the differences you see in pin weights in the other thread.

You could play with the trailer payload (3k), but then you get the other variables, propane tanks, batteries and water (should you choose).

Full water uses up about 27% of your total payload.

Those weights don’t include any other accessories installed by the dealer that are not included in your dry weight eroding your payload further. Not as much headroom as you may think. Are others towing with 3/4 tons, sure. It’s a decision you have to make for yourself, just be sure you do it with eyes wide open.

Good luck with your decision.

Bill

 

[JJ50325]

Hi All -
On a previous post of mine on this thread, I posted the dry weight of our Solitude 310GK was 22,100.
That weight was an amazingly incorrect number.
I wish to thank "xrated" for pointing that out.
The weight of our Solitude, when driving it back to the house from the dealership, was 13,400.
The 22,100 was the weight of the Dually (8,700) fully fueled and trailer together.
J.J.

 

[CoChris-MGRV]

@faitro11There is an excellent survey thread at Hitch Weight Survey. (mygrandrv.com) that has actual pin weights reported for a number Solitude 310GK. I think I am one of the lighter ones at typically 2,900# loaded, but I have no options, only a few modifications that would affect pin weight and typically run with about 30 gallons (240#) of fresh water in the tank which take 45# off the pin weight (not much) and empty waste tanks. I pull it with a 2017 Ford F350 SRW w/6.7L diesel (11,500# GVWR and 3,253# payload rating - from the truck specific sticker). I consider it the MIN truck for this trailer (or the MAX trailer for this truck).

As others have said, the "UVW" and" hitch weight" you listed from Grand Design are EMPTY weights. you will never be close to those weights if you are loaded for any real world use. Even empty for transport, these weighs are questionable.

Good luck

Chris

 

[ajg617]

We also weighed ours on the way home after taking delivery with topped off tanks in the TV - 13,340 after W/D installed by dealer, full propane, Goosebox, and FLAs replaced with LiFePO4s. Total weight with TV was 22,260. I don't know what impact the weight of all the options that we ordered may have had. Our pin weights for two prior 30+ day trips were 3200 and 3140 and for our current 67 day trip was 3140lbs with 1/3 fresh water. So, another data point for you. I CAT scale before each trip.

 

[NB Canada]

No disrespect taken but I did say eventually and also said I just want to make sure towing wise everything will be ok. There are also people on this forum with the same camper posting on another thread the pin weight in their camper is within the limits and are towing with a 250 or 2500. There campers are coming in between 2400-3400. Are these people lying? I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. So, getting back to my original question…I’m getting conflicting information. I am new to the site and thought asking questions is what this site was for. Sorry if I offended anyone.

It is okay to ask questions but you are getting an overwhelming response from 310 owners saying you shouldn’t but yet……
If you were just looking for someone to say sure I don’t understand the reason for asking

What other post are you talking about btw?

 

[KeithH63]

I had this same dilemma last year when trying to decide between a Chevy 2500 - 3500 for a S-Class 2930. For the extra $1,500-2,000 between the 2500 & 3500, I went with the 3500. The main reason is I didn't want to worry about being overloaded when I was driving.

 

[traveldawg]

[MENTION=57488]faitro11[/MENTION], the bottom line is a 3/4 ton truck is not what you need for a Solitude.

Here is my experience.....

I have about 3400 lbs on my pin.the pin of my 310GK-R. One measurement (actual weight scale readings) was about 3300 lbs.

I have a Reese Goosebox, and F-350 Long Bed.

Last year I upgraded from an F-350 Short Bed with a 330 lb DEMCO hitch and a MorRyde pin box to the Gooseneck. I upgraded to a LB to lose the 330lb hitch, gain 500 lbs of payload capacity (difference between the F-350 SB and the new L and pick up another 244 lbs by using the Reese Goosebox.. Here are my calculations for various hitch combinations.....

