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AIUI, goosenecks are better in pretty much every way when it comes to towing. Putting the weight of the trailer directly over the truck's rear axle vastly reduces the leverage that it has on the truck, so it's much easier to carry. Increasing the distance between the pivot point and the trailer axle makes it more stable in reverse, so it's easier to get it to got where you want it.
The major downsides to a gooseneck are that it's more expensive, takes up all of your bed space, and there are a lot fewer vehicles around as emergency backups for towing. They also tend not to be built in the sorts of sizes you're talking about -- think more like 30-36 feet rather than 20-24 feet.
My TPD is a 24 foot, and as far as internal size is concerned it's great.
AIUI, goosenecks are better in pretty much every way when it comes to towing. Putting the weight of the trailer directly over the truck's rear axle vastly reduces the leverage that it has on the truck, so it's much easier to carry. Increasing the distance between the pivot point and the trailer axle makes it more stable in reverse, so it's easier to get it to got where you want it.
The major downsides to a gooseneck are that it's more expensive, takes up all of your bed space, and there are a lot fewer vehicles around as emergency backups for towing. They also tend not to be built in the sorts of sizes you're talking about -- think more like 30-36 feet rather than 20-24 feet.
My TPD is a 24 foot, and as far as internal size is concerned it's great.
--Ian
Thanks for the info. I have been doing some research and it seems that the trailers tend to be 4-5k more expensive then regular enclosed. The thing that got me thinking about them was the room above the goose neck area, looked like it could fit a bed just about perfectly. Having room to setup a place to sleep is something I want when I do eventually get an enclosed trailer. Not sure if I want a permanent sleeping place, or just one I can setup when the car is out. I have also seen like you said that they tend to be in 30-36' range, which I think is a bit longer then I want or need. I also don't really plan on hauling more then one car unless I end up moving somewhere. So I think a 30' or longer will tend to be overkill.
Thanks for the info. I have been doing some research and it seems that the trailers tend to be 4-5k more expensive then regular enclosed. The thing that got me thinking about them was the room above the goose neck area, looked like it could fit a bed just about perfectly. Having room to setup a place to sleep is something I want when I do eventually get an enclosed trailer. Not sure if I want a permanent sleeping place, or just one I can setup when the car is out. I have also seen like you said that they tend to be in 30-36' range, which I think is a bit longer then I want or need. I also don't really plan on hauling more then one car unless I end up moving somewhere. So I think a 30' or longer will tend to be overkill.
More space is something you'll never regret in a trailer.
If you have the space to store a 30 foot trailer then do it.
Once you tow with a gooseneck you'll never want to go back to bumper pull. My 42' trailer is WAY more stable than even 24' bumper pull enclosed trailers when it's windy, when passing semi trucks, when towing above 65mph, etc
Plus they are way easier to back into places. If you end up spending a little extra to get a gooseneck and end up with a trailer that's a little bigger than you wanted, you won't regret it. Since you have a diesel, fuel economy between either is going to be negligent, so the only reason not to get the bigger trailer is because you don't have a place to store it or because you don't have enough cash for it.
You can hang a hammock in any size trailer you get. The car is usually outside overnight at the track but if it isn't then just hang the hammock so it swings above the car. Maximum use of space.
I hate you all. First you make me buy a 1 ton diesel dually instead of a half ton Suburban. Now you are going to make me go straight to a 30' enclosed gooseneck trailer.
I hate you all. First you make me buy a 1 ton diesel dually instead of a half ton Suburban. Now you are going to make me go straight to a 30' enclosed gooseneck trailer.
Don't forget the MKTurbo vinyl for the trailer, so you can write the whole mess off your taxes...
$5k gas pickup and a $300 tow dolly would last you 10 years or more, lol. You got a effing crew cab diesel dually with dual 6 inch vertical stacks in the bed and a coal tune. Sleep in that ************! It's not like you are too tall to sleep in the back seat. Or pick up a used cap on CL and sleep in there. Lock your tools, tires, and jack in it if you want and use an open trailer if that's what you find a deal on. Anything will do, just make sure it is in good shape and a smoking bargain. Just like your kits are good quality and a smoking bargain. Be resourceful and don't get carried away. That's what got you this far. Wait for the bargain, whatever it is.
$5k gas pickup and a $300 tow dolly would last you 10 years or more, lol. You got a effing crew cab diesel dually with dual 6 inch vertical stacks in the bed and a coal tune. Sleep in that ************! It's not like you are too tall to sleep in the back seat. Or pick up a used cap on CL and sleep in there. Lock your tools, tires, and jack in it if you want and use an open trailer if that's what you find a deal on. Anything will do, just make sure it is in good shape and a smoking bargain. Just like your kits are good quality and a smoking bargain. Be resourceful and don't get carried away. That's what got you this far. Wait for the bargain, whatever it is.
