Towing with a short bed truck

[Bob & Lee]

ok, I have a long bed and a Non sliding hitch. was looking at the new trucks and was looking at the CC,short bed, I have looked and think about the long bed.. If I put the tool box and the Slider in the bed there will not be room for anything else..generator bike etc.. the long bed is only about 10" longer. Comments ?

Bob

[sreigle]

quote:Originally posted by HamRad

Allan,

You should be OK with the short bed and the slider. From what I've heard about the sliders you would probably want the automatic one. That way you won't "forget" to activate it when needed. I've read that some folks with the manual slider would "push" the envelope. Rather stop and get out and activate the slider they'd try backing and would end up hitting the truck or knocking out the windows.

As far as the use of National or State CGs..... well that is much more problematic. We have had our rig for about 6 years and find that we fit into a very limited number of State and or National parks. We have camped in them but have always found them to be a challenge. It can be done but do be prepared to camp somewhere else. Our experiences have been for the most part in the west and southwest. Perhaps they are much different in the south and or east part of our country.

Good luck.

Dennis

Dennis, the west seems to be the worst about having very small sites in state parks. Most of the rest of the country, we fit just fine. Not everywhere, but in most. National Parks seem to have a higher incidence of parks we can't get into than do state parks. Even most COE parks work for us.

As for commercial parks, we've only seen a handful we could not get into because of our length. And those were old parks built either for old mobile homes or built when RV's were much smaller. The Mesa, AZ area has some of these.

[sreigle]

I've been towing fifthwheels with shortbed trucks since 1995 including fulltime for almost six years. I've always had a manual slider, until this past Spring. In all those years, I used the slider 4 times. With the new nose on the newer Montana, I probably would not have used it those 4 times.

But, there was a fifth time last Spring when I should have used the slider and didn't. It was an unusual situation, the kind that when you combine it with overconfidence, it bites you in the butt. I was lucky to get only a small dimple in the cab and a tiny scratch on the Montana, thanks to Vicki recognizing the situation and screaming for me to stop. But it was enough we bought the Superglide automatic slider.

To answer your other question, when a slider is in use you can turn just as sharply as any longbed truck. With the auto slider I can do it without my having to do anything to make it doable. I like that. But a manual slider is perfectly serviceable so long as you remember to use it when needed.

Good luck.

[dmacy]

It is my understanding that GM shortens the bed behind the rear axle. Ford and I believe Dodge shortens the bed in front of the axle. As a result it is not as much of a concern on a GM product than it is on a Ford or Dodge. I have a short bed GMC. I have a trailer saver air hitch that does not slide. I pulled a Newmar with no problems and now have a new 09 Montana both with no problems. I would suggest a manual slide in case you have to slide it. I had a Reese 16K slide hitch before I upgraded to the air hitch and never moved the slide.

[richfaa]

The argument for a manual or auto slider is about the same as for a bed saver.. You may never need to use it but it is there when you do and the damage caused by not having the equipment can be very costly. We have the long bed Ford because it better suited our needs. If we had the short bed it would hae a slider hitch.

[H. John Kohl]

One item that needs to be mentions is when you go to an auto slider it eliminates others from helping with a tow unless they have that capability. Those of us with standard hitches can not tow a trailer with the auto slider pin. This should not be a problem but needs to be mentioned.
Good luck.

[sreigle]

quote:Originally posted by dmacy

It is my understanding that GM shortens the bed behind the rear axle. Ford and I believe Dodge shortens the bed in front of the axle. As a result it is not as much of a concern on a GM product than it is on a Ford or Dodge. I have a short bed GMC. I have a trailer saver air hitch that does not slide. I pulled a Newmar with no problems and now have a new 09 Montana both with no problems. I would suggest a manual slide in case you have to slide it. I had a Reese 16K slide hitch before I upgraded to the air hitch and never moved the slide.

I am not sure who does what to shorten the bed but it makes sense all of them shorten it between cab and axle. Otherwise there would not be a clearance problem with shortbed trucks towing fifthwheels.

I do know that both Ford and Dodge distance from cab to axle is almost identical, with the shorter Dodge Megacab shortbed being shorter behind the axle than is the Ford and GM shortbeds. I know that because I did some measuring before buying this Dodge. The overall length of the Dodge Megacab shortbed is, if I recall, two inches shorter than GM's shortbed and three inches shorter than Ford's. Ford has the longest shortbed, or did for 2007.

Anyhow, I measured our 2005 Ford Crewcab shortbed tradein and the 2007 Dodge Megacab (the long, long crewcab) and found the measurement from cab to axle center line to be almost identical. That's what I needed to see and I was pleased it was not going to be a problem.

The Dodge Quadcab (shorter crewcab) shortbed may be longer than the Megacab's. I don't know about that.

I do know the wheelbase for my Megacab shortbed is identical to the Quadcab longbed Dodge. For those not familiar, the Megacab has an additional 9 inches of cab than does the standard Dodge Quadcab.