Here are some calculations I made when deciding to make the change.....
MorRyde Pin Box: 138 lbs
Demco Slider: 331 lbs
469 total
Reese Goose Box: 225 lbs (-244 lbs)
Gen-Y: 134 lbs (- 335 lbs)
B&W Comp. 20K: 153 lbs (- 378 lbs)
Demco 8550033: 177 lbs (- 254 lbs)

With a short bed you would likely need a slider hitch for a Solitude if you expect to make a sharp turn; folks will say you don't; I had the RV hit my cab without the slide trying to back in my driveway (pretty much a 90 degree turn). So when you hear about folks that say they do it, they do, but for me I didn't need the risk.

One more thing.... I'm not sure this is still the case but I bought mine (5 years ago) from LazyDays I had to sign a form saying I would tow it away in with a 1 ton truck; I spoke with others who had the same experience.

I hope some of this helps. I know it might not be the feedback you want.

 

[faitro11]

[MENTION=57488]faitro11[/MENTION], the bottom line is a 3/4 ton truck is not what you need for a Solitude.

Here is my experience.....

I have about 3400 lbs on my pin.the pin of my 310GK-R. One measurement (actual weight scale readings) was about 3300 lbs.

I have a Reese Goosebox, and F-350 Long Bed.

Last year I upgraded from an F-350 Short Bed with a 330 lb DEMCO hitch and a MorRyde pin box to the Gooseneck. I upgraded to a LB to lose the 330lb hitch, gain 500 lbs of payload capacity (difference between the F-350 SB and the new L and pick up another 244 lbs by using the Reese Goosebox.. Here are my calculations for various hitch combinations.....

Here are some calculations I made when deciding to make the change.....
MorRyde Pin Box: 138 lbs
Demco Slider: 331 lbs
469 total
Reese Goose Box: 225 lbs (-244 lbs)
Gen-Y: 134 lbs (- 335 lbs)
B&W Comp. 20K: 153 lbs (- 378 lbs)
Demco 8550033: 177 lbs (- 254 lbs)

With a short bed you would likely need a slider hitch for a Solitude if you expect to make a sharp turn; folks will say you don't; I had the RV hit my cab without the slide trying to back in my driveway (pretty much a 90 degree turn). So when you hear about folks that say they do it, they do, but for me I didn't need the risk.

One more thing.... I'm not sure this is still the case but I bought mine (5 years ago) from LazyDays I had to sign a form saying I would tow it away in with a 1 ton truck; I spoke with others who had the same experience.

I hope some of this helps. I know it might not be the feedback you want.

Sure does help. Great information thank you.

 

[faitro11]

Thank you everyone for taking the time to give me valuable information needed to make an informed decision. We went to the dealer this weekend with a ton of questions and I wasn't leaving until someone there admitted you shouldn't tow the 310 with the truck we own. I finally got someone there (the 3rd person I insisted on talking to) who gave me some correct information and it was as follows.

First, I insisted that the published hitch weight in the brochure was for a basic model. If any extras were installed that would change that number. For instance, A/C in bedroom, King bed upgrade, DP windows, etc… so I asked if there was anyway to get the hitch weight of that camper. He agreed with me and ended up calling the GD representative, gave him the VIN# of the camper and was able to get the hitch weight for that camper which was 120 lbs. over the brochure weight.

I confirmed that with GD directly this morning.
He told me that GD weighs every camper prior to shipping them out. If that’s the case, they should really put those numbers on the camper.

He then told me that the 2500 with a payload of 3110 lbs. would be able to tow the camper as is but you would hardly be able to put anything in the camper (pack extremely light and strategically were his exact words) and then said "that’s not why you’re buying it."
Finally someone at the dealer telling us the truth.

So again, thank you all for helping me out to ask the right questions and put pressure on the salesman (it took 3) to answer those questions I had truthfully. I would not have had the information if it wasn’t for all of you.

When we bought our 2500 we planned on purchasing a different make and model camper which the truck would have been able to tow. We thought we looked at enough campers out there, but I guess we were wrong. Before we purchased that camper, we wanted to look at some GD campers. We don’t have a GD Dealer near us, but I am certainly glad we did a little more searching, found one and took a road trip. It’s going to cost us a bit but in the long run we believe it will be well worth it.

