jlscjs
Sharpsville, IN USA
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My 02 Dodge Ram 2500 club cab, short bed,5.9 with a 3:55 rear end states trailer cap. at 9600lbs. Is this weight a safe weight or is this the max my truck will tow? Has anyone else have the same set-up and if so how much do you tow. I realize towing through Kansas versus the Rocky Mts. are two totally different cases but what is the max that anyone of you have towed that your truck can handle?
Retired and lovin it!!
2001 Coachman Royal 279SA 5ver
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BarneyS
S.E. Lower Michigan
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Is that 5.9 the gas or diesel? I used to have a 1999 Dodge 2500 with the 5.9 gas engine and 3:55 rear and I sure would not want to tow 9600lbs with it! My travel trailer at that time weighed 6800lbs and that was just about all that truck could handle comfortably.
When I purchased my present trailer in 2004 I also purchased my present truck because the old Dodge was overloaded and struggled with it.
If your Dodge has the 5.9 diesel then I suspect you will be ok. I would watch the rear axle weight and GVW carefully however.
Barney
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mkirsch
Rochester, NY
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If you are asking, "Will I get arrested if the trailer weighs 9601lbs?" the answer is NO.
You can tow as much trailer as your driver's license allows, as long as the tongue weight of the trailer does not exceed the rear axle rating of the truck.
Driving down the highway for long distances, 9600lbs is probably going to feel like too much. Mostly, due to engine power.
Across town you can easily tow much more than 9600lbs because you don't need nearly as much power to do 35MPH as you do to go 65MPH.
It all depends on what you want to do and how fast you want to go. The important thing is that you don't overload your axle or tires.
Tow ratings are usually somewhere in between what the truck can actually move, and what the truck move down the road at 65MPH.
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Kennedycamper
Algoa, Texas
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Diesel 5.9 will pull & stop it easy. Gas 5.9 will struggle a little on the hills.
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jlscjs
Sharpsville, IN USA
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I failed to say it was a diesel with an auto transmission and I do ok on the flats but it's the grades that are causing me some trouble. I also had it serviced and they found out the trans. speed sensor was bad, could this cause loss of power when a load is put on it?? thanks for all your answers
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JIMNLIN
Big Cabin, OK
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Joined: 09/14/2003
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jlscjs wrote:I failed to say it was a diesel with an auto transmission and I do ok on the flats but it's the grades that are causing me some trouble. I also had it serviced and they found out the trans. speed sensor was bad, could this cause loss of power when a load is put on it?? thanks for all your answers
My previous Dodge/Cummins was a '01 5.9 47RE auto ttanny 235hp/460 torque with the same specs as yours. Yeah it was rated to tow only 9800 lbs. The 4.10 gears allowed around 12k tow rating.
The 5.9 Cummins with the 47RE auto tranny has a tall .69 OD with 3.54 gears it was a dog in overdrive. Operate the tranny in 3rd direct drive and it would pull a house. Ya' gotta' get it out of OD and opersate it in the 2100-2200 rpm range.
Dodge came out with a performance in OD PCM flash in '02 for the 235/460 engine with a 3.54 and 47RE. I had my '01 flashed which helped some but not much can be done with 235 hp and 3.54 gears with a .69 OD gear towing a heavy 5er.
Time to get a performance box such as a Edge box for towing or do as I did and move up to a '03 Dodge/Cummins with the quiet HPCR 305/555 HO engine. Night and day difference and the biggest plus is its quiet.
If you uprate the Cummins you probably will need to uprate the 47RE tranny to stand up to more hp/torque.
"good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment" Will Rogers
'03 2500 QC Dodge/Cummins HO 3.73 6 speed manual Jacobs Westach Linex
'97 Park Avanue 28' 5er with two slides 16" BFG Commercial LTs
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Al B
Cowtown
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Try THIS out.
Cummins Powered
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SoCalDesertRider
SanDiego, CA, USA
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A swap to 4.10 axle gears will make a very noticeable improvement in towing power. If the truck is 2wd, this swap can be done for $700-1000 by a local axle and driveline shop. If 4wd, both axles' gears have to be swapped, at roughly double the cost.
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Tom&Dee
Between Duluth and Cloquet Mn
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The best thing you can do to your truck is to upgrade the transmission. The 47RE is not a real strong tranny. There is a guy in Iowa that is considered one of the best for the Dodge transmissions. http://www.goerend.com/ Then you will be able to put the power to the ground. Once that is done you can think about enhancing the engine performance. I have one of his trannys and have enhanced the performance and I can keep up with traffic from a dead stop. You should see the looks I get when I do that when I have a 28' fiver and a 16' boat behind me.
'96 Dodge 2500 with a Cummins, '06 Dutchmen 24P, a 16' boat to go behind it all!! Midwest Diesel Connection
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