[sourdough]

"Brakes, truck has them and the trailer has them so don't worry. If you listen to some guys here you will never leave the driveway without your lawyer on speed dial."


I have to agree with Mark about this not being terribly responsible to say to a newbie. While it is true the "truck has them and the trailer has them", each set of brakes is built to control a certain, finite load; all brakes are "brakes" - they have their limits. Just an example: coming back from FL one year on the bridge over Mobile Bay, there was an accident up ahead and everyone was locking it down very quickly. My truck is more than enough truck for my trailer and my trailer brakes are excellent because they are checked/adjusted before each trip. As this scenario unfolded in front of us very rapidly the only thing I could do was hit the brakes...HARD. The truck would have stopped quickly but towing a big trailer it's more like a semi. Thankfully I had a good space between me and the car in front of me but I ended up with my bumper just a few short inches off his and I was angled right at the guard rail on the edge of the highway....dropping of into the Bay. I did not angle to the left because I would have pushed someone directly into 70mph oncoming traffic. IF I had been using my previous 1/2 ton I would have probably been in the bay or someone else (or all of us) severely injured. There's a whole lot more to it than "brakes is brakes" - and we NEVER know when "that moment" is going to occur. As far as never leaving without a lawyer on speed dial....I leave all the time and don't worry about a lawyer when traveling because I've made sure that my stuff is up to snuff.

As others have suggested, post the numbers off the sticker inside the driver door, they will tell you what you need to know and how your truck stacks up against the trailers you have looked at. Remember to keep a margin (10-15%) of safety between what you load your truck with and the maximum numbers for your truck. Look for the payload, gawr (frt/rear) and gvw of the vehicle for a start. Let us know and congrats on thinking ahead to try to match the combo instead of ending up behind the curve with a mismatched rig and finding yourself at the truck dealership trading for a larger TV as I and many others here have done.

Edit: Once you have posted, and if we find that the numbers support one or both of the trailers, I'm sure there will be some suggestions to improve the towing experience along the lines of air bags, shocks, LT tires etc.