So, here’s where we are at. I called the GMC dealer and we are now looking to upgrade to at least the 3500 SWR as long as the payload will be sufficient to tow the 310. Good news is that the dealer said the 2500 is in high demand and they could use the truck. I’m sure we will take a loss on the deal but getting the camper we want, towing it safely and not settling is more important to us at this stage of our lives as we intend to use it often.

We are former Class A owners so this will be our first fifth wheel and we can’t be more excited about it.

 

[traveldawg]

......looking to upgrade to at least the 3500 SWR as long as the payload will be sufficient to tow the 310.......

I'm not familiar with ordering GMs. But when ordering a Ford there is an option for different GVWRs. I believe you can specify 10,000 lbs or 11,000 lbs - not sure but I know there are options. But here is the important thing - those Ford options actually reduce the GVRW from 12,400 lbs (on a SRW F-350). I made that mistake on a 2018 SB I ordered. Not surprisingly I don't think the sales guys at the dealership I went to knew that - they thought it increased the GVRW.

So - see how GM does it and make sure you get the maximum GVRW option.

Thanks for the updates. Happy travels.

oh - we too went from a class A to our 310GK-R and we never looked back - loving the floor plan and the truck ride.

 

[jeririgged223]

Please don't take offense to what I'm about to say because it's not intended to be so.

Every week this blog gets a "can I tow this?" question.

First, I'd say if you have to ask that question, chances are you probably are over and shouldn't. Second, as everyone has said ignore the mfgr weights as they are dry or empty weights. Add a few thousand pounds of gear, all the fluids you'll carry, the weight of everything in your tow vehicle (people, pets, gear, gas), all the extras you ordered for your trailer and you'll know where you really stand.

But what really concerns me is the number of folks who are towing these days and clearly don't understand towing. That is terrifying and should be the first thing RV owners should know before they ever buy a tow vehicle/ truck or a trailer. Salesman will tell you it can do it. Their motives are obvious. Well a Corvette and a Porche can "tow", another word would be pull 5000 lb, but we all know they never should. We've seen Subarus pulling 25 ft trailers. Pure insanity because their "tow rating" said they could. This is the one thing you have to have a clear understanding of before you buy either and end up in a ditch.

So my advice would be if you're in doubt or will be close to maxing out weight limits.......go bigger on your tow vehicle.

 

[Overtaxed]

If you're trying to be "legal" (within the stickers on your truck) then there's some distinction between a 2500/3500. If you're asking "will the truck handle the weight", the question becomes MUCH more nuanced; a 250 with airbags is, in many ways, more truck and a 350 without them. As people have already said, often the difference comes down to a single spring, an airbag that can lift 7500 lbs is a heck of a lot more than the spring.

If you're asking "what's going to be better", the answer is "a dually". The difference between a 250 with bags and a 350 is, butt in the seat, nearly identical. Again, I'd take the bagged truck if I was just looking for the best towing, control and most comfortable ride.

The difference between a single rear and duals is dramatic. You're really buying "margin" when you go up to 6 wheels, blowouts, wider stance, much less load on each tire. It's a big difference in comfort and safety.

IMHO, trading in a modern 250 for a 350 SRW buys you nearly nothing in safety other than, perhaps, the worry of a fine for towing overweight (I've been here for years and NEVER heard a first person account of being pulled over for towing a big 5'er behind a SRW truck, but it COULD happen). Going from SRW to DRW is dramatic when you're towing, you will notice, it will be quite a bit more stable and controlled and your tires will see a LOT less wear and load when you tow.

 

[Tim2542]

I’ve towed my 310 extensively back and forth across North America on 2 different 1 ton SRW pickups, had both on the CAT scales and will tell you it’s right at the limit or even slightly over for a 3500. Having said that I’ll admit it’s a much better/safer tow on a DRW, but the SRW does just fine and it’s a compromise I make for my purposes. Keep fresh tires on everything and inspect often if you go this way. A 2500 will be over, period.
I’ll also say I see as many Solitudes on 2500’s as I do 3500’s or larger. People don’t know or don’t care and most get away with it.