I only paid $5k for the crazy truck. So I think I did pretty good on that. Long term I have always wanted to get to an enclosed trailer. Diesel van and trailer was the plan, now it will probably be diesel dually and gooseneck trailer. That is still probably 2-3 years out, until then I am just going to keep renting uhual trailers. The camper/cap is something that will definitely happen in the future. I need to build a sweet MKTurbo exhaust for my truck first and get rid of those crazy stacks.
So I am starting to research enclosed trailers for a purchase in the next year or two. I am not sure exactly what length I want. I know 20' minimum, but not sure how much longer I want to go. Talking to some people this past weekend, they recommended at least 24' as the extra 4' really comes in handy for holding things. Looking at vtjballeng trailer has sort of got me thinking about a gooseneck/5th wheel enclosed. What are the major benefits of that over the standard rear hitch? I know with a standard rear hitch I will need an anti-sway hitch. I am assuming that is not required with the gooseneck/5th wheel. How is the ride with the gooseneck/5th wheel trailer? Do they tend to be more stable? The F350 I have already has that stuff in the rear bed, so I know I can go that route if I need to. Are those trailers generally more expensive?
Also how is backing up with one of those? Is it easier or harder then a standard trailer?
24' is fine for a Miata. 28' gives you room to have more Permanently mounted and this is what I'd recommend for single car hauling. I was racing motorcycles and went to the Miata with the same trailer, 7'x16' which the Miata did fit in. Bumper pulled with genuine EQUALIZER hitch which made a huge difference in towing. Worked fine, insulated, HVAC, nice. Went to an 8'x24' and still used the EQUALIZER setup. A friend with a 28' bumper pull was about to get rid of his truck and trailer using a reese setup with a damper and I insisted he try the EQUALIZER. Night and day for him, I sold it to him when I got the gooseneck. If you don't use a weight distributing hitch, you de-rate your tow rating by 25% or more in most cases per your owners manual. Blue Ox Sway Pro or EQUALIZER if you stay with bumper pull.
Went to Road Atlanta this past weekend with my new 28' on the floor featherlite gooseneck and my friend with the EQUALIZER setup was towing behind in a caravan. There was a storm running up I-85 along our route which was causing tornado warnings with 30mph winds and 50-60mph gusts. My gooseneck barely moved and the whole setup towed awesome. My buddy had a little more trouble and when a gust hit, his setup would hop a few feet. Had he not had the EQUALIZER setup, it would have been unmanageable with his truck/trailer combo.
Gooseneck does tend to be a little more expensive. It is harder to hook up. You lose room in your bed. With gooseneck, a nice setup allows you to flip the tow ball and make your bed flat again. A 5th wheel consumes your bed and there is even less room. More difficult to remove 5th wheel hardware between events. Easier to hook up to a trailer. Gooseneck & 5th wheel are the most stable setups you can tow with.
In getting your setup, you really want to know your weights and load carefully. The Featherlite is 14k axles and weighed. You want to hit a CAT scale to check your load. As an example this is our weigh in at the scales coming back from RA with a 2670lb V8 240SX + lots of heavy spare parts for endurance racing:
My 2016 Dodge RAM 3500 truck specs:
GVWR 11,100
Payload 4,500 (as much as a dually in my 2000 F250/350 charts)
Curb Weight 6,601
Tow Rating 15,830
GCWR 22,900
Front GAWR 5,500
Rear GAWR 7,000
So, I went over on Rear GAWR. I'm going to remove a genset that was directly above the rear axle that weights 230lbs. We are also going to shift some weight rearward in the Trailer. I need to get unladen weights too to make sure I don't take that too far. If you don't want to have to think about any of that, get a dually and you're pretty much done. A weight distributing bumper pull setup does give you a little more flexibility for weight over the drive & steer axles but doesn't tow as well as the Gooseneck / 5th wheel.
Backing up is ok, not much different than bumper pull. I got emilio's RVS wireless camera setup so I can get really close to the edge of my driveway which has a row of Forsythia trees.
You do need to start planning your routes once you cross that 20' barrier imo & cross 11' height. You need to watch for some bridges and certain turns & roads could trap you. Gooseneck/5th wheel trailers do tend to be a little taller than many bumper pull setups.
Plenty of 2wd but they were all base models the Tradesman model and such. To get one with all the goodies they were four wheel drive every one of them. I searched the entire state for quite a while. Ironically I found one that was almost perfect only to find out the salesman was an idiot and that it was a special order for someone else. That was sort of the hint that I needed to just stop looking, build my dream truck and be patient.
The rear and inner camera have moderate IR capability as well. So good vision in low light. Wireless so nothing to hook up. The inner and rear cams have they're own transmitter. The side views each have their own transmitter. We attached those under the nose. https://brakelightcamera.com/product...ackup-cameras/
Last edited by JasonTom969; Apr 22, 2017 at 09:30 AM.