 

[faitro11]

Please don't take offense to what I'm about to say because it's not intended to be so.

Every week this blog gets a "can I tow this?" question.

First, I'd say if you have to ask that question, chances are you probably are over and shouldn't. Second, as everyone has said ignore the mfgr weights as they are dry or empty weights. Add a few thousand pounds of gear, all the fluids you'll carry, the weight of everything in your tow vehicle (people, pets, gear, gas), all the extras you ordered for your trailer and you'll know where you really stand.

But what really concerns me is the number of folks who are towing these days and clearly don't understand towing. That is terrifying and should be the first thing RV owners should know before they ever buy a tow vehicle/ truck or a trailer. Salesman will tell you it can do it. Their motives are obvious. Well a Corvette and a Porche can "tow", another word would be pull 5000 lb, but we all know they never should. We've seen Subarus pulling 25 ft trailers. Pure insanity because their "tow rating" said they could. This is the one thing you have to have a clear understanding of before you buy either and end up in a ditch.

So my advice would be if you're in doubt or will be close to maxing out weight limits.......go bigger on your tow vehicle.

Absolutely no offense taken, but I do have some comments and maybe another question or two.
I hope you do not take offense to my response because that is certainly not my intention either.

We are new here, we did not buy our camper yet and before we did we wanted to be as informed as possible. You say that “if you have to ask that question chances are you probably are over and shouldn’t”. I’m just trying to understand why this forum exists if you can’t ask a question?

I’m sure you read through this thread so you know we were getting conflicting (which ended up being wrong) information and we were just trying to confirm what was true and what was false from people who actually own that model. It actually worked because most of the people here just answered the question we asked and through their years of experience (especially with this model) gave us invaluable information that we could not find anywhere else.

So, if we did not ever ask this question, we would have never received all the answers back from these experienced 310 owners.

I certainly don’t want to be one of those folks who are towing these days and clearly don’t understand towing because that is terrifying to me also. I wish those folks went on a forum like this and asked similar questions because maybe some of them would have made a better decision.

It’s all good though. We appreciate you taking the time to respond to us. Just think if we didn’t ask the question, you wouldn’t have been able to.

All our lives we hear, “there’s no such thing as a dumb question”.
Well, we are still going to continue to ask those questions if we don’t have the answers. What’s great about a place like this is that if you don’t like the question, you don’t have to respond.

 

[faitro11]

If you're trying to be "legal" (within the stickers on your truck) then there's some distinction between a 2500/3500. If you're asking "will the truck handle the weight", the question becomes MUCH more nuanced; a 250 with airbags is, in many ways, more truck and a 350 without them. As people have already said, often the difference comes down to a single spring, an airbag that can lift 7500 lbs is a heck of a lot more than the spring.

If you're asking "what's going to be better", the answer is "a dually". The difference between a 250 with bags and a 350 is, butt in the seat, nearly identical. Again, I'd take the bagged truck if I was just looking for the best towing, control and most comfortable ride.

The difference between a single rear and duals is dramatic. You're really buying "margin" when you go up to 6 wheels, blowouts, wider stance, much less load on each tire. It's a big difference in comfort and safety.

IMHO, trading in a modern 250 for a 350 SRW buys you nearly nothing in safety other than, perhaps, the worry of a fine for towing overweight (I've been here for years and NEVER heard a first person account of being pulled over for towing a big 5'er behind a SRW truck, but it COULD happen). Going from SRW to DRW is dramatic when you're towing, you will notice, it will be quite a bit more stable and controlled and your tires will see a LOT less wear and load when you tow.

Thanks for all the information provided. Just trying to make an informed decision and this certainly helps.

If we were ready to go full time right now it would be a no brainer and we would have just got a DRW. The problem is we are about 3-5 years away from that. We will be using it a month in the summer, a month in the winter and a bunch of local stuff in between.