Reason: to improve content
24' is fine for a Miata. 28' gives you room to have more Permanently mounted and this is what I'd recommend for single car hauling. I was racing motorcycles and went to the Miata with the same trailer, 7'x16' which the Miata did fit in. Bumper pulled with genuine EQUALIZER hitch which made a huge difference in towing. Worked fine, insulated, HVAC, nice. Went to an 8'x24' and still used the EQUALIZER setup. A friend with a 28' bumper pull was about to get rid of his truck and trailer using a reese setup with a damper and I insisted he try the EQUALIZER. Night and day for him, I sold it to him when I got the gooseneck. If you don't use a weight distributing hitch, you de-rate your tow rating by 25% or more in most cases per your owners manual. Blue Ox Sway Pro or EQUALIZER if you stay with bumper pull.
Went to Road Atlanta this past weekend with my new 28' on the floor featherlite gooseneck and my friend with the EQUALIZER setup was towing behind in a caravan. There was a storm running up I-85 along our route which was causing tornado warnings with 30mph winds and 50-60mph gusts. My gooseneck barely moved and the whole setup towed awesome. My buddy had a little more trouble and when a gust hit, his setup would hop a few feet. Had he not had the EQUALIZER setup, it would have been unmanageable with his truck/trailer combo.
Gooseneck does tend to be a little more expensive. It is harder to hook up. You lose room in your bed. With gooseneck, a nice setup allows you to flip the tow ball and make your bed flat again. A 5th wheel consumes your bed and there is even less room. More difficult to remove 5th wheel hardware between events. Easier to hook up to a trailer. Gooseneck & 5th wheel are the most stable setups you can tow with.
In getting your setup, you really want to know your weights and load carefully. The Featherlite is 14k axles and weighed. You want to hit a CAT scale to check your load. As an example this is our weigh in at the scales coming back from RA with a 2670lb V8 240SX + lots of heavy spare parts for endurance racing:
My 2016 Dodge RAM 3500 truck specs:
GVWR 11,100
Payload 4,500 (as much as a dually in my 2000 F250/350 charts)
Curb Weight 6,601
Tow Rating 15,830
GCWR 22,900
Front GAWR 5,500
Rear GAWR 7,000
So, I went over on Rear GAWR. I'm going to remove a genset that was directly above the rear axle that weights 230lbs. We are also going to shift some weight rearward in the Trailer. I need to get unladen weights too to make sure I don't take that too far. If you don't want to have to think about any of that, get a dually and you're pretty much done. A weight distributing bumper pull setup does give you a little more flexibility for weight over the drive & steer axles but doesn't tow as well as the Gooseneck / 5th wheel.
Backing up is ok, not much different than bumper pull. I got emilio's RVS wireless camera setup so I can get really close to the edge of my driveway which has a row of Forsythia trees.
You do need to start planning your routes once you cross that 20' barrier imo & cross 11' height. You need to watch for some bridges and certain turns & roads could trap you. Gooseneck/5th wheel trailers do tend to be a little taller than many bumper pull setups.
I installed this digital wireless backup camera system for my 5th wheel, one camera mounts for hitching and another one viewing traffic behind the camper, works great.
brakelightcamera.com/product-category/wireless-backup-cameras/
Work and Play toy hauler pulled by a 2015 Ram 3500 with service bed.
The tongue weight is so high from the factory on this trailer we've considered converting it to a gooseneck. It goes down if you put weight in the back of course, but if you have anything in the tanks up front it gets stupid heavy.
What do folks here like for tires on trailers? ST tires or LT? Goodyear Marathons? Carlisle HDs?
My 3-axle TPD has 205/75R15s on it, 5 old Carlisles and one really old Marathon (used to be the spare), plus a brand new Carlisle as the new spare. Looking at some Goodyears on sale, but the 205s are only load range C and to go up to D (which is what what Carlisles are) I'd need to go 225s. Those are taller, so if I did that I'd need to replace the brand-new, never-used spare as well.
I'm going to convert my trailer to 16" wheels so that I can use Load Rating E truck tires. Normal trailer tires will sometimes cut it for lighter setups, but on the other hand, I've been helping tow a car across the country and back in the past and had like four blowouts total. It's a big time waster and pain in the *** swapping tires on the side of the road then trying to find whatever POS tire some place has in stock in the middle of nowhere so you're not down to your last spare.
Carlisle Radial Trail RH Trailer Tire - ST235/85R16 F 12 Ply was my most recent purchase. Trailer calls for E, 10 Plys. I've had good luck going one load range above the requirement & covering my tires when not in use to prevent dry-rotting. I also keep 2 spares.
16' car ramp trailer - $1000 (North Charleston) hide this postingimage 2 of 2
condition: good
make / manufacturer: D&D trailer
size / dimensions: 16' x 7'-6" long
year manufactured: 2002
I am going to go check out this trailer tonight I think. Anything specific I should be looking for? I figured for a $1000 if I get 2-3 years out of it I will come out ahead of uhual trailer rentals.
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