The truck is going to be my wife’s everyday vehicle and she doesn’t want to be driving a DRW daily. We will see what happens when the day comes and we go full time. That is definitely the way to go. Thanks again.

 

[faitro11]

I’ve towed my 310 extensively back and forth across North America on 2 different 1 ton SRW pickups, had both on the CAT scales and will tell you it’s right at the limit or even slightly over for a 3500. Having said that I’ll admit it’s a much better/safer tow on a DRW, but the SRW does just fine and it’s a compromise I make for my purposes. Keep fresh tires on everything and inspect often if you go this way. A 2500 will be over, period.
I’ll also say I see as many Solitudes on 2500’s as I do 3500’s or larger. People don’t know or don’t care and most get away with it.

Thank you for all of that. As I just responded to the previous post if we were ready to go full time right now it would be a no brainer and we would have just got a DRW.

I appreciate you letting me know you have towed it on 2 different 1 ton SRW Pickups and they did fine. I definitely understand the compromise as our problem is that it’s going to be my wife’s everyday truck as we are still about 3-5 years away from going full time.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

 

[ardvark16]

I'm not familiar with ordering GMs. But when ordering a Ford there is an option for different GVWRs. I believe you can specify 10,000 lbs or 11,000 lbs - not sure but I know there are options. But here is the important thing - those Ford options actually reduce the GVRW from 12,400 lbs (on a SRW F-350). I made that mistake on a 2018 SB I ordered. Not surprisingly I don't think the sales guys at the dealership I went to knew that - they thought it increased the GVRW.

So - see how GM does it and make sure you get the maximum GVRW option.

Thanks for the updates. Happy travels.

oh - we too went from a class A to our 310GK-R and we never looked back - loving the floor plan and the truck ride.

Ford doesn’t have a gvwr choice but GM does offer it. You can basically get a 2500 and up it to 11,000.

 

[classicrockguy]

Ford doesn’t have a gvwr choice but GM does offer it. You can basically get a 2500 and up it to 11,000.

My ‘22 F250 has a 10,800 gvw upgrade as a part of the ultimate trailer tow package. This upgrades the rear end to the Dana m275 (same as the F350), upgrades the rear spring pack (one leaf less than an F350), and upgrades the receiver hitch to 3”.

This all adds 800lbs to the base 10,000gvw, which essentially offsets the added weight of the diesel. My factory payload sticker is 2,835lbs.

A full-on F350 SRW is usually 11,400gvw, so my truck is sort of a heavy duty F250. Mostly this is to offset the diesel as I mentioned.

 

[robmcqueen]

If you're trying to be "legal" (within the stickers on your truck) then there's some distinction between a 2500/3500. If you're asking "will the truck handle the weight", the question becomes MUCH more nuanced; a 250 with airbags is, in many ways, more truck and a 350 without them. As people have already said, often the difference comes down to a single spring, an airbag that can lift 7500 lbs is a heck of a lot more than the spring.

If you're asking "what's going to be better", the answer is "a dually". The difference between a 250 with bags and a 350 is, butt in the seat, nearly identical. Again, I'd take the bagged truck if I was just looking for the best towing, control and most comfortable ride.

The difference between a single rear and duals is dramatic. You're really buying "margin" when you go up to 6 wheels, blowouts, wider stance, much less load on each tire. It's a big difference in comfort and safety.

IMHO, trading in a modern 250 for a 350 SRW buys you nearly nothing in safety other than, perhaps, the worry of a fine for towing overweight (I've been here for years and NEVER heard a first person account of being pulled over for towing a big 5'er behind a SRW truck, but it COULD happen). Going from SRW to DRW is dramatic when you're towing, you will notice, it will be quite a bit more stable and controlled and your tires will see a LOT less wear and load when you tow.

Your going to upset a lot of people on here for saying (a 250 with airbags is, in many ways, more truck and a 350 without them.) I think your 100% right.